Series · 22 chapters
From Novice to Fluent on the Modern Microsoft Web Stack
An opinionated self-study plan that takes you from total novice to fluent on the modern Microsoft web stack — PowerShell, .NET, ASP.NET Core, React, TypeScript, Azure, KQL, Polly, Bicep — plus a capstone analytics dashboard that ties it all together.
22
Chapters
~30 min
Per chapter
1
Capstone
4
Phases
Phase 1 — Foundations
ch 1–5- 1Ch 1 · MS Stack Ch 1 — Developer toolingPowerShell, Git's three trees, VS Code, browser DevTools, and the package managers that run your day. The boring tools that determine whether you'll feel fluent or fighting for the next two years.→
- 2Ch 2 · MS Stack Ch 2 — Web fundamentalsHTTP, headers, cookies, TLS, REST, CORS, JSON — the wire-level protocol every backend and frontend bug eventually reduces to. Buy yourself fluency in the protocol and stop guessing.→
- 3Ch 3 · MS Stack Ch 3 — C# languageC# 12 + .NET 8: the type system, LINQ, generics, async/await, pattern matching, records, nullable reference types. The language you'll write 1000s of lines of in production.→
- 4Ch 4 · MS Stack Ch 4 — .NET runtime and asyncThe CLR, garbage collector, Task vs ValueTask, the async state machine, cancellation, the dotnet CLI, NuGet, global.json, central package management — the runtime your C# code actually lives in.→
- 5Ch 5 · MS Stack Ch 5 — ASP.NET CoreMinimal hosting, dependency injection, middleware, routing, configuration, options, model binding, ProblemDetails, BackgroundService, health checks. The web framework you'll spend the next decade in.→
Phase 2 — Frontend stack
ch 6–11- 6Ch 6 · MS Stack Ch 6 — Modern frontend baselineSemantic HTML, ARIA + a11y, the CSS cascade + box model + Flexbox + Grid, modern JavaScript (ES2024), fetch, the event loop. The browser-side foundations every React app stands on.→
- 7Ch 7 · MS Stack Ch 7 — TypeScriptStructural typing, narrowing, generics, discriminated unions, utility types, tsconfig. TypeScript without the over-engineering.→
- 8Ch 8 · MS Stack Ch 8 — Frontend build toolingVite, HMR, Rollup, esbuild, npm vs pnpm, tree-shaking, env vars, dev proxy. Understanding what your bundler is actually doing so when it breaks, you know where to look.→
- 9Ch 9 · MS Stack Ch 9 — ReactComponents, JSX, the rendering model, hooks (useState, useEffect, useMemo, useCallback, useRef, useReducer, useContext), custom hooks, error boundaries, Suspense, wrapping imperative libraries. React without the cargo cult.→
- 10Ch 10 · MS Stack Ch 10 — Routing and state in SPAsReact Router (nested + lazy), URL as state with useSearchParams, server state vs UI state, TanStack Query, Zustand vs Redux Toolkit. Choose your state strategy deliberately.→
- 11Ch 11 · MS Stack Ch 11 — Data visualisation with HighchartsHighcharts options model, series types, axes, performance for high-cardinality data, theming, accessibility, exporting. The chart library that powers most enterprise dashboards.→
Phase 3 — Platform layer
ch 12–17- 12Ch 12 · MS Stack Ch 12 — Kusto / KQLKusto Query Language: pipeline syntax, summarize, joins, time-binning, materialized views, KQL injection defence. The language powering Azure Data Explorer, App Insights, Log Analytics, and most Microsoft telemetry.→
- 13Ch 13 · MS Stack Ch 13 — Azure App ServiceApp Service plans, deployment slots + swap + warmup, app settings, Key Vault references, VNet integration, scale-out rules, custom domains + TLS. The Microsoft PaaS that hosts most of the stack.→
- 14Ch 14 · MS Stack Ch 14 — Identity for cloud appsEntra ID, OAuth 2.0 + OIDC, Easy Auth (App Service Authentication), Managed Identity, On-Behalf-Of flow, certificate-based authentication. The identity stack that lets you stop storing passwords or secrets.→
- 15Ch 15 · MS Stack Ch 15 — ObservabilitySerilog structured logging, Application Insights, OpenTelemetry, correlation IDs, distributed tracing, KQL queries for telemetry, alerts, dashboards. Knowing what your app is doing in production.→
- 16Ch 16 · MS Stack Ch 16 — Resilience patterns with Polly v8Retry with jittered backoff, timeout, circuit breaker, bulkhead, fallback, rate-limiter, hedging — composed into a single resilience pipeline. The patterns that keep your app alive when downstream services don't.→
- 17Ch 17 · MS Stack Ch 17 — CachingIMemoryCache, IDistributedCache, HybridCache (.NET 9), Redis, cache-aside, write-through, stampede protection, invalidation, TTL strategies. The discipline that makes 10× perf gains routine.→
Phase 4 — Delivery + cross-cutting
ch 18–22- 18Ch 18 · MS Stack Ch 18 — CI/CD with Azure DevOpsYAML pipelines, templates + parameters + extends, agent pools, federated identity for Azure deploys, SDL gates (CodeQL, credential scanner, container scanning), multi-stage deploys, environments + approvals.→
- 19Ch 19 · MS Stack Ch 19 — IaC and rollout orchestrationBicep modules, what-if previews, environments, region rollouts. Awareness of Ev2 (Microsoft internal), Spinnaker, ArgoCD. The pattern for safely deploying infrastructure + apps across regions.→
- 20Ch 20 · MS Stack Ch 20 — Security baselineOWASP Top 10, secrets management, transport security, auth hardening, supply-chain integrity, input validation, output encoding, security headers. The non-negotiable security checklist for every web app.→
- 21Ch 21 · MS Stack Ch 21 — Testing strategyUnit, integration, end-to-end, contract, mutation, load — the testing pyramid for ASP.NET Core + React on Azure. xUnit, WebApplicationFactory, Vitest, Playwright, k6, Stryker, Pact.→
- 22Ch 22 · MS Stack Ch 22 — Pro skills (the bits no one writes down)Code review craft, on-call composure, incident writing, technical proposals, mentoring, learning velocity, knowing when to rewrite. The chapter that turns a strong engineer into a senior one.→
Capstone — Analytics Dashboard
Once chapter 17 lands, you have everything you need to ship the capstone: React + TS + ASP.NET Core + Azure SQL + Kusto + Entra ID + App Insights + Polly + HybridCache + ADO pipeline + Bicep + xUnit + Playwright — every pattern from the series, in one repo.
See capstone architecture →