Dot-Net, or Not Yet?

Experiment. True to VCDJ heritage, our .NET articles focus on how-to. Starting in this issue—and continuing through January—we're walking you through creating an e-commerce site using C# and other .NET technologies. Follow the steps, then play around with the project, adding features of your own. Let me know what you come up with: e-mail vcdjedit@fawcette.com.

Decide what matters to you. You know your business best. There may well be parts of VS.NET or Microsoft's .NET strategy you can safely ignore. Consider how—and whether—these new technologies might affect you and your company, then focus on learning what you need to. You'll get to the other stuff when you have time. One additional thought along this line, though: Just because you don't need to know C# in your current job doesn't mean you won't need to know it in your next. Stay up-to-date; you'll be glad you did.

Don't freak out. It'll be months before VS.NET ships; you've still got time to get your arms around it. Learn a little at a time. Before long, as you're writing your VC++ code for today's projects, you'll see how you'd do the same thing—but better—in VS.NET. And once again, you're ahead of the curve. Nice going.