Gustav Brock
gustav at cactus.dk
Fri Oct 17 17:22:15 CDT 2008
Hi Andy Look up the thread "Old Dog - New Tricks" from January, indeed the postings from Shamil and indeed these links: http://www.asp.net/get-started/ http://quickstarts.asp.net/QuickStartv20/aspnet/Default.aspx http://www.asp.net/learn/ http://www.asp.net/learn/data-access/ The last may be the most important. This will learn you to stay off the low level stuff with SqlCommand etc. which in my opinion is waste of time. This site alone will keep you busy for a long time. I have never bought a book - there is so much free material to learn from including videos. Just start with the official site: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/vstudio/2008/default.mspx the amount of material is overwhelming. When I started with .Net I had the same considerations about VB or C# - picked C# as a challenge and I haven't looked back. In the beginning it's a mess but after a while you "picturise" the code and now I really like it. The Express versions are limited but in no way crippled. However, if you subscribe to the Microsoft Action Pack, the Standard version is either included or available after passing a tiny "test" (can't recall right now). Much bad can be said about MS and indeed the direction Access has taken for developers, but VS is really a star. It is wonderful to work with because you feel every feature is made with the developer in mind. It really shines with .Net 3.5 and the latest service pack where IntelliSense has reached a new level which gently catches most errors while you type without stopping you. As Charlotte mentions, a big challenge is to decide how to do things because quite often no single "right" method exists. But, as with everything else, you will learn and find your favourites. /gustav >>> andy at minstersystems.co.uk 17-10-2008 16:34 >>> Ok I'm sorry, I'm sorry. This has no doubt been answered before on the list but I wonder if a consensus has been arived at. The question is, coming from Access how do I start learning .Net? Which are the best books, or other resources? I don't even know the questions to ask really. Am I talking about VB.Net? I guess so. Will I need to also learn ASP.Net, ADO.Net, xyz.Net, ramalamadingdong.Net or is VB.Net all I need? Anyone got a learning plan for me? How long is this going to take me (to be able to turn out a decent app)? What software do I need to buy (or will the free Express version get me going?) So many questions, so little brain. -- Andy Lacey http://www.minstersystems.co.uk