Got .NET?

Recently, while wetting my feet with a few programming languages (Ruby, Haskell, Common Lisp, Python, C, C++) I came to the realisation - learning a new programming language is hard.

Generally, programming languages are classified into one or more of these categories:

• Object-oriented
• Dynamic
• Functional
• DSL (Domain specific language)

 Some being statically (strongly) typed (ex. C#, VB.NET, Java, C/C++) and some dynamically typed (ex. JavaScript, Ruby, Python, Groovy, Dart). Also, general programming languages (previously mentioned) differ from domains specific languages  - even though some DSL are general programming languages too, for example:

• Microsoft Dynamics implementations
• Nodejs
• SAS
• Objective-C

HTML and CSS are DSL's too! Then again, you get DSL's built upon DSL's (DSSL - Domain-specific specific language?) such as CoffeeScript, Haml and Less.

So, before wandering too far off, I thought it'd be good to share some resources that have helped me conquer the mountain of learning .NET (Not including the MSDN):

• http://www.asp.net/
• http://www.asp.net/mvc
• http://channel9.msdn.com/
• http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/mvcConf
• http://www.pluralsight-training.net/ (Excellent! Well worth the price!)
• http://www.hanselman.com/blog/
• http://omaralzabir.com/
• http://haacked.com/
• http://stevesmithblog.com/ 
• http://karlshifflett.wordpress.com/
• http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/
• http://www.codeproject.com/
• http://kentb.blogspot.com/
• http://wpfdisciples.wordpress.com/

and finally

• http://stackoverflow.com/

Here are some interesting reads to pass the time:

• The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology
• Coding Horror: Programming and Human Factors

Perhaps in the future I will expand this list, but for now: Happy Coding!