Is it wise for amateur to invest time in NET Framework languages?

[Renegade]

The big drawback to .NET is people won't try your program if they have to install yet another framework.  It tends to make you use what you figure most people already have on like .NET 2.x features.

-MilesAhead (November 21, 2014, 09:24 AM)

That might have been a consideration at one point... but that point is pretty far gone.  You can plan on .NET 4 at least currently (and that's what I code to).

-wraith808 (November 21, 2014, 10:01 AM)

+1

I'd go further though. I'd actively discourage people from using 2.0.

.NET 2.0 was just .NET 2.0, but later on MS split .NET into the .NET client profile and .NET full profile.

The problem there is that if you used some methods in .NET 2.0, they might not be in the client profile, and may require the full profile, making them no longer forward compatible for practical purposes for users who don't know the difference.

.NET 4.0 won't run on XP, but, sigh... something has to be sacrificed somewhere...

[sujayg]

I come from a background in C/++ with STL/ Win32 and MFC, and when I was told to learn C#, it seemed yuck. But I had to learn it , while at work, and now I find that C# can do stuff quicker than C++. And more over, C# is better supported by Microsoft in terms of usage with its future products, Offfice Development being an excellent example. Not that Office Development cant be done in C++, but C# makes it much easier to . So learning C# is advantageous . I cant comment on Java, as I have never worked on that , but .NET has its Java counterparts.

But Python should be a must on your list, it is easy and very powerful . I started with Python, and found it easy to pick up . Python has C# and C++ bindings and though I am not an expert in Python, but I see there is lots of potential in it.

[Ath]

.NET 4.0 won't run on XP, but, sigh...

-Renegade (November 21, 2014, 05:43 PM)

That's a typo, right? 4.0 will run on XP, but 4.5 won't.

[Renegade]

.NET 4.0 won't run on XP, but, sigh...

-Renegade (November 21, 2014, 05:43 PM)

That's a typo, right? 4.0 will run on XP, but 4.5 won't.

-Ath (December 12, 2014, 01:46 AM)

You could be right.

IIRC 4.0 (pulling from memory here from a few years ago) needs XP SP3. Or something like that...

[Ath]

Running XP without SP3 seems like SM to me, but yes, that's a prereq. for .NET 4.0