I am about 5 or 6 years behind the curve on this one? talk about a slow learner huh?

Better to learn slow and understand, than skipping from language to language not going deep in any.

Honestly, about 6 months ago I had a "Oh man, what am I doing sticking with C++?! I'm missing out on everything, I should be learning C#!" moment. Then I shrugged, and remembered that if I know C++ (or any language) well enough, and go deep in it, then picking up a new language can happen almost overnight ([size=2]mild exaggeration to underline point). Case in point: I just learned PHP in 45 days and most of that time was spent using it, not learning it - Learning PHP wasn't even my goal. 90% of programming is knowledge common between all languages. 5% is syntax. 5% is language-specific features. ([size=2]Warning: percentages made up and guessed at)

You spent 5 - 6 years learning how to program. It just so happened that the language you used was C#, which will remain useful to you for at least another 5 years even as you learn more languages on the side. It just so happens that the language I use is C++, will remain useful to me for at least another 5 years even as I learn more languages on the side. What's the problem, exactly? You spent 5 years gaining alot of knowledge that will remain relevant and valuable for most of the rest of your life, and a little knowledge that has a 5 or more year expiration date. Sounds like a good deal to me.

"Oh man, I feel like such an idiot! I just spent 5 years learning Latin, and then found out that nobody speaks it anymore! What a waste!" - Learning one additional language makes it much easier to learn a third, and a fourth, and so on.

Do you think other programming languages don't use memory, variables, functions, if(), while(), and other bunches of tidbits that you learned? Learning your first programming language is alot harder than learning your second or third. More importantly, do you not realize how the entire way your brain functions and processes information has changed since you learned programming?

Your intelligence has grown from being forced to stretch your mind in new ways. "Oh man, I feel like such an idiot! I just spent 5 years gaining pure intelligence! What a waste!"

My personal approach in learning new tech/programming languages is applying the knowledge you have to problems/tasks you care about, rather than reading through crap loads of text/tutorials, as I find I don't overcome legitimate problems on my own and I then have no need to remember how to fix them.

I think, certainly from a programming/development point of view, actually DOING is going to go a longer way than just beating around the bush about it.

As far as the future of C# is concerned, XNA is still a great platform, firstly to express/learn/experiment, but to also to just get stuff out there. You are in a good position to start off in bit of Unity too...

Worst case scenario, you don't go into games specifically (and earn more / work less hours in some cases ;) )

Encapsulating Yoda, just do, enjoy what you do, be passionate about it and show it off!

Hope that helps

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Hope that helps

it does, all the feedback just reassures me that i'm not alone and to keep working on it...

to put things in perspective, the last academic programming i did was with assembly, fortran, and pascal... (ya, that long ago), but professionally over the past 10 years, mostly web and scripting (html, xml, asp, and wsh). so, its' been a bit of challenge to "think" OOP, cause my foundation was so strong in procedural.

i'm getting through it though, and the practice will come.