>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?

Learn VB6, ASP and SQL Server (HTML is a must, of course). If you become experienced with ASP (Active Server Pages) you'll get to know VBScript and JavaScript, both very widely used scripting languages (JavaScript by the way is read by any worthwhile browser).

.NET is still in the making and it still remains to be seen whether it will take the development world by storm or just create a bunch of hot air. Honestly, there are some things about .NET that I don't like the sound of (Web Forms for one - sounds too much like those heinous design time controls in Visual InterDev but that's another rant).

In terms of VFP, it is a niche market. There aren't a lot of opportunities for VFP developers involved with NEW development. I don't think you'll have a problem finding VFP jobs, but they tend to be more maintenance oriented (unless you're working with West Wind WebConnect - try Datek Online). I say this from my own personal experience. My last 4 jobs were VFP and every single one of them involved maintaining an existing app or working on an upgrade. When I switched to VB/ASP/SQL I immediatly found a job doing what I love - new development. I love VFP but the work using VFP right now in the Boston area is not as rewarding. I am still doing VFP work for a client (and even development a new mini-app for them) but that is the exception.

In terms of being "hot" on the market, probably the best way is to stay away from Microsoft altogether and learn Oracle, Java and C++ but I'm assuming that you don't have an entire lifetime to spend in training.

Good luck!

-JT