I have mostly been using JAVA for my software/Web development but I see a good trend towards .NET so I wanted to start learning and developing in it.
An MSDN subscription looks pretty good to me, especially the MSDN Professional subscription. I don’t want to drop $1200 though if it isn’t worth it. (But getting .NET Studio and some servers to use looks enticing to me.)
For those that have purchased a substription for themselves or for those that have decided to not purchase it, would you recommend an MSDN subscription for .NET newbies or is there a better, less expensive way to get the learning environment needed to excel in .NET?
If I don’t get a subsciption I would like to get my hands on a MS SQL server. Is there a free/cheap development version of it?
