Any .Net programmers around these parts?

I'm a native C++ programmer at heart, so naturally, writing scripts for the CLI hasn't been my idea of a good time, at least until I discovered how to bridge native and managed code. So now that I've fallen down the rabbit hole into wonderland I'm just curious to meet other .Net programmers so that I can possibly gain a little insight and ideas about the potential of .Net.

If you're a .Net programmer, how long have you been? What sort of things do you use .Net for? Do you have any useful tips for someone who is new to .Net? And most importantly: how can someone such as myself effectively learn his way around the maze of libraries available through the .Net framework?

I've played around with .net before. It really depends on what you want to do . Are you trying to build an application or going web based. .Net offers alot but it's usually one browser that works well with it.

It's also interesting to see another programmer on here. There are times I wish I could bounce ideas off people or learn something new which computers offers that everyday.

.Net is a requirement when building assemblies for SQL Server, and I hear it should be useful to know when I get into ASP.Net web apps.

At work I'm starting to get into .net. I'm moving from html, css, JavaScript, ExtJS and more into MS web technologies. HAve you programmed in silverlight?

Not at all really. I'm not very experienced with MS products, and that's partly the reason for this thread since I'm just starting to program for SQL Server.

I don't believe there is much difference between MySQL, SQL Server and Oracle database. I think the only difference are the functions each database uses.

Right, that's correct when we're talking about Structured Query Language, and there are slight differences. As far as the database engine is concerned though, SQL is like a scripting language. In MS SQL Server, you can use .Net to build extensions for the engine itself, which is a whole other ballgame. I'm pretty sure Oracle allows you to make similar modifications as well but obviously not by using .Net.

Allowing .net extensions should open up a whole new ball game in MS SQL server. Like flexibility unless it's seriously restricted.

It really does, especially if you know how to code efficient algorithms in native C or C++. What I was talking about earlier was bridging native and managed code, so if you build an assembly for SQL Server using a mixed paradigm like that then you can basically program the engine to do anything. There are some security risks and as such there are restrictions, but they can be bypassed with the right credentials (only sysadmins can add those assemblies).

Security risks, yes but if well planned out and some "white hating" you should be able to catch those risks before they are exploited.