Changing career (moving to Microsoft programming / sys admin)

Cromulent

Cromulent

Cromulent

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England
For the last 5 or 6 years I've been a freelance programmer working with Linux and Mac OS X mainly. I'm experienced in C, C++, Objective-C and Python and have done numerous projects including websites and desktop software but I'm finding Linux and Mac OS X to be a bit annoying now. Linux because it is fractured and you can't rely on one distribution being compatible with another distribution and Mac OS X because I've just gone off Apple a bit really.

What I'd really like to do now is complete some exams on Microsoft Windows Azure (I've literally just ordered the books for the exams) and also become trained in the whole .NET framework and ASP.NET for websites and desktop programming.

Do you think I should concentrate on passing Microsoft learning exams? I'm going to be building a website for a project I've come up with using all Microsoft technologies. Hopefully if I complete it it'll give me something really good to put on my CV as I'll be using ASP.NET MVC 5, Windows Server 2016 and Windows Azure technologies to complete it.

So what would you do in my situation? I'm completely changing my computing focus to be more Microsoft orientated as I feel like there are probably more jobs for Microsoft stuff near where I am.
 
Idk, I'd specialise in something within Linux. A mate of mine now manages a team of developers for a large multi. He had a very basic background in development, mainly being a Linux sysadmin. His main job is bashing devs for not following change control and versioning. Getso paid a clean fortune, too
 
JonJ678 said:
Programming for Microsoft platforms is horrible compared to Linux. Please spend some time with their API's before committing to the change.
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Well I can work on this one project I've got in mind using ASP.NET MVC and Windows Azure and if it doesn't work out I can always switch back to Linux development.

Frankly though I've stopped using Linux on my desktop machines and only have 2 Linux VPS' running at the moment so I kinda feel like my ambition should be to master Windows client and server programming as well as learning how to use Windows Server. It seems like quite a good time to do it as well seeing as Windows Server 2016 is either out or is due out very soon.

If the worst comes to the worst I can always switch back to Linux if I have to but I want to give it a try at least.
 
Scotty123 said:
The new asp.net is great. I left Python/Django for it :D.
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Funny you should mention that because I was a big Python / Django programmer when I was using Linux.

Anyway I've had a couple of days of playing around with things and the one thing I have discovered is that the documentation on MSDN is awful. When using the Apple documentation you basically go to one page and it is all laid out before in a nice format and you can find anything you want all on one page pretty much.

On MSDN every topic has its own page that doesn't link to a main index page so you are constantly using Google to find specific documentation for what you are trying to find. For instance it took me ages to find the correct documentation for Azure Media Services using the .NET SDK. Now I that I have found it the documentation is of good quality but it is just the time it takes to find anything that you really want on MSDN that annoys me.

Anyway I'm slowly getting the hang of things although there is an awful lot to learn. It is kinda fun though to sit down and learn everything that is required. I just wish there was one installer package that you needed to install to get everything you needed for Microsoft Azure programming rather than splitting it all up into different NuGet packages for each service. It would save so much time.

Oh well. At least I'm having fun :). Also I found out that a new version of Visual Studio is due to be released soon so I'm waiting for that to come out.
 
The new asp.net runs on Linux too. I've had stuff running using it on Linux and NGINX to reverse proxy as I'm used to that from the Django days.
 
I wouldn't worry about any exams to be honest, they are not worth anything.

It's more important what you actually know. I'd say start building something, put it on GitHub for example and use that when you apply for jobs. There are lots of free resources, Microsoft has a virtual academy with lots of content. That should get you started. The tools are free as well. It's a great time to be a MS developer :).
 
Griffildur said:
I wouldn't worry about any exams to be honest, they are not worth anything.

It's more important what you actually know. I'd say start building something, put it on GitHub for example and use that when you apply for jobs. There are lots of free resources, Microsoft has a virtual academy with lots of content. That should get you started. The tools are free as well. It's a great time to be a MS developer :).
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Thanks for the advice. I'll certainly start working on something to put on Github. I already have a lot of projects on Bitbucket but they are set to private because I'm not sure I want to show them off. There is nothing wrong with them as such but they are sometimes work in progress.

I've found a website called Plural Sight which seems to have a lot of video tutorials and the price is quite cheap. I might run through a few of those to see how it goes.

I'll skip doing the exams for the time being then and concentrate on getting some work up on Github and then I'll try and apply for some jobs.
 
Cromulent said:
I've found a website called Plural Sight which seems to have a lot of video tutorials and the price is quite cheap. I might run through a few of those to see how it goes.
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My last job gave all of IT a Pluralsight subscription, so I've used it loads. I've suggested to new employer that they offer it to the team.

There are some really good courses on there, so it's worth paying for IMO.
 
Cromulent said:
Thanks for the advice. I'll certainly start working on something to put on Github. I already have a lot of projects on Bitbucket but they are set to private because I'm not sure I want to show them off. There is nothing wrong with them as such but they are sometimes work in progress.

I've found a website called Plural Sight which seems to have a lot of video tutorials and the price is quite cheap. I might run through a few of those to see how it goes.

I'll skip doing the exams for the time being then and concentrate on getting some work up on Github and then I'll try and apply for some jobs.
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Just a bit of advice, start by understanding MVC, the pattern itself and Microsoft's implementation of it.

Then move onto JavaScript and learn that. If you manage to learn a little about one framework it would be great, something like Angular, React, Angular2, knockoutjs whatever.

Just pick one and try to understand as much as you can on your own.

Don't spread yourself too thin though. Stick with one thing because once you know one, you can easily make the transition to another one. It's no good having 10 things on your CV if all you know is a little bit about each or virtually nothing.

Know more about 1 or 2 and that should help open doors for you.
 
Griffildur said:
Just a bit of advice, start by understanding MVC, the pattern itself and Microsoft's implementation of it.

Then move onto JavaScript and learn that. If you manage to learn a little about one framework it would be great, something like Angular, React, Angular2, knockoutjs whatever.

Just pick one and try to understand as much as you can on your own.

Don't spread yourself too thin though. Stick with one thing because once you know one, you can easily make the transition to another one. It's no good having 10 things on your CV if all you know is a little bit about each or virtually nothing.

Know more about 1 or 2 and that should help open doors for you.
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Thanks for the advice. I'm already up to speed on MVC as I have used MVC frameworks in other languages before. Although I obviously haven't used Microsoft's implementation so I'll try and get up to speed on that.

I've also done quite a bit of JavaScript before so I might just pick a framework and work on that. Angular 2 sounds like the best bet for the time being. Especially as the documentation looks so good for it making it easy to get started in.

I'll certainly concentrate on a few things to start with. I agree with you that it is pointless to spread yourself too thin. Best to learn one or two things really well rather than trying to learn everything and not being that good at things.
 
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