>Hi everybody. I haven't been around in a while. I did something really stupid. I left a good, comfortable job to take a chance on what seemed like a dream job. It turned out to be a nightmare.
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>So, now I'm unemployed. There isn't a big FoxPro market in my area, so I'm going to have to find some new skills. Most comapnies around here do Visual Basic or C++. I think I'd have a better chance teaching myself VB, so that's the direction I'm headed.
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>What I'm posting this for is to see if anyone has any suggestions on the best way to get up to speed in VB in a short amount of time. My husband has a couple VB5 books. Is VB6 close enough to 5 that they're usable, or do I need to get something more recent? Any good books for people that already know a visual language?
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>I know any search engine would turn up thousands of VB resources, but I'm coming here because I want the opinion of fellow Foxers, not some reviewer that thinks VB is the be all and end all of languages. I know, first thing I need to do is lose the negative attitude towards VB. :)
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>Any (helpful) suggestions on what I should do, VB or other, would be appreciated. I don't have much in savings, so whatever I do I need to do quick.
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>Thanks,
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>Michelle

Michelle,

A wise choice! I think you'll find VB development much more rewarding because of the high demand and a lot more NEW development projects you'll have the opportunity to work on. Plus, VB isn't all that bad - you can do just about everything you can do in VFP (albeit slower) and using ADO is pretty cool.

I recommend you purchase Murah's Visual Basic 6 (that's how I'm learning). It really covers the database development aspect of VB and client/server quite thoroughly and the exercises are useful. The VB GUI tools (VB forms and controls) are actually somewhat superior to VFP IMHO.

Also Michelle, lots of employers are looking for people with WEB development skills so LEARN ASP!!!!! You won't regret it (and you may as well throw in some HTML, VBScript and SQL Server while you're at it!)

Best of luck,

-JT