>.Net at this point is vapor. Even if released today, it will still be 2 years before there is widespread adoption. There simply is no payback for being on the bleeding edge..
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Well, not at the going rates for a pint of blood...
>As for what to learn today, VB/SQL. I know you posted this in a VFP forum. Still, somebody fresh to the programming ranks, in good conscience, cannot be told to take up VFP. There are only so many hours in the day to learn. One has to make a choice. VB has the biggest upside with respect to finding opportunities..
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You can take up VFP, and if your marketplace stays focused on the types of apps that VFP is centered on, it's not a bad choice. OTOH, an investment in both VB and SQL pays off not only in their own environments, but across the board - VB translates to VBScript, VBA and related areas, SQL ( particularly T-SQL in conjunction with ADO) will apply to almost any data-centric application, regardless of language, and the concepts apply uniformly across platforms and to some extent across products.
IOW, even if VB or SQL Server do not become your poredominant development environment, the knowledge you gain will apply to other language platforms and areas of the MS world; VFP is not applicable as widely, and is going tgo offer few benefits outside VFP itself compared to VB.
If the target is an income in the next 6-12 months is the specific issue, well, you're dead on about .NET not being the way to go, since we're looking at a year or so before a live deployment goes, and having seen the MSDN distribution of the Whistler Beta at last, probably a good deal longer before the whole thing ready to serve to the general public.
>I can't wait for the enlightened responses to this post...< s >....
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Can I get an amen here, bro?
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>>If someone wants to change profession and get a job as a programmer within next 6-12 months, what should he study? Should he study VFP/VB/MSSQL now and work his way up to .NET or should he go straight to .NET (although still in early beta but functional and stable) and MSSQL?
