I'd like to jump into the wonderful world of programming.
In the past I took some programming courses in school. These included C, C++, and Python.
And I started to learn PHP about a year ago, and I've also played around with Ruby on Rails.
Unfortunately I never did much with what I learned.
Now I'm looking to jump back in. I currently have a career in IT and consider myself a Linux geek-guru-wannabe.
I'm wondering what is the learning curve of desktop programming (eg C#/.Net) vs that of web programming (eg PHP/RoR/Javascript)?
And how long does it take to become a Jr Level developer on either platform?
I mainly ask because it seems that there are a million different frameworks and languages for web development these days.
Whereas if you develop on the desktop (Windows) environment, the primary language used is C# with the .Net framework.
Are there many paid opportunities out there for people who have experience developing on a *nix GUI desktop environment?
Any advice for if you were in my shoes?