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How big of a jump will it be to go from C# to Objective C [closed]

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How hard will it be to transfer from my existing expertise in C# to building apps for the iPad/iPhone in Objective C?

The language jump is OK. Once you get past the initial shock of [ and ]. However, the libraries and Framework shock will be substantial.
The Cocoa and Touch frameworks are significantly lighter when compared with .Net Framework, so at least you can look at the bright side, you have less to learn. But their underlying philosophy, layout and historic evolution path is very different from the C#/.Net framework. Whether this will be easy or hard, is difficult to appreciate. Some personal opinions:
The Cocoa way of building UI is light years ahead of anything .Net framework has today, Forms or WPF. It will be difficult to grasp at first, but if your grok it, it will make a LOT of sense. It is good ole' Model-View-Controller based on Smalltalk framework and will naturally guide you down a right path of designing UI.
Graphics, video, media are going to feel as from another planet when coming from .Net background. But despite their apparent arcane appearance, the Cocoa offerings are very powerful, although somehow low level.
Introduction to Cocoa Drawing Guide
Quartz 2D Overview
Introduction to Core Video Programming Guide
Core Audio Overview
Animation is going to be a huge sigh of relief. Cocoa animation is just plain easy to use, and there isn't anything equivalent in .Net
Introduction to Core Animation Programming Guide
If you do openGL instead of Cocoa native graphics, then is openGL and openGL is pretty much the same flavor on any platform.
Network programming is poorer on Cocoa side. You have some basic support and gotta admit that at least the API is designed that is really hard to do stupid stuff (it forces you to use async programming, so no more one-thread-per-client non-sense), but I'd bet you'll miss the .Net sugar utilities (WebRequest, WebClient etc)
NSConnection Class Reference
Introduction to Distributed Objects
XML parsing. Cocoa support is just plain primitive. At least, again, the XML parsing is event driven so is going to guide you toward better programs, but is complicated to put together.
Introduction to Event-Driven XML Programming Guide for Cocoa
Database. Is going to be a different world. You have the choice of going raw SQLite or Core Data. Core Data is better imho. Is a high level ORM and active record kind of stuff, with all the intricacies of the underlying storage abstracted away. Easy to use and powerful, as long as you ask it to do something it knows how to do. Unbelievably cumbersome to force it to do something it doesn't know how to do. True for any ORM, ultimately. You'll miss LINQ, and you'll have to forget SQL. The gist of it is that the DB programming experience from .Net just doesn't transfer to Core Data world. The alternative of raw SQLite will look more familiar, but is very low level, will feel more like programing 1990 ODBC than 2010 .Net.
Introduction to Core Data Programming Guide
Key-Value Coding Programming. This concept has no direct .Net equivalent. It may sound like some sort of simple dictionary, but in fact is way more powerful. It interweaves with the runtime engine of the Objective part of [Objective-C] and gives birth to some neat tricks. You'll need to understand Key-Value coding to make efficient use of Core Animation or Core Data. You can think at it as reflection on steroids. It can achieve some of the same tricks Linq-to-Objects can do, but is not going to be anywhere as elegant as Linq.
Is C++. Objective-C is a superset of C++ and is backed by recent drops of gcc, so you can fall back to C++ anytime. STL, functors, template metaprogramming, they all work. You can mix and match in the same application pure Cocoa and Core Objective-C with C++. You won't be able to do something like inherit an Objective-C class as a C++ class, but you will be able to communicate between a C++ class and an Objective-C object. Not sure what is the current status of boost or Loki support.
Many of the areas covered poorly in Cocoa have various 3rd party libraries, but I can't enter into comparison all Cocoa 3rd parties vs. .Net 3r parties, I have a life...
Overall, I would sum it up shortly as In Objective-C the entry bar is higher. Bring a brain.

In addition to Remus's terrific answer, you will also need to understand and be able to implement memory management. If you grew up on Java or .NET, this may be alien to you. Pay very close attention to this part of the tutorials, and practice this by intentionally screwing it up. You need to know what these errors look like and how they behave.
Good luck!

