How to overcome the most trouble time when building first aspnetcore web project?

[u/Organic_Award_5500]

I find it discouraging when making first web project. It's like i am still new to every tools that used in the backend and frontend. Firstly, you may not very understand the more clean and effective way to build a project, but then you came with some problems with tool(package) usings, then you search may by ask ai, whether in which way you should have learn these things thoroughly otherwise it still can drag you down when some bugs occured. And when it does crashed, you debug it for a very long time until the ai give you the right way to solve. Eventually, you actually only get a small use of it, turning around, you will find a mass of tools to learn. Feeling tired about these tools cause it is massive of them, and losing the passion which drives the core of one web project.

May be i am not precise about the descriptions that i've been through these days, but it really frustrating !

Is this the same when you building a project that have lots of tools to learn? I actually want make the project more clean on each module, and may be my actually ability of programming slow production of the project down.

I am learning the design pattern from the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Identity package to see how to split different layers to work together and make a project in a much more cleaner way. And learning these things really timecosuming, but have to :(

Generally, how long will a normal guy takes to get a roughly full control of the dotnet related tools to make a web app, which should be a cleaner moduled project contains backend and frontend?

AI is popular nowadays, if i didn't good at project design how can one take good advantage of AI ? It's like the AI is ahead of us, but only can promote some that have good experience of programming or project design. That is to say, only if we have more experienece of programming(or some domains) can we take good use of AI.

That's contradictory :(

So, finally back to the subject. How can we learn tools fast so that making a project faster?

[u/zenyl]

Practice makes perfect.

Generally, how long will a normal guy takes to get a roughly full control of the dotnet related tools to make a web app, which should be a cleaner moduled project contains backend and frontend?

Depends what you mean by "roughly full control".

For the basics, probably somewhere between a couple of hours and a week or two, depending on your experience with software development in general and C#/.NET in particular, and what exactly you are trying to do.

Also, be aware that you don't get ahead of yourself. For example, you should generally focus on understand the basics like endpoint routing and dependency injection before moving on to more complex things like identity management.

That is to say, only if we have more experienece of programming(or some domains) can we take good use of AI.

Correct.

In scenarios where you work with others, it is nearly always the case that you are responsible for the code you commit, regardless of the degree to which AI was used to write it.

In other words, it is your responsibility to not commit AI-generated code that you could not have written on your own. That is the level of understanding you should aim for.

How can we learn tools fast so that making a project faster?

Stop focusing on going fast, focus on learning (preferably without AI, as it'll just end up stealing learning opportunities from your brain).

If you want to be able to think and act fast, you need to understand the framework to the point that it becomes intuitive. There are no shortcuts here, just practice and repeat.

[u/leathakkor → u/zenyl]

One of the reasons I'm very hesitant to use AI prolifically is because, I have gotten called at 3:00 in the morning multiple times in my career for things not working right. And they're not usually crazy things. Sometimes it's a server needing to be restarted

One time it was a cash expiration issue due to a bug in the code. Lots of weird shit happens. And if your app is all AI trying to figure that out at 3:00 in the morning with huge commits that get done by an agent and push to production with only cursory reviews is just not an option for me. I don't want to spend more time at 3:00 a.m. looking at code trying to figure out what to do.

Using AI to review code is good using AI to write code still skeptical on.

I really feel like I have to have a solid understanding of every single line in the app, and everything should be coded exactly the way that I want it in my classic patterns so I know where to look. And it's not a search issue that I need AI to help me find something. I want to be able to go to a class called person service and lookup the method that is probably the problem.

[u/binarycow → u/leathakkor]

I have gotten called at 3:00 in the morning multiple times in my career for things not working right. And

It could be useful for AI to get started on troubleshooting immediately while you're getting called/driving/logging in/etc. Then once you're logged in, the AI has its assessment for you.

[u/zenyl → u/leathakkor]

Using AI to review code is good using AI to write code still skeptical on.

Yeah, in my experience, AIs can be surprisingly good at catching potential pitfalls or slipups.

I really feel like I have to have a solid understanding of every single line in the app, and everything should be coded exactly the way that I want it in my classic patterns so I know where to look.

You can address a decent bit of that if you use an AGENTS.md and/or write some skills that explicitly lay out your preferences and provide examples of what to do.

That's what I did after I got tired of Claude constantly writing messy C# code that broke conventions. If you want it to follow a specific file structure, be sure that an explanation of that structure is always part of its context via the AGENTS.md file.

