.NET developer starting a social networking site, suggestions?

Question

I am a relatively new programmer; Bachelors in CS, about 2 years from college, working mainly with .NET in C #. I am pretty fluent in SQL interaction / script and have worked a bit with ASP.NET (mostly supporting an existing site).

I am interested in starting a website in my free time, the closest I can describe is a social networking site. Very friendly interface and communication between the participants is very important.

I am wondering if I am trying to try this from scratch through ASP.NET due to my experience with C #, .NET and SQL Server, or do I need to learn a structure like RoR? or maybe a CMS like Drupal or Joomla? Indeed, any direction, such as articles, books, etc., would be very helpful. Thanks!

Edit: It should be noted that I have a Windows Server 2008 machine on which I planned to host the site, although this is not entirely necessary.

Answer 1

If you want to use asp.net, I would suggest you use ASP.NET MVC:

http://www.asp.net/mvc/

I started with the Contact Manager tutorial:

http://www.asp.net/learn/mvc/tutorial-26-cs.aspx

It is easy and helps to understand the basics. When you understand the basics, take a look at http://sharparchitecture.net/ . It allows you to create a fast application using ASP.NET MVC and nHibernate using many recommended patterns.

I would advise using CMS, because to create an application from sratch is much more educated.

jQuery, which is almost part of ASP.NET MVC, allows you to create smooth interfaces.

I am creating a MVC-based bugtracker and I have learned a lot over the past year.

Answer 2

Given your existing experience (C # / asp.net / sql server), resources (Server 2008) and interests (RoR, Drupal, Joomla), I have two recommendations:

• ASP.Net MVC. This gives you a similar architecture and some RoR features, but in a way that suits your server and your skills.
• A social network site is likely to be more than too high in terms of bandwidth and server requirements (you need more than a consumer connection and more than once), time (this is a big task to create than it seems), and reach (space is full - you do not have the marketing ability to be a player).

Until recently, I would recommend you create your own blog engine as an alternative. Previously, it was a kind of ritual for developers to not only have their own blog, but also write code that runs it. However, this seems to be raffled off because hosted options such as wordpress have matured (although I still think that if you talk about .Net technologies, you might want to find an asp.net-based platform).

Instead, you can try writing a URL shortening service, a twitter client (and a website to host the project for download, etc.) or a web application for the iPhone. Now everything seems to be very fashionable.

Answer 3

Based on your data and experience, use either asp.net mvc or webforms (or combine them if you want), then run it from scratch. You will gain a lot of knowledge, and you can customize or customize your site the way you want to present it. And one more thing, this is a lot of fun, since you are going to cling to it (coding, designing ui, debugging, etc.)! I can say this because I built a social network site ( http://joecaps.com ) in asp.net complete with chat, users can upload photos, users can create their own list of friends, users can create their own music playlist, send messages to friends, etc. Good luck !!!!

Answer 4

.NET is a very powerful infrastructure and, of course, more than capable of managing the type of site you are describing. On the other hand, as well as RoR, as well as many other development and development platforms. Your best option is not to worry too much about getting the right structure, but rather to make sure that you choose a structure that at least allows you to develop your vision.

Once you have launched your site, you can reevaluate whether you have implemented the best technical solutions. If the site has taken off, you may have to reinvent it several times (this may or may not include rewriting in different languages ​​or technologies).

If you are most comfortable with .NET, then this is a very good place to start. If you think that other infrastructure will allow you to prototype faster, then go with it. The beauty of launching a new site is that you can experiment and throw as much as you need before it ever comes out live - so feel free to compare and contrast; just don’t forget that the old slogan “delivery is a feature”. The user really does not care what he wrote as long as he exists.

Answer 5

I made a social networking site (http://www.ramtajogi.com). It has features such as user account, profile, friend request, friends, messages and comments, messages. In the near future I plan to share the code base. The main work is done. I put all the looks in the dll (using this http://www.chrisvandesteeg.nl/2010/11/22/embedding-pre-compiled-razor-views-in-your-dll/ ), so I feel good and can to be expanded to have pictures and videos, I got the initial idea from socialengine.net and phpfox, they are written in php, but I was looking for something in .net.

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