I came across this blog post on the habits of aspiring software developers. Although I'm way past school I thought the point (#6) on emotional investment in pet projects compared to assignments rings true. In my experience, I have taken on voluntary work in my own time and developed a primary school website with a CMS to allow self adminstration. It's an ideal platform to try out new things like version updates to .NET Framework and coding styles and even though my kids are no longer there I keep in contact with the Head to progress enhancements - one of the reasons is the emotional investment in my software! Anyway the front-end is a little shaky in Firefox so I know that my CSS needs some attention.....

I've been working with Microsoft's eLearning packages on and off for a few months now. The Collection 5160 covers 7 Courses considered as part of a 'Core Development' skill set. In a sense, I find these courses useful as a starting point, but they really only serve to whet the appetite for more information. Anyway I've always found that reading around a subject is necessary for reinforcement and as a matter of course I've done some googling as well as referring to my Safari bookshelf and MSDN. Writing some console applications and getting them working really helps cement the ideas in place and are also good for later referral.

For example, last night I was working on delegates and events. I worked through the eLearning material but found some of the examples either too brief or simply error-strewn and poorly explained. A quick search on EventArgs on my Safari bookshelf and some really useful examples are described in Donis Marshall's C# book and some advanced stuff to get to grips with in Bill Wagner's Effective C#. This morning I've quickly followed up on the eLearning environment's online forums, however not a lot of peer review goes on here and the moderators are non-existent bar the obligatory 1st post explaining how happy they are to help!

In summary, my overall approach to learning new technologies is based on knowing that passing the exam is not really going to be the end of the road. Especially with v3.0 and v3.5 to learn on top. There is no substitute for really understanding your stuff. Microsoft eLearning could do with putting this approach into practice.

Having been training myself up in VS2005 and C# 2.0 it's interesting to note the current MSDN homepage pushing VS "Orcas" for download. Also, having come across the last episode of the .NET Show, LINQ is getting highlighted as a key part of the next raft of features for the platform. These events have focussed me to look around for resources on LINQ to get an appreciation of this new architecture for data access.

So far I am working my way through an MSDN webcast on LINQ from Nov 2006 (Google is still by far the easiest way to find anything on MSDN!) and the text-based resources for LINQ on MSDN are nicely set out although a little dry.

This got me looking further afield but there are not many books out at the moment which deal exclusively with LINQ, but "LINQ In Action" by Manning has an easy-to-read introduction which is free on their website - one great quote is, "You can think of LINQ as a universal remote control". Might Should Will invest in the eBook when the time is right.

Quite when I'll download Orcas is another matter. I'd like to appreciate VS2005 a little bit more first off (beyond the basic Console Applications which I've been running to consolidate my C# 2.0 learning).

I've persuaded my employers to allow me to undertake some online learning instead of a traditional lecture/tutorial-style course. I've opted to take the Core & Advanced Development for .NET 2.0. The pluses for me are: flexible study pattern and that it has plenty in common for the 70-536 exam.

I have decided to go for this exam first to firmly cement the enhancements to C# in my conciousness. With a better background of the fundamentals I think 70-528 will be a more natural progression. I was influenced by others on this matter.

I've registered for Google Apps in order to make use of Google Docs. This online application allows me to make ongoing notes on all topics wherever I may be and the basic version I have signed up for is free (you get 2GB online storage which is more than enough for me). The GUI is excellent for an online application and includes useful features such as auto-saving as you go along, straightforward image upload & insertion, and I can download and convert a document into another format in a couple of clicks. e.g. to MS Word, PDF etc. And, of course, being Google you can search through all of your documents too.

I recently bought the Microsoft exam preparation books from Amazon.com, taking advantage of both the $/£ exchange rate and a 15% exam discount voucher for each of the 3 exams which comes with the books.

Why am I starting a blog?

Basically I want to keep a track of the new things I learn in the field of ASP.NET, .NET development in general and SQL Server.

I'm looking to take on .NET v2.0 and SQL Server 2005 as my application development platform of choice. My current employer is also agreed with the move from v1.1 and SQL Server 2000, although my time does seem almost fully consumed with day-to-day issues making migration difficult to start. I'm inclined to believe that I will not have the time to make inroads into the new features and tools during my working days so I'm looking to train up in my own limited spare time. Given that I want the maximum from this effort, I'm particularly interested in following the certification routes. Having gained my MCP in ASP.NET way back in July 2005 it is time to make some headway into v2.0 and consolidate my development skills. I've convinced myself that blogging will help put my progress in a useful context.

By the way, I'm using DasBlog and it's certainly recommended by me. It's pretty straightforward to setup, the help files are clearly written and the error messages are spot-on (e.g. it tells you what to ask of your hosting provider). So far so good on that front.