Found that website yesterday called Code Chronicles -
basically it starts out as a guide to coding, starting with FORTRAN 1 and
finishing on PHP 5.2.3, Ruby 1.9, C# 3.0 and others. This looks quite nice, the
aim is to show that the differences between programming languages not being
that big. Well, I’m rather sceptical about the informative aspects of the site
as there’s almost no information about languages not related to ASP.Net. I
guess the true intention was to get developers to learn Microsoft’s framework.
What was actually interesting, were all the tutorial videos
in the support section. It was the first time I saw silverlight, by the way; i
like the control one has over playing the vids by right clicking - never saw
that in Flash. Anyway, there are quite a few tutorials, with Microsoft assuming
some users would be starting from scratch, and some with experience with other
languages, like the 'ASP.NET from a PHP Perspective' video. I watched a few of
those videos, some of them can be helpful I think - they're a bit more than
simple demos. Reminded me a bit of the podcasts on BoagWorld.
Beside all the information provided on the site, which is
pretty much all marketing babble and which I would recommend cross-referencing
(stuff like Microsoft's claiming that using PHP on IIS is common), it may be
worth the while. The tutorials are rather good, and there's the option to
download Visual Web Developer 2008 and SQL Server (Express Editions). I’ve got mixed
feelings, as even the tutorials seem bugged – had to watch them in fullscreen,
the vid wouldn’t shrink to the frame.