Craig:

Thank you, I'll look in to these resources and take on C# first.

You are correct, my customers cannot force me to use this or that but . . . They do know what tools are being used since all this has to pass through PA-DSS audits. I can either fight the system that signs my checks or get borged and go with the flow. From what others have shared this C# etc. isn't that bad however may not be, from a purists position, the best solution. But then I'm no purist.

BTW, SLC is a nice place to live. Go straight (more or less) east on Hwy 40 and you'll pass through my home town, Maybell CO.

>www.pluralsight.com has great training resources
>Any of the Murach books are good
>
>Don't try to grasp all of it at once. Learn C# first as you'll need it for the other stuff.
>
>BTW, your processor can't truely specify any of what you've said. They can specify .NET, but can't force you to choose C#, SIlverlight, Winforms, or SQL Server. If you had a VB.NET console app running against MySQL, the processor wouldn't know nor should they care.
>
>>The day came when I had to make the decision about replacing VFP. My marketplace, payment processors, banks, etc., made the decision for me and it is . . .
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>> . . . . . . . . (open the envelope please) . . . . . . . .
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>>C# / Silverlight / Winforms / SQL Server.
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>>Recommendations appreciated as to the most effective way to start climbing the learning curve?
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>>I have 1 to 2 years before I have to be fully productive, but would like to do something productive while learning. For that I have an old dBase-V application (yes dBase, circa 1985) I can migrate. It's fairly simple and much of what I do can be applied to payment processing. In the meantime, if (when) I do something stupid with the old app it won't be the end of the world.