In 2004 I discovered Visual Studio 2003 and the WebMatrix tool. Having avoided Classic ASP in the days of VB6, I could not wait to sink my fingers into the new tool. I found the IDE to be quite daunting at first but quickly brought myself to speed.
At about the same time, Photoshop also crashed landed into my newbie life. I found myself stuck between development and design. Eventually, I went for the whole deal, I wanted my apps to look slick and polished, so I hit the web and stuffed my 40Gig HD with tons of Photoshop tutorials.
The rest of the story is self explainatory, I got more paractice with graphics than code. When VS 2005 came out, I was quick to dump VS 2003 and MsAccess in favor of SQL express. I must admit, 2005 gave me more than I bargained for, I could do a lot with fewer lines of code! I was simply blown away!
With the numerous 2005 wizards, came lazyness. Yep, I became wizard centred and totally focused on VS controls whilst my code laid stale. This year, I made a decision to go back to the basics, write real code and create real apps. My decision has thrust me into the world of C#, SQL,Javascript, XML, XHTML and CSS.
With these tools at my finger tips, I am aiming for the wall. I am about to demolish the coder's block that been hanging around me for year. I am ready to code!!