• In my position what is a worthy programming language to learn that will continue to be the standard in dev? .NET? How can I practice? In Visual Studio? Another reason why I ask about an “environment” at home.

    If programming is not what you are looking to do then it really doesn't matter which language. The connection between sql and the programming language is pretty much the same. If however, you want to be current then .NET is probably the most popular today.

    BTW, is visual basic worth learning?

    This has been a debate topic among .NET developers since .NET first came out. There is no right answer but you will find that some people get their panties in a twist over this topic. VB.NET is closer to english than c#. There are few things that VB has that c# doesn't and the other way around. None of the features either way are a deal breaker. I am a c# developer so that would be my preference. In the .NET world both languages compile to the same thing so it really doesn't make much difference. In the job market there tend to be more jobs for c# than vb.net.

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