It's a decent sized jump, but you can learn enough to get up to speed in a few days.
Once you get the Objective C syntax and conventions down, you'll have to delve into the Cocoa libraries and frameworks, which are pretty substantial.
I would recommend getting a book on Objective C or iPhone development, or going through all the tutorials on the http://developer.apple.com site.
Once you get going, check out this site for good code examples for applications: http://appsamuck.com

I think if you know OOP you will be fine. The synthax is not usual as most programming languages though, e.g.
object.function(var arg1)
looks like
[object function[var:arg1]]
if I remember correctly.
If you have an Apple Dev ID and iTunes, you could go to http://developer.apple.com/iphone/index.action then go to the Getting Started videos (after which it should ask your Apple Dev ID at some point then launch iTunes). There you have a bunch of videos. The one called "Introduction to Objective-C and Cocoa Touch" can be a good start to look at.
Hope that helps.

The language isn't difficult but I found the development environment isn't quite as slick as VS in a few ways. For instance the interface builder is a distinct application to the coding environment leading to occasional synchronisation issues, and the compiler won't tell you if you typed an event name incorrectly.
Having said that the interface builder is gorgeous. You just need to remember to hit the save button before you flip back to the code.

Senior WinForms developer with no ASP experience - legitimate chance at a Senior ASP.NET position? [closed]

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I would like to know from those in hiring roles and in senior ASP.NET roles, would you seriously consider a person like myself for a senior ASP.NET role?
A bit about myself: I am seriously considering a switch from WinForms to ASP.NET. There just do not seem to be many positions for desktop application developers anymore. It's becoming a niche field. In the pursuit of greater opportunities, I am trying to repackage myself as an ASP.NET developer. Unfortunately, there is the obvious lack of professional experience that is a gap on the resume. Seriously, the only real issue with losing my senior status is the paycut involved. I couldn't care less about the title, but sadly, we all have bills.
I could argue that there is a lot more to software development that knowing the intricacies of web development vs desktop-- there are issues of designing reusable code, design patterns, C# language features, database experience (another place where my experience is light), class design, professional maturity, and so on.. But I fear that these arguments will fall on deaf ears, especially in these times, when there are already so many experienced ASP.NET developers already out of work. I can sling together a few simple web pages that hit a database and show the data, but this is far from a professional web site, I'm afraid.
Edit:
10 years update - Screw Microsoft and ASP.NET. You Suck!!! I left Microsoft stack shortly after this and my salary went up by 40%

Well I hire ASP.NET and WinForms coders and I wouldn't rule you out.
Interestingly, in the UK, Web coders tend to earn a lot more than WinForms coders so a strange reversal of your situation.
ASP.NET/Web coding has it's own challenges, especially the stateless design which is fairly alien to most Desktop coders so I'd spend some time getting to understand what you're letting yourself into, maybe knock up a couple of side project which you can put as links in your CV and give you something to discuss in the interview.
I'm interested to know why you are so keen to get into ASP.NET coding though - WinForms is still very popular, especially in Game Tools coding. You can make a decent living and work on a lot of interesting stuff.
Note - controversial but after interviewing a LOT of ASP.NET coders, I found the standard to be very hit and miss, whereas WinForms coders tend to be good solid coders so I suspect you're a decent coder which is ALWAYS a bonus on any team :)

You are a senior developer, who is unfamiliar with ASP.net. So, you don't currently qualify as a senior ASP.net developer, as Senior implies familiar with the intricacies and peculiarities of the platform in which you work. Companies pay senior developers more because they do not have to spend cycles learning the basics of their development platform.
Fortunately the solution isn't too difficult. Just start writing code at home in asp.net. As a Senior .net developer you should be able to catch on very quickly. Put out a product or site to use as a portfolio and to show that you have gained experience in the ASP.net platform. And when you get to your spiffy new Senior ASP.net position, your company won't put undo pressure on you because you don't have the knowledge coming in that they expected from a senior developer.

