Getting Started

Get to know the prerequisites of this course and the target audience in this lesson.

We'll cover the following

This course provides a comprehensive guide on developing Azure functions by using C#. Although this is not the only language that Azure functions can be written in, the C# variant of Azure functions is what we will focus on in the course.

Target audience

This course is primarily aimed at .NET developers who want to learn how to build and deploy Azure functions. Although Azure Functions supports other languages and frameworks than C# and .NET, this course primarily focuses on how to build them by using .NET.

Azure functions are a common part of distributed applications deployed in the cloud. Therefore, this course will benefit any .NET developers working for any organization that uses Microsoft Azure as its primary cloud provider. Even if Azure functions aren’t as popular today, it’s quite likely that they will be used soon, especially when teams realize the benefits of using them.

Based on this, any .NET developer interested in learning how to work with serverless applications will benefit from this course. Developers who work in organizations that already use Azure will benefit from this course the most.

Prerequisites

All code samples used in this course are written in C#. Therefore, basic knowledge of this language is required. The learner should have the knowledge of the following concepts for this course:

  • Basic C# syntax and keywords

  • Classes and interfaces

  • Methods, fields, and properties

  • Namespaces

  • Access modifiers

  • Annotating methods with attributes

The learner will also need to understand the basics of .NET. These include the following:

  • Understanding the structure of the Program.cs file and the application startup logic.

  • Understanding the basic structure of a .csproj file.

  • Adding third-party NuGet packages to a project.

Although Azure functions implemented in .NET are somewhat similar to ASP.NET Core, the main web development framework on .NET, they are not the same. Therefore, prior experience working with ASP.NET Core is not required. However, basic knowledge of HTTP is required, which includes the following:

  • URL structure, including the path and the query string

  • HTTP verbs (GET, POST, etc.)

  • Submitting requests and receiving responses