Learning C# by starting small and having fun

TL;DR Version

At my new job we use C# for the backend and React for the frontend. Both of which are new to me.

To get better at it, I started a small side-project which every ten minutes checks the time I need to get into the office.

Learning by starting small

You might think that in the age of AI you don’t need any coding skills.

I think this might be true, only if you already master the programming language and concepts you are working in. I don’t recommend doing this.

So my solution to gain proficiency in .NET, C# and React is as follows:

• For each task I receive use AI to understand the concepts, read the documentation, etc
• Do neetcode problems just to get my mind in the mood to solve problems
• Do courses and watch videos for concepts
• Do this Time to office side project to reduce the level of complexity and also have fun

Don’t underestimate small steps

By investing not more than 30 minutes a day, you can make real progress and learn real skills.

Always invest, and trust the process.

Why don’t I just vibe-code the tasks?

I do have the skill to vibe-code the tasks. The problem there is that by doing this I will never actually learn anything.

Use AI to learn, not to click ‘Next > Next > Next’. I find it exhausting and useless. Everyone could do this.

How I like to use it is to level the field. Meaning that if I don’t understand a concept, code, etc I will ask it as many times as needed until it explains it for my understanding. Then I can build on top, either by writing the code myself or tell the Agent exactly what to do.

Time to office

I will make an API request to the Google Maps API every 10th minute to get the duration of my route (always the same).

In the frontend I will at first just display: - Time from home to work - Time from work to home

In a next step I will add a plot with the average time for 24 hours, and then train on that data with different machine learning algorithms.

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