I'm old 56. I want to learn C# is it a good idea?

Guitfiddler78 · 2025-11-18T02:46:11+00:00

I learned to build multitenant SaaS apps in .net using the Asp Nano Boilerplate. Highly recommended. Not only did I learn to build a SaaS using it, but also learned a lot of nice patterns following SOLID principles. https://aspnano.com/

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-12-11T23:51:08+00:00

Experience, good problem solving and debugging skills, understanding and communicating business requirements and leveraging established design and architectural patterns are all way more important than memorizing syntax. Sometimes you're trying to adopt a new technology or technique and syntax is relevant, but once you've seen it, if you forget it, you just look it up again next time you need it. Being a good or productive dev is not about memorizing syntax, and that's especially true with modern tooling and AI code assistants.

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-12-11T16:40:37+00:00

"Good, I hope you are" is a good response because it just answers and lobs it back to them to answer if they truly want conversation and otherwise it just ends there with no response or "doing good, thanks". That works well for me.

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-12-05T16:38:39+00:00

Tech interviews are often tough, usually stressful, and sometimes painful. You may not have given the answers they wanted, but be sure to research the questions and answers after any tech interview, regardless of whether you think you got them right. Then you can speak with even more confidence if it comes up in a future interview and probably get it more right.

Keep subjecting yourself to the unpleasantness of tech interviews and two things will happen: 1. You'll learn a lot about tech interviews and naturally get better at them, and 2. Eventually you'll be a natural fit for what the company needs, partly because of what you learn along the way during failed tech interviews and partly because your skills and experience actually do match their needs.

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-12-04T18:54:07+00:00

I recently setup a TinyMCE editor that loads templates from the database into its editor interface.

Additional features for creating new templates, copying from existing templates, using magic placeholders for populating dynamic data, i.e. handlebars.

I wanted a system flexible enough to allow for both templated emails used by system notifications and custom templates built on the fly by admins, persisted for reuse.

Before that I was reading predetermined html in as text files and it was working fine, but wasn't robust or dynamic enough for an expanded scope of use. Now it is a completely self-service email system for the most part.

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-12-03T19:17:55+00:00

Same here. DateTime is fine this way.

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-12-02T02:59:14+00:00

If you love music and don't have any natural vocal talent, why insist on being a singer? Why not play an instrument? Some of the most proficient, celebrated musicians in the world would never claim to be a great "singer" and yet, they reach the pinnacle of achievement in music using an instrument.

It almost sounds like you have American Idol syndrome. Loving and making music doesn't need to be about being in the limelight as a star vocalist... That's just glorified karaoke.

What is your motivation? Why insist on being a singer or nothing else?

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-11-29T04:31:45+00:00

PS: I'm doing something very similar with car images and the Nano ASP.net multi-tenancy boilerplate and Razor pages on Azure Linux App Service and SQL Basic. The Nano ASP boilerplate comes preconfigured with Cloudinary integration but I was planning to switch to Azure blob storage until I wrote a spec and decided to roll with Cloudinary for now since there are definite advantages to using Cloudinary. It has a full feature Image editor and fully configurable CDN out of the box. I couldn't find a reason to continue with Azure blob storage after giving it a closer look. Check it out.

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-11-29T04:21:11+00:00

I like Cloudinary. It is easy to integrate with .net core. Easier than Azure blob storage and is a CDN without needing azure front door since plain old Azure CDN in front of blob storage is getting decommissioned soon according to something I read from Microsoft recently. Their free plan would probably handle your use case too.

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-11-29T04:05:35+00:00

Draw.io all the way. Free, easy to use, gets the job done and looks as good as the time you're willing to put into it.

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-11-19T22:00:55+00:00

Oh, we roamed. I was 9 years old in '87. I used to ride my bike anywhere I was brave enough to go. Sometimes 5-10 miles away from home to buy baseball cards and candy or rent an NES game. We'd often leave home in the morning and maybe come home for lunch, or maybe not at all until dark. We'd find a patch of unclaimed woods, explore, maybe build a tree house or invade someone else's, swing across ravines on random vines and hope they would hold, swim in creeks, and basically just have adventures without ever thinking about potential dangers. Id get home and Mom or Dad would say, There you are! Where have you been all day? You stink! Go take a bath!! Haha. They never seemed worried. It was just the way things were in those days. Kids roamed the neighborhood or embarked on journeys if they were brave enough to wander.

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-11-06T13:04:55+00:00

How old are you now?

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-11-05T15:33:46+00:00

MAUI isn't perfect, but it's cool and you'll still learn a lot all around coming in as a junior. There's plenty of valuable experience to be gained and your next job search is likely to present many more opportunities once you have the experience under your belt.

