I have a background in Java and Spring Boot and want to learn C# and modern .NET quickly. I'm looking for practical, well-structured resources—ideally something comparable to Java in a Nutshell or Spring Starts Here—that explain both the language and the .NET ecosystem. Recommendations from people who use C# and .NET professionally would be especially helpful.
2 Answers
Don’t assume .NET means Windows-only development anymore. Modern .NET is open source and runs well on Linux, macOS, containers, and cloud platforms. For a Java and Spring background, focus on the parts that map to your existing experience—C# syntax, LINQ, async/await, the built-in dependency injection system, middleware, and ASP.NET Core’s minimal APIs or controllers. Building a small service while following the documentation will probably be more useful than reading a language book in isolation.
Microsoft’s C# guide for Java developers is a good starting point because it highlights the language differences instead of teaching programming fundamentals from scratch. After that, work through the official .NET and ASP.NET Core learning paths, especially dependency injection, configuration, asynchronous programming, Entity Framework Core, and Web APIs. The official documentation is kept current and is generally more reliable for modern .NET than older books.
That’s helpful. I’m mainly interested in cloud and microservice development, so I’ll prioritize ASP.NET Core, containers, and the differences between Spring’s conventions and the .NET approach.