Hi, Jay,

How did you begin the transition from Foxpro to .NET? Formal courses, conversion of apps or just jumped in with some books?

I agree with everything John has said to you (especially the part about staying away from expensive courses), and I'll throw out some references for you.

In message #915125 and message #897439, I have some specific book and website references.

At the risk of repeating what's in those messages, the on-line places where I get the best information are the .NET forum of the UT, www.gotnetforum.com, www.codeproject.com, and the .NET newsgroups on Microsoft's public news server (msnews.microsoft.com).

Pull up profiles of people like Bonnie Berent and Cathi Gero and scan through their solutions on the .NET forum - you'll see many instances where they answered questions along the lines of "I could do such-and-such in VFP, how can I do it in .NET?"

Also, George Shepherd's Winforms FAQ (www.syncfusion.com/faq/winforms) is one of the best sites for Winforms. Many have used this constantly.

Even to this day, I'm finding more and more great web sites for .NET. My IE folder for .NET has about 50 web sites.

I started out almost 3 years ago by taking pieces of VFP apps (as John said, one by one) and figuring out how I could do it in C#/ADO.NET. Aside from learning a new technology, I think this process can make one a better developer overall. .NET is more 'code-centric' and also more extendable, so building a good toolkit is very important.

At this point, I've been involved in 4 .NET database apps (2 web-based and 2 'desktop'), and have generally approached the 'comfort level' that I've had with VFP. (It hasn't been easy, believe me, it's a big learning curve - though I think it's a bit easier than 2 years ago, because of the increasing amount of information).

And above all, ignore the posts of those who demonstrate their fear and ignorance of anything beyond VFP by resorting to responses like 'sleep with .NET for dummies' under your pillow. (Unless you find a need for some comic relief by asking what they might be sleeping with under their pillow!)

Kevin