Hi kevin,

I thought Kevin McNeish's book was a great beginning for experienced VFP developers to try to move into the world of dotnet. Granted it is not as indepth as all of the others but I think it is a great starting point and the developer can move into more indepth information from there. Just my personal opinion...

:o)
Tracy

>Cecil,
>
>First, I'm very sorry to hear about your brother. My brother was very ill a while back, so I have at least a small idea.
>
>As to your question, let me give you my two cents:
>
>1) I'm not a believer that an existing developer needs to sit through classes. I'm not saying they don't have value, but I believe there are better (and cheaper) ways to get from point 'a' to point 'b'.
>
>2) Single best advice...sit down with VS.NET, download some code from all the great free sites (codeproject, http://www.syncfusion.com/faq/winforms/, etc.) and start 'messing around'.
>
>Take a piece of an app that you've worked on, and come up with a prototype in .NET. Don't worry if you don't get it all right the first time, it's OK to refactor 2 or 3 times.
>
>3) As for books...here is (in my view) the very best of the best
>
>a) Essential C#, by O-Reilly Press (it's a thin paperback, but has some great little code snippets...I have never seen such a small book pack such a big punch
>
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596003153/qid=1087574965/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-3728003-2290567?v=glance&s=books
>
>b) Essential ADO.NET, by Bob Beauchemin
>
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0201758660/qid=1087575009/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-3728003-2290567?v=glance&s=books
>
>c) Microsoft ADO.NET reference...this one is a tad pricey, but is an awesome reference
>
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0735614237/qid=1087575251/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-3728003-2290567?v=glance&s=books
>
>
>d) There's a great book by Jesse Libery, "Programming C"
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596004893/qid=1087574879/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-3728003-2290567?v=glance&s=books
>
>e) If you're working with Crystal Reports at all...this one is AWESOME
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0974953652/qid=1087575066/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-3728003-2290567?v=glance&s=books
>
>f) and of course, I've saved one of the best for last... .NET for VFP developers (Kevin McNeish)...this has some very good chapters on C# and VB.NET...I've read through this three times now and get more out of it each time
>
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1930919301/qid=1087575100/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-3728003-2290567?v=glance&s=books
>
>There are other good titles out there..but these are the best. Take note I didn't include any books on winforms...there are a few good ones out there (Chris Sells has a good one called "Windows Forms Programming in C#"...but the truth is that the syncfusion winforms faq section has so much sample code up there, that any books on winforms aren't really needed that much)
>
>I just saw that someone recommended Deitel - they're also good to get started. They're a tad 'basic', but they are generally well-recommended.
>
>So that's maybe $200 or so...and you'll get much more out of it...but above all, experiment...build some stuff...the same concepts/mindset/approaches you used to learn other tools should apply.
>
>Kevin