I think the odds are stacked against you but that doesn't mean you can't make the transition with a little effort.
The first thing you must do is find ways to convey to the potential employers that you can handle ASP.NET development. Have you ever worked with HTML, CSS, or JavaScript? Have you at least consumed Web services? Maybe you could buy one of those ASP.NET beginner books and work through the examples at home.
Next, elaborate on the similarities between your current job and that of an ASP.NET developer. You have likely used similar controls. You have likely followed similar high level design/development concepts. You have likely used the same tools. You have likely worked with complex SQL queries.
Take these things and target your resume / cover letter towards the posted job. Don't exaggerate or lie, just word it such that it is clear that while you haven't worked as a Web developer, you have certainly had enough exposure to handle the transition.
The only other thing I can suggest is patience. Other candidates will have more Web experience and you can't overcome that. You might even need to take a pay cut to make the transition.
Best of luck to you.

Well, I think it depends on a number of factors. Firstly, do you actually know ASP.NET? I mean more than "I can do the samples" -- I mean what's your actual level of proficiency? I would expect someone with your story who may not have had job responsibility in that area to have (extensive) personal experience (e.g., "I didn't do that at work, but for my personal web site bla bla bla"). Are you conversant with the frameworks, 3rd party addons, etc? If so, and you had deep experience elsewhere, I think you have a great shot at landing that type of job.
If you're coming in completely cold, honestly I don't think your chances are good...especially in this market.
The final thing I'd add is that it depends on the type and size of company. A small company hiring a single senior engineer for that slot may have more heartburn about your lack of commercial experience (I know I would), whereas a larger organization looking to build out a team would likely be less concerned.

I would say this transition is a manouver for many. Web programming is very different where you need to love style sheets, HTML and JavaScript preferably since your school time, let alone JS is enough to annoy an orthodox OOprogrammer. Someone wrote above, finding a good web developer can be hit and miss and he's absolutely right!! Web developers groom skills with a different mindset starting from HTML and styles and at some point in their career they realize the need to know C#, JAVA or SQL, the opposite direction you want to travel:)
In my opinion, you as a classic programmer may want to dig deep into SOA, Systems programming, multithreading stuff or even a OLAP or Reports developer. However, if these are not an option then you might bridge Web Developmet gap with some new stuff like jQuery instead of plain JS and ASP.Net MVC framework in lieu of tradition ASP.Net Web Forms programming and try to use some vendor controls like Telerik or Infragistics to get started, hopefully you will find transition lot smoother but still I have doubts if Web programming can keep you involved in long term given your background. All the best!!

This is an interesting question ...
Being a senior Winforms developer, shows you know a large part of .Net, and if you also know how the web works (HTML, JS, GET, POST, Headers, Cookies, etc) and also know ASP.Net fundamentals (page lifecycle, controls, authentication, sessions, etc ...) then you would get a fair change for a senior ASP.Net developer position.

How do you grow as a developer when you're the only one in a given technology at your company? [closed]

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I am not the only programmer, but I'm the only .NET developer, everyone else works with Perl, Ext JS, and related technologies. I'm primarily self taught, using Codeproject heavily to learn new techniques.
Without any mentors at my company specifically knowledgeable in .NET, I'm unsure whether classes, or online tutorials, books, or perhaps some other avenue might be most effective at helping me to become a better developer.
My goal, optimistically, is to become a developer capable of managing the next .NET developer we hire, or at least to integrate well with him/her.
I'm currently taking on the task of documenting my programs in such a way as to receive review from the more experienced developers at my company regardless of them not knowing .NET, and I expect this will be rather general, but hopefully still beneficial.
Does anyone have suggestions or advice for how to most effectively learn good practices without direct oversight?

Without mentors around, there are several things you can do to improve your skills:
Take classes...especially if your employer will pay for them.
Read books. They're the next best thing to a class.
Read developer blogs. They may not teach you best practices, but they'll keep you abreast of what's new in the development world. That'll help you keep from falling behind.
Courtesy of the Community Listen to Podcasts (Hanselminutes, Stackoverflow, etc.) and watch Screencasts (Dimecasts has tons of good content).
Participate in the community. We may seem harsh at times, but you'll hear the most about best practices, coding techniques, design patterns, etc. and different ways to apply everything.

