However, all I know is HTML and some JavaScript. OK, stop laughing! ANyway, because of my job, my technology training has suffered. (I haven't gotten any). So, now that my job has been refocused from all over the place to more of a developer stand point, and our company is moving to a .NET development arena, what can I do to catch up?
What are the steps I need to take as far as learning different languages and technologies to get from HTML to .NET? Please be kind. Thanks!
Well HTML is totally different from the .Net platform and family of languages. What part of .Net would you want to learn? I'm guessing you want to learn ASP.Net - well okay. You would have to look at different tutorials and other peoples code to get an insight into the basic functions of ASP.Net, the .Net framework and how different it is from standard, classic ASP. Look around Microsoft's MSDN library as well as that is rather interesting.
Did you know that you can write ASP.Net applications in Javascript? If you feel your skills are good at that that may be the course of action that you may want to go with. If you also want to include desktop applications into the mix then you will need to learn a programming language. While Visual Basic may be the easiest language to learn, Javascript's syntax is similar to that of the C language, and C#, Java, C++ all follow the same syntax and can be used to develop applications in .Net. C# would be the easiest of the three to learn. Plus it has the advantage of having tons of examples on the Web. Visual Basic also has a huge following on the web.
Some years back, I went back to college and learned Visual Basic 6, then upgraded to .Net on my own after it came out. I bought books on C, C++, and C# to help learn them.
If you have never visited 4guysfromrolla.com (http://www.4guysfromrolla.com) or www.asp.net (http://www.asp.net) check them out. They are two of the better sites for information on asp.net
www.asp.net has links to free developmental tools that can be used to help learn how to write asp.net applications.
The best advice anyone can give you is to get some of the developmental tools, read the web or some programming books and then just start writing simple projects. Hello world is the standard first project for many.
Good Luck
Very good information. Like weazel, I would suggest taking a look at MSDN ASP.NET developer center (http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/)
and don't be shy to take a look at the others as well, including C# (http://msdn.microsoft.com/vcsharp/). I'd have to go with miranda, the best way to get going is to read and practice(I guess you can practice programming :p ). The more you read and the more projects you do, the more comfortable you're going to get with with .NET framework, as well as the programming languges you're doing.