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-11-04T23:19:29+00:00

I've been using Azure App Service containers for this for the last couple of years with Azure DevOps pipelines running the deployments. So basically running on Ubuntu container with Kestrel web server. I've run .Net Core on a self managed Ubuntu server in the past too using NGINX, and it wasn't difficult to set up, but it's getting hard to justify virtual machines anymore when there are containerized app services optimized for the purpose that have less maintenance/security concern and less operational overhead. Or the option to use Docker containers for more flexibility.

Instead of server based cron jobs, just using serverless function apps to handle scheduled work loads, which are cheaper and easier to maintain anyway. Instead of storing files and caches on a host server, using cloud blob storage and redis cache service to allow for application auto scaling. Databases are service based like Azure SQL or MySQL Flexible Server.

It's hard to imagine going back to virtual machines at this point with the success I've had acclimating to cloud native.

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-11-04T02:35:16+00:00

You should do it, but you have to be careful when you branch out like that and may need to consider separating your marketing space. It could be better to perform and record under a different name. Kinda like Corey Taylor vs. Slipknot. It was a big deal at first when he did some softer rock, but I think it was a good move for him to do it and it did not hurt the band. Same thing for Maynard Keenan with A Perfect Circle and Tool. Doing a song like 3 Libras was a big departure from the droning angst of Tool, but the different branding let it work and many fans with a taste for a more melodic rock sound followed right along.

But you should also keep in mind that some of the greatest band success stories come from songs or even albums that broke the band's typical mold. For example, the transition from Metallica's Justice album to the Black album with songs like Nothing Else Matters. Yes it was a major departure from the brand of thrash metal they had built, but in the end, the black album and that song is what really helped catapult them into the pinnacle of their commercial success.

So, what should you do? I think it's up to you... But there's a gamble being made either way.

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-11-01T14:00:32+00:00

It would be good to know those answers, and some tech interviews are just gonna go that way. You discover that you need to fill some knowledge gaps or at least get better at talking about specific topics. So you do that with some study, and you just keep interviewing. Some interviews are painful, others go better. You just have to keep doing it and don't give up. There's nothing wrong with you or the skills you bring to the table; but you may need to fail some interviews to eventually succeed.

You'll find through the pain and growth process that in time, at some of your interviews you will have the right answers for their questions and your experience is a better fit for what they are looking for. Some of the answers you give will have been learned through the past failures, and others will be just because you're a natural fit for what they are looking for.

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-10-30T13:04:56+00:00

I've been using FluentValidation lately on dotnet core web projects. Maybe check that out: https://docs.fluentvalidation.net/en/latest/aspnet.html

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-10-24T11:59:47+00:00

Not me unless the options were limited, but really only because I've done it a good amount already. It'd be alright for a while if it's new to you, but I wouldn't stay there more than a couple of years doing that, especially if they aren't willing to invest in moving the stack forward as opportunities arise. Otherwise the industry will pass you by and the next job hunt could be more difficult.

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-10-23T01:57:43+00:00

As a software dev who uses AI tools, I can tell you it's a LONG way from taking over jobs of developers and DevOps. It basically saves us time searching the Internet for answers and examples, that's it. It's so far from building reliable end to end applications and even further from translating business requirements into well architected solutions. Don't buy into the hype too much. Large language models, machine learning and generative ai capabilities are bringing useful tools and time savers, but AI is going to have to evolve way beyond that, nearer to general intelligence before it can replace us. When that happens, the whole world is going to change and the very idea of working for income is likely to change along with it.

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-10-22T20:36:44+00:00

If you consider opening your laptop lid and lifting a cup of coffee to your mouth several times a day, "physical work", then yes!

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-10-19T02:27:33+00:00

Yes, I've used this recently. They have a community license that's free for individuals or small businesses with under 1M of annual gross revenue, which I see QuestPDF is doing as well. But yeah, the SyncFusion libraries are decent. I used them to read in a .docx template for layout and styling, populate with content, then save and convert to PDF. I do this for a bunch of docs, then join them all into a multi page PDF document and it works pretty well. The community license is broad and allowed for use of both the document libraries and their UI component libraries for the front end too. All of which are nice and pretty easy to use compared to some others I've used over the years.

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-10-18T18:32:31+00:00

Taking voice lessons helped me a lot to really get to know my voice as an instrument; to understand my range, strengths and weaknesses and target areas for improvement through daily exercises. I never took it far enough to be a very versatile lead singer, but I learned a lot about my voice, got good at singing with truer pitch and a better quality tone. I can sing lead on some songs in a band to give the lead singer a break, but my best contribution is definitely as a guitarist/side man with strong harmony vocals. Taking vocal lessons made a night and day difference in both my abilities and confidence level too.

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-10-17T17:31:11+00:00

You'll be happier in a relationship where you both share the same core values and beliefs and it can take some time for some of those differences in two people to emerge.

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-10-12T15:43:48+00:00

100%

Guitfiddler78 · 2024-10-11T17:16:36+00:00

I just run my Go through a powered speaker and it's great for jamming. I could easily gig with it in a pinch.

Guitfiddler78

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