I entered the programmer's arena thru Access. I needed a small app for keeping track of client orders in my girlfriend's boutique. In the beginning I would resort to wizards and macros for creating forms, tables etc. As I slowly started to get the hang of the underlying mechanisms I started to convert the macros to vba code and was able to see, little by little how the code worked. And so, reading a lots of books on the subject, visiting excellent forums like access.uk, utteraccess, allen brownes etc. I became quite a little expert in both db design and app development, being able to tackle relatively small projects and getting paid for it. Years go by and I progressively enter the asp.net and sql server domain which is where I'm making my living now, being able to do stuff that lot's of people with a CS degree still can only dream about.
So, I think this is a smart move from MS, one they should have made years ago. It's these easy entry-level strategies which are responsible for the gigantic league of MS developpers. Thanks to MS, you don't have to, necessarily, be a masochist in order to become a professional developper.
Regards, Jaime
Discussion on:
Message 6 of 1
The best of ZDNet, delivered
ZDNet Newsletters
Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox
