Parent has a good point. I have taken my fair share of programming coursework, but learned most of my current skill-set on my own. This did not include C#, but did include C++, Java, Perl, Python, and Fortran. When interviewing for a job, these languages interested the company. However, when they came back with an offer, it was for coding in C# for a particular need they had.

If you already know a bit of C++ and Java, C# is not difficult to pick up, and is used heavily with the .NET environment in many businesses today. I'll be the first to admit...as a diehard Mac/Linux user, it hurt to have to program for the Windows environment and using M$ tools...but it's really not as bad as I originally made it out to be.

Also important, is to realize that no company that will be hiring a graduate straight out of a BS/BA will expect them to be able to write a massive program immediately or on their own. Most programming houses will have you working in a development team, of which you will slowly integrate, and will only be working on small pieces of a much larger program.

Not a bad article? If you click off of page one, things go downhill pretty fast. Last time I checked, XPs hibernate mode wrote the RAM image to disk and turned the machine off. And when is the last time you saw a laptop that had a NiCd battery pack???