How to move from networking to programming?

Performance data collection and reporting for instance, chuck a database in the solution. There must be some repetive, mind numbingly boring, or this is so complicated I keep forgetting how to do it tasks.
Use C/C++, or Pascal if you like a programmer's language , you'll learn a lot more about the nuts and bolts of coding. After that you just describe yourself as a programmer with networking expertise, not a bad niche at all.

You're only confined to one discipline if you agree to climb in the pre-labelled box.

Dear Mr.Wayne ...

Nice to hear at least you are one of those lucky guys who has a job in hand. As regards, a programmer's job is concerned, you REALLY need to UPDATE and keep on UPGRADING yourself when new technologies(programming) comes up otherwise you gonna redundant. At one point you might feel uneasy in learning when age increases. This is just a basic idea for you.

If you still want a programmer's job, continue shaping/sharping up your skills in .Net and try at .Net programmer's vacancy in some other company even if you lose the current one(you have to do it,if needed - you have choose between the job and the company).

Best Regards

The first step is always to decide what you want. If you really want to become an IT manager then you probably will need to go back to school. The days when you could walk in off the street with no experience and no IT education and work your way through the ranks are in the past. IT managers, particularly in larger companies, generally have graduate degrees with a lot of business courses. The good news is that they also tend to have experience on the network side - which you have. When the time comes, this should give you an edge over people who have only developed applications.

I agree with one of the previous posts about changing jobs. Your goals would be better served at a company where you could at least get some experience writing code. Since you already have a job, you are in the enviable position of being able to take your time and look for just the right fit. You might consider looking at smaller companies. You'd probably find that you'd be allowed to learn skills outside your current job description more readily than in a larger corporation where you have a "written career path."

As far as which languages you should learn, just look at the want ads. C++ and C# seem to be good choices in Colorado.

You might already have a perfect skill-set for a job with many smaller companies (< 50 employees). Many of these companies have just enough equipment and complexity to need a trained network admin and also have many small programming needs too.
Often that can't afford both. As their network admin, you could develop your programming skills and help arrange for consultant programmers for projects that are over your head.

well wayne ,
programming doen't require a training as such but you need some qualifications when you want a good job because qualification matters,
even if you are a good programmer you want get a job easily if you don't have a good qualification but it's not even impossible you canmake it up with bit struggle and hardworking ..
as far as learning the programming matters it's a skill and that doesn't need official training you can even do it yourself learning from books and net's unlimited resources...i think it's not a big issue...
if you are working some where currently then you should continue the job and learn programming simultaneously and then you can switch over in the same company or other by starting small level programming work .......

I picked MIS over Comp Sci because I saw the business skills as more important than how to build your own compiler and write assembly.

It really depends on what flavor of geek you want to be.

I described it to a EE co-worker this way once:

There are two kinds of hot-rodders out there:
One will want to go as deep into it as figuring out exactly what camshaft profile he needs and have it ground (or even grind it himself) from billet and will continue such operations throughout the engine building process. This would be your CS guy.

You MIS-type hot rodder would rather select the right combination of parts (camshaft, pistons, etc.) and bolt it all together.

Each approach has its performance and cost tradeoffs and sometimes they swap where they can outperform each other.

Make sense?

occasion. Not management though, sort of large plankton. Maybe a krill.
Manchester UK.
Still looking for good delphi developers.

Why, not how is crucial. How is textbooks, certs and google. It's what you look up, when why is sorted.