What do you want? I won't tell you what to do, but you started with talking about making a gen7 board - that means cutting a circuit board, drilling holes and soldering it all. There's a couple of ways to do it - the "classical" way (etching a design printed to a mask - making a Printed Circuit Board) and all the chemicals and stages required for that to happen, or milling a board (simpler in some regards, but more expensive investment in equipment, unless you know someone that can mill it for you).
So before you start down that route, you have to ask if you understand the process to make the board (I'd completed several other projects before I etched my own Gen7 board) otherwise you have to learn those steps first. If you're not that interested in etching/milling a board, perhaps someone else can do it, then you just have the job of populating it.
Elsewise, buy a board from Traumflug and then source the parts, or get a sanguinololu kit, and solder it all together.
Well, a normal process is: CAD design to create .stl model, then Slice (Slic3r/Skeinforge) to generate G-Code followed by the CAM software (pronteface) that delivers GCode to the firmware (Marlin/Teacup/Sprinter etc) - I've not got involved in those projects yet (I used Skeinforge, I fell out with it after calibration and went to Slic3r and got better results) however I think they're all fairly stable, but there may be some development required of them.
My own progression was "I don't have a 3D printer, I want one because my mates one looks cool, but I want to expand my knowledge along the way. I know how to design and etch boards, I'll do my own, then load it with off the shelf firmware". What's your progression plan? If you want to do the software side more than the hardware, get a kit and an Arduino, use the Arduino to learn how to move steppers and do interesting stuff with that, then you'll be comfortable flashing your own firmware to the Gen7/Derived board you've soldered together
So before you start down that route, you have to ask if you understand the process to make the board (I'd completed several other projects before I etched my own Gen7 board) otherwise you have to learn those steps first. If you're not that interested in etching/milling a board, perhaps someone else can do it, then you just have the job of populating it.
Elsewise, buy a board from Traumflug and then source the parts, or get a sanguinololu kit, and solder it all together.
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Rudbot
So, what is your recommendation for someone that might be into the software. I do programming as part of my job and can see that it might be fun getting behind the software. So, for software there is CAD and CAM, or is there more? As far as I understand the CAM software interprets the CAD software and turns it into usable instructions for the microcontroller. Is there further software involved?
Well, a normal process is: CAD design to create .stl model, then Slice (Slic3r/Skeinforge) to generate G-Code followed by the CAM software (pronteface) that delivers GCode to the firmware (Marlin/Teacup/Sprinter etc) - I've not got involved in those projects yet (I used Skeinforge, I fell out with it after calibration and went to Slic3r and got better results) however I think they're all fairly stable, but there may be some development required of them.
My own progression was "I don't have a 3D printer, I want one because my mates one looks cool, but I want to expand my knowledge along the way. I know how to design and etch boards, I'll do my own, then load it with off the shelf firmware". What's your progression plan? If you want to do the software side more than the hardware, get a kit and an Arduino, use the Arduino to learn how to move steppers and do interesting stuff with that, then you'll be comfortable flashing your own firmware to the Gen7/Derived board you've soldered together