I have always worked like that. My ways to improve are:
Reading high-quality blogs
Applying what these high-quality blogs recommend (whenever it fits your project and when time allows, of course)
Reading high-quality open source project's source code
Writing as much code as you can, always keeping in mind what you've learned and always trying to raise the quality bar. Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.
Keep an eye on stuff that's unrelated to your own line of work. For example, if your main job is coding ASP.NET in C#, read stuff about functional programming, F#, Haskell, other web frameworks like django, Ruby on Rails, etc. I'm not saying that you learn them, just see how things can be done differently. It will broaden your perspective.
When you gain some self-confidence: contribute to open source projects, write a blog.
About books: IMHO the books that are highly-technical (i.e. "Buzzword 2.0 in Action!") aren't worth your time. Everything happens so fast that they'll probably become obsolete 6 months after their release. The only books worth buying are those that deal with the underlying CS or architecture issues.
About classes: it's very hard to find high-quality non-university classes that aren't a waste of time/money. Most of the time you can learn faster by yourself. (UPDATE: fast-forward to 2013, MOOCs are an amazing, high-quality, free learning resource)
Also be wary of codeproject, there are lots of articles there with errors and/or general bad advice.

I am in the same situation you are in. I learn mostly from
previous projects/mistakes, especially when you take over an old project from someone else (50%)
google (25%)
forum/stackoverflow (25%)

Change employers. I'm not trying to be a jerk, seriously. The most growth your going to have as a developer is by working every day with someone significantly better than you.

Join some OSS project which works with .NET to get feedback on your code from experienced .NET developers. In addition looking at other people's code is a great way to learn new things - just as you have been doing. I also agree with Justin also that reading blogs like Eric Lippert's is very rewarding

Take advantage of the chance to learn the languages and technologies being used by by your colleagues.
They'll introduce you not just to syntax, but more importantly to techniques, idioms, and paradigms that you won't find in .Net, but that will challenge you to think about how you could apply or build those thing in .Net, or why .Net doesn't have or shouldn't use those things.
Why is Perl weakly typed (or is it)? What's Perl better at than .Net? What is .Net great at the Perl is just terrible at? Why do these differences exist? How might you implement a Perl interpreter in .Net? Why might you want to?
Why's everything in a JavaScript a hash? How does .Net class inheritance compare to JavaScript prototypes? Are JavaScript's first-class functions a great tool or a source of obscurantist abuse, compared to .Net's strongly and statically typed classes?
What are the fundamental data structures in each language? For each language, why are those types fundamental to that language? What were the different design decisions (or lack of decisions) that motivated and informed each language's design and implementation? Can you discern any common "ancestral" languages among the languages used at your workplace? Why don't we have "One Language To Rule Them All"? Should we?
Finally, excellence at any one language is really great to have, but unless you're sitting on that language's Standard Committee or writing compilers/interpreters for that language, a broader knowledge of the underlying algorithms and data structures and patterns that are common across languages is probably more important to your development as a programmer -- and certainly to managing programmers, if that's your goal.

Look for local .NET user groups. In most cities, you are likely to find at least one. User groups are a great place to develop contacts, ask questions about the technology and basically get answers to problems you may be experiencing. If there are no user groups in your area, try looking online.

If you are free to choose how you develop, and you get new projects fairly often, pick a new technology you're not familiar with to use on each project. Of course, do your research first and make sure it makes sense for the project.
At my last company, I was pretty free to use whatever I wanted as long as it made sense and worked. I always tried to use something new on each project. The last project I worked on, I used NHibernate. No one told me to learn NHibernate, but I took it upon myself to use it to expand my knowledge. Of course, I made sure NHibernate was acceptable first.
The best way to learn something is to use it. Classes and books are good, but nothing will make it stick more than using it in a real project.

My goal, optimistically, is to become
a developer capable of managing the
next .NET developer we hire ...
In that case, you should be looking to expand or improve your people/project management skills as well as developing your technical programming and design skills in your chosen technology.
I also subscribe to the view that it is not a good idea to focus too much on a particular technology; e.g. .NET. Too much specialization tends to limit your career prospects.

