Interview with a ASP.NET Wiki Ninja and C# Corner MVP – Ankit Sharma

Welcome to another Interview with a Wiki Ninja! Today's interview is with... AnkitSharma007

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Now let's dig into the interview!

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Who are you, where are you, and what do you do? What are your specialty technologies?

Hello everyone. My name is Ankit. I am from Samastipur, Bihar, India. I am currently working as a software engineer for IVY Comptech in Hyderabad, India. I completed my engineering from SIT, Tumkur in 2014 and started my IT career as an Assistant Systems Engineer in the same year with TCS. Since last four years I have been working on various MS technologies such as ASP.NET web forms, MVC, SQL Server and UI technologies like jQuery, JavaScript and Angular.

At Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad

I started blogging in August 2017 with C# Corner. The initial response was great and I got motivated to write more articles and expanded it to other forums also. Eventually I started my personal blog and the journey to contribute to the community started. As a result, I received C# Corner MVP award and also got the Dzone MVB award.

I always feel that as a tech enthusiast it is my responsibility to share my knowledge with others. Hence, currently I am focused on writing more articles on the latest technologies and helping people worldwide as much as I can do.

What are your big projects right now?

My company creates application for online gaming and betting industry. I am currently working on an online betting product. My routine task involves adding new features and maintaining the existing ones in the application. Betting in itself has a complex mechanism with a lot of constraints and handling this much complexity that too in real time is exciting to work with. Our technology stack contains Asp.Net MVC, Web API and Angular 4.

Apart from this I also spent my time on exploring new technologies and write articles on that. This helps me in my personal growth as well as my contribution to the community. I am currently exploring my new found love – Blazor, the latest UI framework by Microsoft. Along with Blazor I am also exploring ASP.NET Core and Angular.

What is TechNet Wiki for? Who is it for?

TechNet Wiki is a great platform for knowledge sharing. TechNet Wiki has professionals and experts from all over the world, who shares their own experience and knowledge with others. If you want to learn and share about Microsoft technologies then TechNet Wiki is the place for you. It acts as a link to join the people who are seeking knowledge and those who are willing to share their knowledge.

What do you do with TechNet Wiki, and how does that fit into the rest of your job?

I was already contributing to MSDN gallery but I was unaware of TechNet Wiki. But somehow, I landed on an article by Syed Shanu on TechNet Wiki while searching for some content on ASP.NET Core. So, I pinged him on Facebook asking for how can I contribute to it and he guided me with initial steps. And hence my journey of becoming a TechNet Wiki Ninja started.

At Chowmahalla Palace, Hyderabad

I mostly contribute in the form of new articles and also sometimes edit the existing articles if it requires any modifications. I generally write on weekends and try to post 3-4 articles per month. I also read the articles by others authors like Syed, Peter, Ed Price and many others to learn the latest on MS tech and also to enhance my writing skills. I always believe that reading is very much important to write good articles.

What is it about TechNet Wiki that interests you?

I am writing on multiple online communities but my experience with TechNet wiki is most pleasant. According to me TechNet Wiki is a family of people who loves Microsoft technologies. The best part about TechNet Wiki is that all the community members are always ready to help each other. I still remember the constructive feedback I received on my first article. It helped me a lot to improve my writing and presentation skills and eventually improves my future articles. Our Facebook group is always very active and people are providing feedback to each other to help them.

Another great feature is that all the articles are open to be edited by other community members. So, even if you miss something in your article, other people can add it or if someone has a new finding/workaround on the topic that can also be added to your article to make it more complete.

At TechNet Wiki it is NOT MY ARTICLE but OUR ARTICLE.

Visiting Golconda Fort, Hyderabad with friends

In what other sites and communities do you contribute your technical knowledge?

I always believe that as a community contributor we should always contribute to multiple platforms. This will increase our reach to the audience and the feedback from the variety of audience will eventually help us.

