I started with .net during beta 2. I actually started with VB.Net until I found myself translating VB 6 to VB.net and not “Thinking” in .Net.
This reminded me of when I was learning Spanish. It seems schools usually teach second languages backwards from the way we learn our first language: 1. learn vocabulary, 2. learn grammer, 3. learn conversation. When we are first learning to speak one language, we have no idea of vocabulary or grammer, but we can carry on a somewhat complicated conversation rather early (and thinking in that language comes much earlier). Once you have learned one language and are older than 13 (there is an actual point in time where learning additional languages does get harder) any additional languages are usually learned first by translating from the primary language to the new language. In my experience this is also the hardest way (for me anyways) to learn to “think” in a language. I got to study in Mexico for a year when I was in college and was forced to re-learn my Spanish because I couldn't think in Spanish. After about 3 months of having to converse in Spanish, I began thinking in Spanish without translating from English. Since that experience I have learned not to try and learn languages backwards any more (try not to make the same mistake too many times) .... so where am I going with this? Well half way through the VB.Net book I figured out that I was translating and not learning .net the way I wanted to, so I switched to C#.
After switching to C#, .net made since so much faster and I wasn't trying to translate my bad habits over to a new language (or trying to make since of VB being OO)....I was actually thinking in the new language (and bringing less baggage over as well)