what would you guys equate Network programming with? learning new language learning new style (i.e OOP) learning new API because i want to start making progress in this area and am wonder how much time i should alot to learn the basics thanks[smile]

it is really just learning a few new functions and how to use those functions. It is similar to learning how to open, close, read, and write to files on the hard disk. there is a little more work in the setup phase but after setup it is basically reads and writes.

now that is just to connect and send data.....what data you send and how you make sure the data is the same on all computers is the tricky part and left for you to research as there are alot of different ways and theories on how to do this.

Learning how to use the sockets is like learning a new API.

However, learning how to think correctly in a distributed environment, where there is transmission latency (and even loss) between different endpoints, takes a long time, and requires the school of hard knocks to really bang it in.