When I first began this time away from employment, I decided that refreshing some tech skills would be a good use of a portion. I learned to be moderately conversant with two free (as in beer and as in speech) systems: a programming language called PHP and a database called MySQL. In fact, I wrote most of the code that powers this website using those two things.
But time keeps moving along the Y axis, so to speak, and I still find myself with free (as in unpaid) time. Scoble was very vocal about learning C# and look where it got him: a tasty job with the company with which he most wanted to work. One benefit for me in him going there is cheap access to software at the company store and so yesterday a nice box with many CDs inside showed up at my door. So many CDs, in fact, that combined with the slow speed on my CD drive, installation took something like two and a half hours.
C# is significantly more complex than PHP or any other language I’ve learned before. I did get somewhat familiar with Java at my last employer, including writing product documentation for a pre-J2EE (at the time) application server, but never to the extent of actually being able to write real applications with it. And I’m not saying I expect to become the next Chris Brumme or Rob Fahrni, just to name two well known C# ‘Softies. Today (so far) I sat down, made sure the VS.NET IDE actually starts up and does the basics, and cracked open a book called C#: A Beginner’s Guide by veteran author Herbert Schildt and read Chapter One. Now that my brain muscles hurt, I need a break. Good thing I have this blog.
BillSaysThis 