Scott Gu announces the launch of a the new WebsiteSpark program from Microsoft. It enables independent wed developers and companies to get software, support and business resources from Microsoft at no cost for three years, and enables you to expand your business and build great web solutions using Microsoft Technologies.

This program joins the BizSpark program for new start ups and the DreamSpark for students looking to get into the development field.

MSDN now has a learning center for the absolute beginner.

Find your path to success in a centralized learning environment specifically targeted to beginning programmers. The rich array of content starts with the very basics, and guides you through step-by-step to becoming a full-fledged developer. Once you’re ready, become a Champion and show off your project.

More at Beginner Developer Learning Center.

The big payoff for Novell’s investment in an open-source version of a platform created by its rival in the operating system category, Microsoft, may come in the unlikeliest of places: Today, Novell begins shipping the 1.0 edition of MonoTouch, its commercial software development platform that extends the .NET Framework and the C# language…to Apple’s iPhone.

See BetaNews for more.

I am a huge fan of The Daily WTF web site, which is a website dedicated to badly written code. I like the site for so many reasons. However the number one reason I check it out every day is that I have some expectation that I will, one day, see some code I wrote early in my career (please please please let it be code from early in my career). Admittedly there have been a few close calls but so far I have managed to stay under the radar.

Anyway today’s set up included this paragraph, which is pure genius.

One of the fundamental axioms of software development — #9 on the list, actually — is that "there is always a better way." This holds that there is no such thing as Perfect Code, only Good Code which is appropriately correct, appropriately optimized, and appropriately documented for the situation at hand. On the other hand, a lesser-known axioms (#1873, for those keeping count) is that "there is always a worse way." No matter how bad a particular block of code may seem… someone, somewhere, somehow will develop something even worse.

Here is the pay off. And if your not familiar with the site the real fun is in the comments.