>>>>>OK, I am considering throwing in the towel. I have decided to give dotnet a try.
>>>>>
>>>>>One thing that will really help you to get up and running quickly is to use a commercial application framework to build your first apps. I started out using Strataframe, which was good, but, to the best of my knowledge, only handles WinForms apps well and has some limited functionality for webforms.
>>>>>
>>>>>A pricier way to go would be to look into DevExpress. Not only do they have and application framework to support all flavors of .NET apps, they have an awesome suite of controls and a reporting engine that puts VFP's report writer to shame.
>>>>
>>>>Hi Marcia,
>>>>
>>>>I am a candidate for a job as .net programmer in a local software company. They don't require any .net skills as such, but they require a wide experience with OOP, plus some additional knowledge, it's some of these additional skills, together with my experience with VFP and some other technologies which makes me very well suited for the job. They had an interview with me yesterday, and I got a very good feeling. Unfortunately I forgot to ask, and they forgot to tell me, about which platform(s) and tools they use. However, I don't want to start from scratch with c#, so I want to "play" a bit with it to get a basic knowledge. I already feel relatively comfortable with c# as a language, with platforms, framework and all that I think it's best to play safe for now.
>>>
>>>If your going to be working for another company you'll obviously be using their tools/framework/work practices - so, yes, stick to getting familiar with C# in general - maybe just play with console apps and the debugger.
>>
>>
>>That's what I have been doing so far. But I missed those buttons and all the other visual controls, though. So I started experimenting with WinForms, but something in the back of my head told me to ask you guys (and dolls..) for directions, to avoid starting in the wrong end.
>
>Don't go in too deep with either WinForms or WPF - if you get the job and they are not using the one you've been playing with then you'll have the wrong picture in your head because they are *very* different...
>
>There's tons of stuff to experiment with from the console : Abstract classes, interfaces, generics, linq, async, parallel processing, etc. etc. - all things that you'll need regardless of the UI


I would add a good understanding of the GC and understand when and why to use Dispose()