When it comes to working on things, be it assembling a desk, doing a tuneup on an engine, or writing software - I tend to be a "Jump right in with both feet, start doing it and don't stop to pick up the manual until I get stuck" sorta guy. I get that from my father - The-Big-Guy (dad) is one of those guys who's either built, fixed, worked on or learned just about anything you ever wanted to (and some things you didn't want to). So of course I grew up learning how to work on everything too, the typical son wanting to be like his father. I've worked on farms, in 4x4 repair shops, been a welder, resturant manager, 4 years in the Marine Corps, and of course 15 years developing software professionally (add another 10 or so as a hobbiest). Among my friends and co-workers I'm a bit of a handy man, helping people out with home repairs, building rec rooms, rewiring basements, etc. Well since my comfort zone for work is pretty broad, I normally don't bother learning what I'm doing before I start - as The Big Guy has often said "When all else fails, read directions".
Years ago while working at Quad/Tech (1994 ish) I needed to write an application for a small division of Quad/Graphics. I had no resources, no help, and no time to do it in (3-4 months). While Q/G was a big Microsoft shop and the rest of the IS department was busy working in Access & VB 2.0, I got my hands on a copy of this really slick little development tool called Delphi. I had no training, but I loved what I saw and just dug in, working my way thru the help files and what little information I could get out of the World Wide Web. And I was hooked - I knew Delphi was the language of the future, it was revolutionary - a thing of simplistic beauty and genius created by Borland. For 12 or so years I've been programming in Delphi and it's always been a "just do it" sort of attitude from me. Never been one for utilizing design patterns or standardized methodologies, code it now, get it working, refine & refactor it later as needed has been my modus operandi.
So you can see where my natural inclination to just dive in, fire up Visual Studio and start rewriting code comes from. There is a part of me whispering "Dude, this is bigger than a breadbox.. you need to get your shit organized before you really start", but then there's the another voice coming from the other shoulder saying "Don't listen to him, you can do this.. it's not that different from Delphi - just go for it and worry about the details later". An interesting conundrum for me really, do I go with what has always worked for me or should I try something new and actually start at the beginning? There's a ton of interesting & informative books out there on the subject matter.. but no matter what, reading what someone else says you should do is never as interesting as actually doing it yourself.
Oh well - as Confucius said "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step". Don't have any .NET books handy, but I do have Visual Studio installed. Maybe I'll play around for a little bit, and do some research on a good C# book tomorrow..