Quote Originally Posted by Masterx View Post
your welcome well you know , the most precious thing that you have , is the time you are spending , so don't waste it . i think you are not a hardcore programmer , just some one who desires to learn programming for fun and not for business ! that said , you really should see what you are after not what you think might come in handy ! C# is great for everyone and ideal for beginners , because grasping the concept in c# is a lot easier to me compared to c++, c# is object oriented and has everything you can ever imagine. just make sure you don't waste your time on sth you wont be using much. im saying this because all of the hard chores you need to do in C++ to make a working application,most of the time is done easily in c#, (choose c++ unless you plan to work on driver/os programming unless go c#) trust me before going for c++, have a taste of C#, if you didnt like it go learn C++.
by learning C# you can develop windows based application
by learning C# you can develop web based application
by learning C# you can utilize silver light !
and etc
c# gives you the power of going in any direction whenever you wish to ,as you can see you by learning C# you can get really productive in terms of programming , you wont regret it .

i sincerely wish you success and hope you make the right decision !
Those examples you have mentioned are interesting.

And yes I am definitely a hobbyist. I am killing time in a temporary job, while waiting for my profession, and old job to call. Instead of watching a DVD I feel productive doing mental gymnastics.

All I ever wanted to write was simple programs that help my life out with tiny things. But nothing real world (other than those textbook examples) seems to be simple. I.e. I figured I would write a proggy that reads my schedule from a PDF file, and filters data, then sorts it the way I want. I had no idea that understanding PDF files is a science. Then I figured I write something with a GUI. Learned that winapi is not just one missing chapter from the book I did. Next I figured I'd try and write a program that logs me into my company's RA automatically. Ohhh boy... So I am far from being able to do anything other than those practice examples. But the good thing is there is no pressure. I can walk away and take a break whenever.

All that you wrote seems appealing. So I will definitely reconsider. Any C# book recommendation? I see there is a C# Primer Plus. I did like the C Primer Plus a lot.