HackYourFuture.NETMasterClass

This is the base repository for the HackYourFuture masterclass in .NET & C#. The plan is that this will contain everything that is needed to both hold and attend the course. This includes:

• Curriculum
• Slides
• Exercises
• Solutions
• Knowledge reviews

Curriculum .NET Masterclass - "Zero to Hero".

Each module is approx 4 hours including dinner. About 50-50 timesplit between classroom vs exercises. As far as possible we'll work on a project that make sense to the students - and hopefully combine it all in a final product after 5 lessons. Each class will have moderate homework.

We will be doing it in .NET Core and using Visual Studio Community - which works both on Mac and PC.

The Project

The main project that the students will be coding throughout the class is a simple and classic card game: Thirty-One. It has clear object models, and will accommodate most of the topics in the curriculum - while still being easy to understand. Towards the end of the course, there will be plenty of extension points for extra-credit effort - where former HYF skills such as html, css, javascript and react can be used.

Prerequisites

Students starting on the .NET master class should have some general experience with programming and GitHub, as well as good knowledge of web technologies such as HTML, CSS and Javascript - corresponding to the level achieved after completing the HYF standard curriculum. Each student should bring a laptop (mac or pc) with Visual Studio Community edition installed and working. Note that Visual Studio is not the same as Visual Studio Code.

First Lesson

Introduction to .NET, C#, Visual Studio and OOP. First Lesson Goals:

• Understand the basics from object oriented programming - and how it differs from functional programming and scripting
• Understand what the .NET framework is - and how you use it.
• Strongly typed
• Namespaces and Usings
• Inheritance
• Objects, methods, properties.
• Extension methods, Lambda Methods
• Working with visual studio and compiling and debugging code
• Exercises: Building a simple Console application, with the basics of the card game mentioned as "The Project".

Find all material for the first lesson here.

Second lesson

More in-depth with c# and .NET basics. Second Lesson Goals:

• Static vs Instance
• Public vs Private vs Protected vs Internal
• Generics and lists
• LINQ
• Interfaces
• Typical OOP patterns
• Use the System.IO namespace (or similar)
• Class libraries and references
• Nuget packages
• Use Restsharp or SharpZipLib or similar package.
• Exercises & homework : Extract game logic from the earlier developed Console App into a separate library and rewrite the console to use that. Extend game logic with persistence (Json files).

Find all material for the second lesson here.

Third lesson

MVC and Web introduction. Third Lesson Goals:

• HTTP Theory
• Understand the Model-View-Controller approach to web development
• Learn how Razor and Models work together.
• Understand the basics of routing and how controllers get called.
• Understand how you can map a form to a model and handle submissions.
• Debug and explore the Request and Response objects
• Exercises & homework: Start to build a web version (ASP.NET MVC) of the Cardgame using the class library created in the second lesson. Reach a point where a new game can be started, and game state shown visually to the player.

Find all material for the third lesson here.

Fourth lesson

MVC and Web continued. Completing the web version of the game Fourth Lesson Goals:

• Follow-up on previous 3 lessons
• Adding Actions and Views to handle player actions and game over scenarios.
• Improve the UI with React / JS or better HTML+CSS
• Understand TagHelpers in .NET Core
• Exceptions
• Looking at a real-life web project
• Exercises & homework: Complete the game with full functionality. Polish and optimize the look and feel of the game.

Find all material for the Fourth lesson here.

Fifth Lesson

Using Azure and Publishing your game Fifth Lesson Goals:

• Examine the Azure platform and what it provides.
• Experiment with Cognitive Services as well as Cosmos DB (or other data storage)
• Learn how to publish a web application to Azure
• Discussing build pipelines and unit testing
• Exercises: Persist game state in Azure. Publish game to Azure App Services. Extra credit work: UI Enhancements or multiplayer support.

Find all material for the Fifth lesson here.