Two days ago I bought an Asus EeePC T91 and it got delivered today despite the 10 day shipping estimate; bonus for the shipping company not taking their time when the city it originated from is 50 miles away. Anyways, I've played with it and it's insanely awesome. The screen rotates 90° and essentially becomes a tablet (with a stylus included). I originally bought the netbook to be a comprehensive OBDII reader and CECM modifier for my car but it's quickly turning into a bigger ambition.

The 8" screen, 1 pound weight, and Windows OS are perfect for helping me out with my photography. Plugging my camera in and using the T91 as a tether control would be amazing. I played around with the "tablet mode" via a switch and the desktop changes from the traditional to a more touch friendly environment with apps to go with it.

I quickly realised this could be a great little computer to learn programming on since learning TI-BASIC.

So, I'm trying to not start too ambitious. I want to learn something that has amazing support by big names (Canon, Nikon, etc). This alone might make my learning curve steep but I'm prepared. By support I mean that there are SDK's from these companies in the language I'm learning. So, if that's C/++ then so be it. I strongly want to avoid learning a language or two to ultimately get to the language I need to learn.

Secondly, I'd like to jump right into programming for the Tablet based desktop as that's how I'd prefer to use any application I make for it but I wouldn't be opposed to start on the traditional desktop until I'm more familiar. I'm still searching on the 'net for support documents on creating applications for the Tablet Mode - and on the appropriate SDKs - but if any of you guys know of any resources I'd appreciate the forward. Even a recommended IDE for Windows XP.

I think my first application will be a simple counting system that counts how many times a specific button is pressed; four buttons, four counters. Down the road, even make it a bit procedural by having the user specify the number of counters, add names and colors and different types of counters (i.e. Time). After I make a few basic applications, start getting familiar with libraries. After that, get familiar with sending and receiving instructions via USB and then start work (or compile the projects) into my camera tether application.

Cool story bro?

So is this Windows XP Tablet PC edition, or just Windows XP with some touch features thrown on top? Are you set on Window, or is Linux an option too?

Well, the product page says "Windows XP Tablet Edition" but my computer just reports "Windows XP Home Edition" with SP3. Lies and slander!

I'd much prefer it to be entirely in Windows so I don't have to learn to put together Linux and program at the same time. Not sure if it's just because I hang out here often but Linux looks pretty intimidating when you guys talk about setting it up and when things go awry. I don't feel like I can screw up as badly in Windows as is possible (and I have) in Linux.

There are some versions of linux that are hard like Gentoo which I am using now however there are some versions of linux like ubuntu that are easier to use than windows. Remember that Linux is only the kernel. Different distros that are based on the Linux Kernel are made for different people.

Thing is, my experiences with Linux is entirely negative. If I didn't have to build every application, and application add-on I download I could probably see myself using Linux. For now, downloading an application and installing it is much easier than downloading and compiling the source and going from there. There's the same types of applications on both Windows & Mac, but it's a lot less common.

If I don't have to muck around in a terminal to install an application, adjust system settings and more, it's a good operating system for me to (safely) use.

Let me guess, you haven't used any package management systems in Linux distros? You are really missing out.

Install/remove/etc, adjust system settings, and more, sounds like Gnome/KDE/blah desktop environment is what you need.

I haven't really gotten any progress on this thread yet either. I'm really falling behind here,

IDE/Suggestions/etc so I can start learning to program (on Windows) sounds like the topic that we need to discuss here.

Back on topic - As far as I have seen, Vista is when Windows really stepped up for touch PCs and fell a bit behind with Win7 (not saying anything for Windows . Do you know if there SDKs to use any touch-friendly UIs? I don't think Windows XP had anything optimized for touch, but I think Qt does...

For IDEs, I don't really do anything for Windows, but Visual Studio Express would be a good start. I use Qt Creator + Cygwin + Notepad++ for anything on windows. I guess it would be best to see what SDK to use and find what works best with it.

http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Language-2nd-Brian-Kernighan/dp/0131103628

As far as Linux is concerned, just get something like Ubuntu or one of its forks. I use Mint, and I only had one hiccup when installing it. (My wireless card is ancient and I had difficulty finding a working driver for it)
Practically any open source software is available through apt-get, Ubuntu's package manager. Just write apt-get [package name] and the package is installed immediately after it gets downloaded.

For writing code, any Scintilla based editor, such as Notepad++, Programmers Notepad, Scite, etc will work as editors. If you're planning on using C, C++, D, Haskell, Fortran, or Objective-C, Code::Blocks would be a suitable IDE out of the box.

To continue slightly on-ish-topic, Windows XP Tablet PC edition had superb pen-touch features, as have Vista and Windows 7 since then. I don't think XP had particularly great finger touch features at any point, but finger touch was never really a logical feature of desktop and laptop computers until relatively recently. To counter Kaslai's point, Microsoft Visual Studio will serve you well for coding, and MSDN has plenty of good documentation.

Only if you're willing to spend $200+ dollars on it...

The MSDN Database is mostly online for free, so that us free software users can use it too

Sorry, Visual Studio Express. It's plenty powerful and free.