Reintroduction

I wrote an introduction to this blog almost 3 years ago and it's been so long I felt the need to reintroduce myself and my intention of how this blog will be structured.

I recently reread this post by Scott Hanselman that goes through the thought process better than I can.

I've been working in my current position for almost 4 years. I primarily work in developing HTML5 applications and RESTful Web APIs using ASP.NET. I also do some Windows Forms development, SQL Server database administration and write PowerShell scripts.

My job before that was using Struts to write Java MVC applications, creating an Oracle data warehouse and creating dashboards using Oracle BI EE.

I've had to learn a number of technologies but I regret not keeping a record of the stuff I've learned during that time.

I have been going back to basics to get a better understanding of HTML, JavaScript, CSS and PowerShell recently because what I know has been hacked together using tape and bitter experience. Some concepts I've gone through more than once so when I learn something new then it'll go here and I'll be able to find it explained in my own language which will save unnecessary trawling through the Internet.

I'm planning to have weekly posts but I'm not sure how they'll be structured yet. I may get a couple of weeks to dig into PowerShell or ASP.NET Core MVC or it may be something shiny from the front end of HTML5.

I considered using WordPress to as the CMS for the blog but decided to go with Ghost. The reasons why are better explained in Troy Hunt's excellent post on why he chose to use Ghost. I like the setup of Ghost but I have been playing around with Jekyll and may move in that direction some time in the future. For the present, Ghost is working out great.

This blog is going to be focused on what I'm learning in development and IT. I may add a related blog that will be more focused on life outside of work but I'll try and keep the posts here completely on programming.

I'm hoping that this will develop into resource that will prove useful to other people but, like anything new, it's going to take a while to find its footing. Some of the resources that I use consistently include

Markdown

• Ghost uses Markdown so Markdown Documentation helps to structure posts correctly.
• GitHub also has a good introduction to Markdown here.

HTML5

• Mozilla Developer Network (MDN) provides great documentation for HTML, CSS, JavaScript and other open Web technologies
• CSS-Tricks provides lots of great articles related to CSS and design. I use this one almost weekly. I also look at the popular pens to see what is possible and be simultaneously inspired by other people's work and frustrated by my own

PowerShell

• Microsoft's own documentation is very useful but PowerShell's built in help more than enough to be productive.

.NET

• Again Microsoft's documentation for C# and Visual Basic is a great place to start learning these languages
• The documentation for ASP.NET and ASP.NET Core provided by Microsoft is excellent

Other Resources

• Stack Overflow is a great place to look for answers to any issue. I'd struggle to do my job without it
• The Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) is another place to find answers, particularly related to Microsoft technologies if you have an account
• I have an account with Pluralsight who provide too many courses to keep track of but you can learn almost anything programming related there
• There are a number of websites that provide live coding that are really handy for doing quick mockups that I use all the time
  • CodePen - The one I use most often. Chris Coyier from CSS Tricks (who is also a good follow on Twitter) is behind this and it works really well. I'll be attaching pens provide code examples in the posts related to HTML/CSS/JavaScript.
  • JSFiddle - The first live coding experience I cam across and I still use it from time to time.
  • Plunkr
  • JSBin

This is not a complete list of stuff that I use but is a good start.