New to application programming... Please HELP!

From: Newbie12345 (mrmikelewis_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 03/25/04 

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 12:51:05 -0800

After spending hours at microsoft.com and Borders bookstore, I've come to a dilemma. I have conquered the art of simple web design (html/dreamweaver/php/sql/javascript) but I am interested in application programming - and I am lost in terms of which way to turn.
 
My online exploration lead me to believe that C++ was a great language because of its power and versatility. I read many online tutorials to understand the general syntax of the language, but soon came to realize that without extensive knowledge of the Windows API or other libraries, it would be hard to create anything useful with the language.
 
I decided to head over to the bookstore to learn more about C++ and the Windows API. I found plenty on C++, but nothing on Windows API. (I may have these terms wrong - but you know what I mean) I had a previous notion that I didn't want to spend hundreds of dollars on a microsoft dev program thinking that it would be worthwhile (and more cost effective) to learn the actual code on my own. But, as I said before, I can't find anything to learn how to do that.
 
So, I am thinking to do any application programming, I should probably "find" one of the microsoft Visual programs.
 
Next problem:
 
ASP.NET
Visual Basic
Visual C#
Visual C++
Visual J#
Visual Studio
 
To name a few...
 
and... to make it worse some of them have the ".NET" and some do not.

I've posted on many message boards and emailed a ton of people, and nobody seems to want to help.
 
I think that most of the above programs are just different interfaces to the same general program - and when compiled, they would all have similar machine code.
 
So, what I'm asking is:
 
1) Is learning how to program windows type programs (using the Windows API) even something to consider?
2) Which of the above programs are good for what purpose? Which one would you recommend?
 
Note: I would want the capability of interfacing my programs with the web, fax, print, etc.
 
Any suggestions?
*****
I've copied the above message many many boards with no response. Please can someone shed a bit of light on this issue or point me in the right direction. I've searched high and low and can't find any answers in plain english.

Loading