Practising Sharepoint 2010

Question

Hi Guys,

 

I am working as ASP.NET developer in a company.But recently i had been moved to a project where all the applications primarily work on sharepoint  2010. I have been given knowledge transition on what exactly the application does, But i like to gain knowledge on how exactly Sharepoint works(because its basically a support project, so there is less scope for development). So my point of raising a question here is Can anyone suggest some environments where we can work on Sharepoint Development. 

 

Is it a feasible option to download Sharepoint 2010 on my laptop. Please suggest.

 

Also any  material for beginners on sharepoint development is also  helpful 

 

Thanks in advance. 

 

Regards,

Sivapratap.