I Love Programming

I spent all of my working life programming computers. Developing software is both my avocation and my vocation. I started too early in the game to have had the advantage of computers in school and home, but now my home will never be without computers of some size and shape. I can't wait to see what the future holds.

I started developing business applications for mainframe computers in COBOL. COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language) works very well for business applications, but it is verbose and quite boring. It also takes a long time to design and implement a large business application.

I first learned web development using Active Server Pages when I went to a small company that customized a financial package written in Visual Basic. They had a client who wanted a purchasing module replicated as a web site for their employees to purchase supplies. Thanks to internet tutorials and newsgroups, plus half a dozen books, I completed my first database connected ASP site. What a blast! The worst part about COBOL applications was waiting to see what they looked like. The instant gratification of web development is something that really appeals to me.

When I was working on COBOL applications at Tandem Computers we had company-wide email beginning in the early 80's. Instead of using the internet as a reference we had the entire company to rely on. Tandem employees went out of their way to help each other. If someone in my own department didn't know the answer, someone would answer an email query with the answer or a reference to another person who could help. Since leaving Tandem I've turned to the World Wide Web for answers to specific questions, tutorials, and other people's experience.

Since writing my first ASP site I have worked as a web developer and database developer using ASP, ADO, and MS SQL Server. I am currently studying unobtrusive Javascript, SQL Server 2005, complex T-Sql, ASP.NET 2.0 as well as working with Silverlight. I use this web site as my playground. The site is now hosted on ORCSWeb so that I can convert it to ASP.NET 2.0. I recently upgraded the database to SQL Server 2005.

The very first site that I used for ASP help was Kevin Spencer's TAKempis ASP site. The tutorials and discussion groups were invaluable for this beginner. There are many sites with tutorials, examples, and discussion groups. Many of the original ASP sites now deal with ASP.NET. Below are some of the Links that I have found helpful.

ASP Links

Charles Carroll's Learn ASP	ASP.NET and Classic ASP Resources - email lists, book reviews, tutorials, classes, downloads and more.
ASP Alliance	ASP Alliance now stands for Active Software Professionals Alliance. This is a community for free tutorials, articles, examples, and code snippets. ASP Alliance has diversified from ASP and ASP.NET resources to resources for all kinds of NET development.
ASP.net Forums	Microsoft's Discussion Forums for ASP.net and .net languages.
Carl Prothman	Carl Prothman's site has both personal information and technology articles. This site has the largest collection of connection strings on the internet. This reference is invaluable for connecting to a database.
4 Guys From Rolla	"Welcome to 4GuysFromRolla.com! If you want to learn about Active Server Pages, you've come to the right place! 4Guys has been around providing free ASP information since September, 1998! We're one of the largest resources of Active Server Pages information on the Net!"

CSS Links

World Wide Web Consortium	"The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential. W3C is a forum for information, commerce, communication, and collective understanding. On this page, you'll find W3C news, links to W3C technologies and ways to get involved. New visitors can find help in Finding Your Way at W3C."
W3C HTML 4.0 Specification	"This specification defines the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the publishing language of the World Wide Web. This specification defines HTML 4.01, which is a subversion of HTML 4. In addition to the text, multimedia, and hyperlink features of the previous versions of HTML (HTML 3.2 [HTML32] and HTML 2.0 [RFC1866]), HTML 4 supports more multimedia options, scripting languages, style sheets, better printing facilities, and documents that are more accessible to users with disabilities. HTML 4 also takes great strides towards the internationalization of documents, with the goal of making the Web truly World Wide."
W3 Schools HTML Tutorial	At W3 Schools you will find free Web Building Tutorials, Try-it-yourself Examples, Test Your Skills Quizzes, and Web Building References. This is a link to the HTML tutorial.
W3C HTML Validation Service	"Welcome to the W3C HTML Validation Service; a free service that checks documents like HTML and XHTML for conformance to W3C Recommendations and other standards."
W3C Cascading Style Sheets, Level 1	"This document specifies level 1 of the Cascading Style Sheet mechanism (CSS1). CSS1 is a simple style sheet mechanism that allows authors and readers to attach style (e.g. fonts, colors and spacing) to HTML documents. The CSS1 language is human readable and writable, and expresses style in common desktop publishing terminology."
W3 Schools CSS Tutorial	"Save a lot of work with CSS! In our CSS tutorial you will learn how to use CSS to control the style and layout of multiple Web pages all at once."
W3C Cascading Style Sheets Validation Service	"This is a CSS validator for Cascading Style Sheets, level 2."

MSSQL Links

Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS)	"PASS is the Professional Association for SQL Server and Business Intelligence"
SQL Server Central	"A Microsoft SQL Server community of DBAs, developers, and SQL Server users"

SCRIPT Links

Microsoft's JScript Documentation	Microsoft's MSDN JScript documentation includes JScript User's Guide, Using JScript in Internet Explorer, and JScript Language Reference.
Microsoft's VBScript Documentation	Microsoft's MSDN VBScript documentation includes VBScript User's Guide and VBScript Language Reference.
WebReference JavaScript Tips	"One of the oldest and most respected Web development sites (since 1995) WebReference.com, one of the Web sites created by Athenia Associates and now owned by INT Media Group, Inc., is about the Web and Webmastery. From browsing to authoring, HTML to advanced site design, we'll keep you in touch and informed." This is the JavaScript Tip section.
VBScript Tutorial	"This section is a brief tutorial on VBScript. We'll walk through the fundamentals, and along the way you will learn how to add VBScript to your existing web pages, the structure of the VBScript language, and how to use event-driven programming within your HTML documents."
DevGuru VBScript Quick Reference Guide	"Welcome to the DevGuru VBScript Quick Reference guide. This is an extremely comprehensive 247 page reference source that explains and gives examples of code, plus the resultant output, for all of the constants, functions, methods, properties, objects, operators, and statements that define this language. "