A year ago I was pretty much in the same boat and it's interesting when I look back at the things I wasn't so good at. Awareness of the technology you are using is an important one, many people have suggested reading books/blogs etc which are good.
One thing that may help you, is to look at the MCTS material, starting with a foundation exam (I'm working toward 70-536 .NET 2.0 Framework exam) to make sure you have a good base. One of the advantages of this is one that it is credited by Microsoft so you can add it to your CV for the future and it gives you a more structured approach than just reading books.
Secondly read up on design practises, or even design principles (such as Gang Of Four). Do your best to not cut corners, and develop your code in the best re-usable way. This keeps you thinking about design and maintainability which is extremely important.
Finally I'd probably suggest trying to ensure you're not doing the same thing over and over. Don't just work with databases, or UI's etc... Try to get a mixture of things to try new techniques and learn new stuff.

What language do I use for my project? [closed]

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I'm going to advise a company on a project soon, and I'm not too sure about what programming language I should advise.
It's a fairly straightforward (desktop based) application with a central datasource on the network, for storing and editing parts that make up a machine. The machine needs to be configured in the application, and with this configuration production documents (manuals, software, bill of material) are generated. (e.g. if part A and B are added to the configured machine, then variation X on chapter 5 of the manual has to be used, if that makes sense)
There's a few non-standard components like a tree with radio & checkboxes, and it has to have some sort of version control in it. It needs a WYSIWYG editor to edit chapters of manuals. It doesn't necessarily have to run on platforms other than Windows because it will only be used on the company network and everybody runs windows.
I was thinking Java because of it's huge numbers of useful libraries and free IDE's. I'm a Java programmer myself so I'm not very familiar with other programming languages. Any thoughts on what language I should use, and why? I believe there's a bit of VB/VBA and Delphi knowledge present in the company (it's not an IT company and I'm not likely to program it myself).
Thanks heaps!

From what your describe of your application and environment, nothing can beat Delphi!
It's the ideal case for Delphi to shine:
- native desktop application with fastest performances and development combined.
- plethora of excellent (often free) components; you'll probably find your tree
- extremely powerful yet simple for DB applications
- very active and helpful community
See also why I recommended it for another SO user.

I think if you have Delphi knowledge in your company : it is a very good choice for Desktop application and as avar says : you can find a lot's of good components here Torry's Delphi Pages.
I recommend this article

for desktop applications ( plus with database/win32 things) i'd recommend delphi. u can find many good components availabe .

You probably want to choose the language that your team has the most experience with. I personally am into Delphi, and it sounds like this might be a good choice for what you describe. Delphi is highly suited for Desktop apps talking to a database. However if your team (those writing and maintain the app) are more experienced with Java / C# / VB then you should go with that.

Well the scenario you describe is not very language specific, so
here are a few hints:
generally, java is absolutely ok but:
In a windows world, you can live easier with .net languages,
because of direct access to COM/activex for combining documentation snippets
in adobe or Word
since there's some vb knowledge about in the company, maybe the task of
maintaining the software becomes cheaper.
I would suggest c#, because via mono, you can go Linux where and if necessary.
well, that's my 2 cents.

Depends. On many things. What language are you familiar with? What database do you use (MS SQL has some advantages when used with a .NET language, but can also be used with java, or ...)?
The libraries are (at least for me) not a main decision point since there are a lot libraries for other languages too.
If you do not program yourself, ask the developer doing the job. Projects have other marks than technology such as time used and money spent. If you choose a language the developer is familiar with, it's more likely to be in time and in cost.
Your question is somehow far too open to give an exact answer. But maybe this helps you to think about it.

You should use whichever language is:
1) Most appropriate for the project
For example: If your project requires real-time processing, use a language that is conducive to performing that task.
2) You (and your team) is most comfortable with.
You would need to discuss with your team whether any languages that you currently know between you all are appropriate (keeping point 1 in mind). If none are appropriate, which language (with point 1 in mind) will all be most comfortable with in learning, developing and supporting (maintaining) throughout the life-time of your project.
This sounds like very curt advice, but I believe it's crucially important. If your project is to succeed, you need a language that you can "live" with, and will work with you rather than against you. If you were a wood-worker, you could use a hammer to put screws into a piece of wood, but wouldn't you be much more comfortable using a screwdriver?

Of the tagged languages, avoid asp.net as it's a desktop application. Other than that all the other languages would do a good job. It would come down to personal preference (more importantly the personal preference of the developer).

I'm a Java programmer myself so I'm
not very familiar with other
programming languages.
If you're going to write the software you should use Java. You're already familiar with it and your familiarity can help you delight your customer.