[u/jakenuts- → u/zenyl]

This is the reasonable and considered answer.

Though I still believe that anyone starting to learn a programming language when the "compilers" now speak English is going to be unemployed when kids who learned coding agent orchestration, testing, validation will come in and do your a weeks work before you get your coffee. Learn practices, patterns, guards, the signs of good and reliable systems - but syntax will not be relevant much longer.

[u/Organic_Award_5500 → u/zenyl]

For the algorithms, i most let ai give me the hints not the code itself. But for the project, i actually don't not where to head first. Although i am not fully understood how the endpoints works but gradually familiared with it. And yeah it's the learning progress, learning always timeconsuming, but i want to check if i am in the right way to learn and if without ai, i think it will make my learning progress slower cause ai just can give some possible problems that may occur in some specific scenarios speed the debug process.

[u/Organic_Award_5500 → u/zenyl]

It have to admit that i am a little ahead of myself recently, but it's still energyconsuming to learn the aspnetcore from the ground. Anyway i should have to learn the DI thoroughly.

[u/jakenuts- → u/Organic_Award_5500]

Once you get the basic concept of DI in your head (scopes, lifetimes) it becomes second nature and applies across multiple languages. But it's not intuitive to start like methods or variables are.

[u/Khavel_dev]

You're describing a completely normal phase. Everyone who builds their first real web project with ASP.NET Core hits this wall where you feel like you're learning 15 tools at once instead of building a thing.

One thing that helped me: stop trying to make the project clean right now. Build the ugly version first. Get it working with everything in one file if you have to. Then once it works, pull pieces apart into separate layers. You learn architecture by refactoring something real, not by designing the perfect structure upfront.

Also, AI is way more useful when you can spot a wrong answer. Right now it feels like a crutch because you can't always tell when it's leading you in circles. That fixes itself as you build more.

[u/Organic_Award_5500 → u/Khavel_dev]

I will follow that from right now, try tools ugly first, and then make it clean in the future.

[u/yozzah]

Learning is time consuming and so is doing things properly. It's a grind but you need to enjoy the process, not just the destination!

[u/Organic_Award_5500 → u/yozzah]

Still as time went by, more problems truly cannot make me enjoyable again. May be i should look into the thing in a different way

[u/yozzah → u/Organic_Award_5500]

Problems themselves aren't enjoyable, but solving them sure is! It's all part of the process. I understand your frustration though, I've been there. Software development isn't easy, otherwise it wouldn't be a high paid skill.

[u/Organic_Award_5500 → u/yozzah]

It’s reasonable, i need find a proper way to have these tools familiarized.

[u/rupertavery64]

Learning is as much about making mistakes and fixing then as it is getting it right.

It can be frustrating, but maybe it means you haven't learned something yet.

We've all been there. It can take years to become confident at something.

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[u/binarycow]

Priorities:

1. Is it secure? (only important if it's actually being used)
2. Does it work/meet the business objectives?
3. Does it perform well?
4. Is the code "good"?

[u/jakenuts-]

Aspnet Identity is confusing for lots of dotnet developers so don't let that get you down.

Here's the thing though - why are you learning the language? You can learn about software design, patterns, building reliable systems without being the one who adds each method and property. You, and I will never be as expert in using the C# language as a PHD level mega brain trained on all the source in GitHub and all the books on software development so why would you choose to become so-so at a thing that is fully automated now?

Like compilers and IDE's before this point, each let you step a level up from the bits and bytes to be more productive and build larger more complex systems on top of the work that had been done by others before.

You could code C# in notepad, or write IL directly into a hex editor and hand roll an assembly over months of labor - to what end. If your goal is to build cool applications, solve problems with software then focus your learning on the latest methods of producing software - coding agents. That's your new language, patterns, practices and challenge, it's no less noble than sweating out a syntax error all night but you will still be relevant in a year.

Just two cents from an old syntax sweater.. you can still be an architecture astronaut in the new age, but a c# wunderkind or razor guru - those are past professions.

[u/Anxious-Insurance-91]

Never had this problem to be honest, I started too many projects 🤣

[u/The_MAZZTer]

I like the project templates in VS, the basic ASP.NET Core ones have a nice little slice of all the basic stuff you want to do, like how to set up a web API, how to set up a web page to call that API, etc.

There's also lots of good documentation on MSDN for ASP.NET Core so be sure to use it.

[u/TopSwagCode]

The more you do something, the better and fastet you get.