Apart from TechNet Wiki I also contribute to other online communities as mentioned below:

  1. C# corner: - https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/members/ankit-sharma93
  2. Dzone: - https://dzone.com/users/3146393/ankitsharma007.html
  3. Medium: - https://medium.com/\@ankitsharmablog
  4. Personal blog: - https://ankitsharmablogs.com

On what Wiki articles do you spend most of your time?

All my articles need substantial amount of work as I do an intensive research to make sure that no one has written a similar article before and also ensure that the code I am providing should be clear and easy to understand. But there are few articles which needed me to go an extra mile.

  1. Quantum Computing: An Introduction: - Quantum computing is currently in nascent stage. Writing an article to explain it's basics was challenging for me as I need to go through a lot of research papers to understand it myself.
  2. NET Core 2.0: CRUD Using Angular 5 And Entity Framework Core: - I spent majority of my time to make this whole article simple and easier to understand.
  3. NET Core – CRUD Using Blazor And Entity Framework Core: - Blazor is an experimental project at this point of time. Creating a CRUD using Blazor at this stage was time consuming but I enjoyed experimenting with this awesome framework.

At Fatehpur Sikri, Agra with my Mother

What are your favorite Wiki articles you’ve contributed?

All my articles are very close to me as I have put a lot of work in them. But if asked to select some favorites I will choose the following ones'

  1. Quantum Computing: An Introduction: - This is my most favorite article because of the amount of effort I put in to write this. Also, Quantum computing is pretty new field and this article is a great starting point to understand it.
  2. Q#: An Introduction: - Q# is the programming language for Quantum Computing. This article explains about the data type, expressions and statements in Q#. This article is a must read if you want to creat Quantum application using Q#.
  3. NET Core 2.0: CRUD Operation With ADO.NET: - A CRUD application on any technology will help us to understand how to handle various type of data flow. This article explains how we can combine ADO.NET with ASP.NET Core 2.0 to perform crud operations using SQL Server as data source.
  4. NET Core 2.0: Cookie Authentication: - Authentication is an integral part of any web application. This article explains how to implement cookie authentication in an ASP.NET Core application.
  5. NET Core 2.0: Getting Started With Blazor: - Blazor is the new .NET web framework developed by Microsoft for creating client-side applications. This article is a great starting point to learn Blazor.

Do you have any tips for new Wiki authors?

I would like to suggest few tips to the new authors.

  1. Quality over quantity: Your article should be of high quality in terms of content. I have seen most of new authors writing lot many articles to increase the article count but they do not maintain the quality of the article. Spend more time on one article and try to make is perfect in terms of content and then move on to next one. If you are including code snippets in your article make sure that it should not have any errors. Always remember Content is the King.
  2. Presentation Matters: After you have decided on your content the next step is to present it in a simple and easy to understand manner. The article should be free of any grammatical errors and divided into smaller sections for better readability. It is recommended to start with an “Introduction” section and close with a “Conclusion” section. Also, try to include few images/screenshots to your article.
  3. No plagiarism: Create your own content. It’s fine to take reference from other’s work but do not blindly copy it. Always put your own thoughts/finding to that idea. Also, if you are referring to some other article it’s advisable to cite it in your work and give proper credit to the original author.
  4. Follow community guidelines: Most of the new authors are unaware of the rules of the community. Make sure you have read and understood the community rules/guidelines before you post your articles. Rules are there to help you. Do not try to bypass them.
  5. When in doubt ask questions: If you do not understand anything, ask the community members. Post it in community forums or post in our Facebook Wiki Ninja Group. You can also directly ping any senior member over social media. The community is here to help you.

 

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Thank you, Ankit for such a detailed resume! It's truly an honour to have you contributing content with us!

Everyone, please join me in thanking Ankit Sharma for his contributions to the community!

Join the world! Join TechNet Wiki.

— Ninja [Kamlesh Kumar]

PS: Today's banners are from Ronen Ariely.