If you aren't writing it you need to find out who is and take their experience into consideration. Having them learn a new language just because you don't know what they are familiar with is not exactly a good way to go.
Java would work, C# would work (I would personally pic C#), it really just depends on the experience you have available.
What is this about the "non-standard" components? If there are 3rd party controls they want to use that might dictate the language/platform to work with. There are lots of free controls and examples in Java and C# as well and extending the standard Java / .NET controls might even work better that going with the 3rd party controls.
Sounds like you need to know more about the application and some other things that are out there before you can really be advising somebody else on what to do.

Well, there is a lot of wisdom with using what you know (Java).
However, just to counter the "because of it's huge numbers of useful libraries and free IDE's" - .NET also has a huge library base, and free IDEs (including the Express editions of Visual Studio). For .NET, C# would be a "closer" language to Java than VB.
I reckon you'll end up with Java, though (through familiarity - not always a bad thing).

When we build client side systems we use .Net (C# usually). We do Java on the back end, but it sounds like you may not have a traditional back end. For all the libraries and frameworks that are available for Java the vast majority of high quality UI components are in the .Net space these days.

When you are managing the development and someone else is doing the implementation and maintenance then I'd suggest to negotiate the programming language with them.
When you have to do the maintenance then focus on languages that you know.
If you do all/most of the work, just use what language you are familiar with, when you don't have enough time to learn a new language on the way. Especially if the application is important and needs to be pretty bug free. (although there is never a "last bug" as we all know) ;-)
The amount of 3rd party libraries is not a good criterion because this doesn't reflect their quality (maybe most stuff is crap) and many libraries means also a big chance to select the wrong one.
Don't forget to check if the chosen language is capable of doing the job. (Speed, platform constraints, memory footprint, ...)

I think it doesn't really matter that much in which programming language and environment you program, as long as you get to know it thoroughly. C++, Java and C# all have good libraries and all have their strengths and weaknesses. The important thing is that you know the peculiarities of the language, the development environment, the debugger, a good profiler, the standard libraries, the best third party libraries, etc... Moreover, after a while you can reuse your own code as well. For example, you mention an advanced tree widget. In our company, we have our own tree (in C++) which we can finetune as we like.

Learning C#, ASP.NET 3.5 - what order should I learn in / what to skip? [closed]

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There's a lot to C# & ASP.net. Where should I start? What should I not bother focusing on?
Should I learn Winforms then WPF? Ditto for webforms / Silverlight?
Should I learn ASP.MVC or classic ASP.NET? If both, which first?
In the either/or cases - which will make more sense having known the other first?
What major .NET feature(s) should I learn upfront that will open the doors of understanding to what lies ahead?
I am deliberately not mentioning fundamentals like value / reference Types, Classes, object-oriented concepts, etc since they should come first, before specifics. Here, I am interested in specifics.
[edit - added detail of what my goals are]
Good points raised - "what do I want to write"?
Basically, an intranet application that monitors a set of documents and implements a workflow as a change control process. The app will also audit the documents and report problems, self-correcting common errors. A lot of the parameters will need to be end-user definable and pluggable. The document format needs to be adaptable to different proprietary formats although they are fundamentally the same. The app will be very modular.
I'm leaning towards a web interface because the client specs & admin rights will vary - a browser is really the only thing I can count on.
As you can see, it's a bit of everything.

What do you want to write? If you want to write a Windows client-side app, look into WinForms and WPF (no real need to learn WinForms before WPF, other than the way that a lot of tutorials/books will probably compare WPF concepts with WinForms concepts). If you're looking at a web app, then ASP.NET or ASP.MVC - I don't know whether you really need the "normal" ASP.NET before MVC.
Silverlight is a bit of both, in a way - rich client probably talking to a server for interesting data etc.
Before learning any of these though, I suggest you learn the fundamentals which are one step up from the topics you mentioned - things like how text works in .NET (including encodings and regular expressions), I/O, perhaps threading. Oh, and LINQ :) There are a few books which are very good on this front:
C# 3.0 in a Nutshell
CLR via C#
Accelerated C# 2008

