Keep your eyes and ears open for your company's job posting and apply for the job you're interested in... if you see one. Since you're already an employee there, they'll probably be less strict on experience requirement. That's how I got into SQL Server development job from foxpro, which lead to C#, ASP and BO. Also ask if you can start using .NET (or whatever) for new developemnts.

Good luck


Oops. I did it again.



>(Sorry if it's a bit long)
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>I'm looking for your advices to get my career back on track. Not that I don't have a job (I have one and I have no plan of going elsewhere for now), but I'm worrying about what will come after this job (almost no job last forever).
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>To give you a little background on myself, I've been programming since 1990 mostly desktop applications with VFP. Not that I'm totally in love with that tool, but I'm kind of stuck in a vicious circle. I get VFP job propositions because I have a lot of VFP experience and I have a lot of VFP experience because I mainly get VFP job. I would really like to get out of this vicious circle, even more so with the fade-out of VFP in a near future (please do not start a thread war on this).
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>I have touched a little bit of C++, VB, C# and ASP.NET, but really not enough to pretend being more than a debutant in these tools. I know enough SQL Server to create tables and simples stored proc, but I'm far from being a DBA. I don't know any other tools other than their names and from what I read/hear about them.
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>My analysis skill is not at the level I would like it to be. I know little UML and I always have a hard time coming up with specifications that won't need constant modifications during the development process because I didn't see the whole picture in the analysis phase. Not to mention that I'm terrible at doing estimates...
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>I confess that I have been lazy in the past couple of years and didn't try very hard to keep pace of all the technology changes. Now I feel that I'm way behind technology-speaking and since I still have about 25 years of work ahead of me, it's scaring me a bit.
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>I'm trying to decide on were to put my energy first. Should I try to boost my analysis skills first? If yes, how? I don't see many courses or books that teach you how to do a good and complete analysis. I never worked in a company that believe in the analysis phase more than drawing a rough picture and giving estimates that came out of a hat, so I don't have a model to base myself on.
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>Should I learn how to develop web applications? I never was attracted to web development and I would rather stay in good old desktop-based forms applications, but the market seems to look a lot for web-development skills.
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>For the language, C# seem imposing itself to me since I already know the basics and I have some work experience. But I need to know it more before I can have a chance of getting a job in C#.
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>I don't mind going back to school, but not at full time. A local university offers a program on internet development, but it will take me more than a year to complete part time.
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>What about aiming for a MSCD title? Will this help?
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>VS 2008 is coming out soon. Should I wait for it or VS 2005 is good enough?
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>Any suggestions will be appreciated.
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>TIA