A few years back, in the days of VB 6, I gained a real interest in programming. It was the most enjoyable hobby ever invented. Then .Net came around. That, my fellow readers, sent me an a lot of other VB 6 programmers into one heck of a pickle. We had to learn the new programming, and fast, if we were to continue being up to date.
Well, I gave it a whirl. It was a bit of a learning curve at first, but I eventually got the hang of it. However, when I began to encounter more and more hickups that required work-arounds, I became sick and tired of the VB.Net language. I said “I hate this…forget it, I’m trying something else”
I tried a few other languages, including one of my favorites, PHP. I ended up leaving the .Net framework for a very long time.
Fast forward to 2008, and it just occured to me that maybe things are different with .Net now a days. It’s at .Net 3.5, and MS provides a free IDE for it!
So, I downloaded the IDE …cracked that sucker open…and was instantly impressed by all the neat stuff included in the IDE. I began working on a simple checkers demo that utilizes the GDI+ libraries and the .Net 3.5 framework to see how easy it would be.
I must admit, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, and the .Net 3.5 framework have come a long way. I found it very easy to program and design my GUI. Sure, I found another hickup, but it’s not as bad as what had discouraged me before.
When I finish my checkers program, I’ll share it here on this blog. 
