Newbie :) Where do I start?

Hello all, first post.

So after years of wanting to try to write a software application, I decided to give it a go. My question is, which application or language should I start with? After looking around a bit, I thought Visual Studio 2005 Basic Express might be the ticket? I have no idea.

I want to make a very specific scheduling application for my business, that can be used on a windows machine (NT, 2000, XP) and also a MAC (OSX) system. I also would like people to be able to access some of the schedule on an HTML page. The one thing that I would like to implement is a nice user interface. I am not opposed to using any program, just want to make sure I start out on the right foot. Someone suggested REALbasic would be the way to go http://www.realsoftware.com/

Any help for a first timer with a lot of patience would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance :)

Kilgorwell, it DOES depend what you want to do.

If you need to do something web-based, why not try WebMatrix?
My suggestion would be to get yourself a book or two for starters. As you are all new to the game, you may just as well choose C# as your preferred language, but if you want to learn you should not try to cut corners that does a lot of work for you. To become any good you need to know the basics and there is no easy way. You need to read and get practice by doing.

Now for the books, there are many. And I will leave it up to someone else to recommend these to avoid getting entangled in a debate about which one is best :)

Well, I'll mention 2 books just for the h*ll of it:

- Asp.Net Unleashed, Stephen Walther, SAMS (Although VB.Net I found it very well written)
- Microsoft Visual C# .Net Step by Step, John Sharp/Jon Jagger, Microsoft Press
Thanks guys,

I have a couple questions

1) I am not sure what C# is compared to C++ or even .net

2) My goal is to write and app for Windows as well as MAC.

3) One concern I have with asp.net is that everything I see written in that looks like a web page. I am looking to design an interface that is a little more "aqua" like than a flat tab web
page.

Any more ideas or directions for dummys (not really) would be helpful.

Thanks

Kilgor
so you're saying you want to write an actual desktop application? maybe ASP.NET is not for you then.

if you want to write for Mac and Windows (I hate to say this) your best bet might be Java - though I suspect Mono will allow you to deploy .NET code on the Mac using GTK+ (?) instead of Windows.Forms.

However if you're this tentative and green, you might be being far too ambitious in trying to jump in this deep right out of the blocks. start out smaller.

> One concern I have with asp.net is that everything I see written in that looks like a web page.

The reason for that is because that's what ASP.NET does, basically. Web pages. Not desktop apps.