I had the same question when I moved from Classic ASP to .NET 2.0... .NET is huge: so where should I start?
What i did was put my hand dirty and started slow, take a project (in my case was a very important project - a finance web app that would cover and automatize all 4 persons work) and start to implement, every time I didn't know how to accomplish something or I had an idea in ASP but not in ASP.NET I would go to www.asp.net or 4GuysFromRolla website and search for examples, copy/paste, understand what I was doing and ... continue to the next wall.
Took me 6 month to have everything up and running but was worst it! now that passed almost 3 years I know I did the right choice but back then ... I was scared!
now... you refer .NET 3.5, it has a bunch of new things like extensions, linq, etc... I would go by the simple part and when the times comes, "maybe I can use LINQ here, let me search how to use it on this part"
hope you follow your own path and buy some reference book so you can read something new and have a reference whenever you need "ahhh, I read this somewhere in the book, let me search... where was it?"
I bought Professional ASP.NET from Wrox as a reference book, and even today I go there to see new things, even when I'm started to use .NET 3.5, the idea is there, there is only a new way to accomplishing it.

I would recommend learning whatever you are interested in. Pick a "pet project" and try to create it using one of the technologies you listed. If you enjoy making windows desktop style applications, then go with WPF or WinForms. If you enjoy the idea of making rich desktop style applications on the web, then go for Silverlight. There will be a ton of overlap.
But in terms of core .NET Development, if I were starting off fresh, I'd recommend learning ASP.NET MVC first, as it will give you a good basis for things like: Designing for Testability, coding without ViewState, SEO-friendly URLs, etc..

It depends (awful response, I know, but let me explain)
Are you going to do any windows forms development? You mention C# and ASP.NET, so to me it sounds like you are doing Web-based programming. If so, skip Winforms and WPF for now.
Silverlight is worth checking out, but it is still fairly new so I'd make it a 2nd priority.
Now to the MVC or Web forms question. MVC gives you total control over the HTML, CSS, and Javascript that is emitted, but requires more work, whereas Web forms gives you ease of development but without 100% control over the markup that is emitted. You can do lots with Web forms and the introduction of MVC doesn't threaten the future of Web forms. MVC is very new so things are changing but eventually I see them both living happily side by side.
Regarding learning .NET in general, I've heard great things about a book called CLR via C# which will go over all the fundamentals and inner workings of .NET.

Definitely learn the fundamentals (like you already mentioned) like how the CLR handles types, garbage collections, security, "AppDomains", threading, etc.
For ASP.NET, learning the "page life cycle" and "control life cycle" are essential. Also, session state and data binding are probably good things to understand.
I wouldn't worry about WinForms, WPF, or Silverlight for now. They won't directly help with ASP.NET and are relatively easy to pickup after you've learned the CLR and .NET Framework fundamentals.

What is your primary objective - learning for fun or hireability? If you're a student and years out from worrying about a career in programming then I will strongly echo the idea of picking a project about something relatively simple that you're interested in and then just doing it.
Say you want to create an application that will track your video games collection. First you'll need a way to store the information - this will be a combination of c# and some persistence strategy like mySql or SQL Server or XML.
Then you'll need a way to present your collection and interact with it - adding, deleting and editing objects and persisting the changes. In this step, use every presentation technology that you're interested in - WPF, WinForms, Asp.net, asp.net with MVC, Silverlight - whatever you're interested in. As you learn to do one, you'll learn techniques you'll need to use in the next.
Don't pick just one - play with all the ones you have any interest with at all.
Now, if you're primarily interested in what skills will get you hired the quickest, I'd say look at your market, but it's probably going to be straight ASP.Net skills that will be the most in demand - or at least that's what it looks like from my perspective. In a couple of years it may well be ASP.Net MVC skills. In some markets though you'll have an easier chance of getting VB6 work. It all depends on where and when you're looking.

I highly recommend the following books, for learning about whats new in ASP.NET 3.5
ASP.NET MVC 1.0 Website Programming
Professional ASP.NET MVC 1.0
ASP.NET 3.5 Website Programming

Sometimes videos might help. I learnt everything I needed to know to start off with from a set of video tutorials from Total Training which is here. Pricey if you buy the disks but there is a cheaper online only option.