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| *Ostroff, Fair and Company>>>Technology |
Programming career path? |
Ok, I'm interested in learning some programming language. I've been in IT for awhile now. I never tracked or specialized as I've always worked for smaller companies and need to 'know it all' to some degree to survive. I've been wondering what is the most profitable programming language to learn or, what is the most beneficial to the resume'. I hear Java, VB, C (in that order) opinions? I would say that you can't go wrong with learning .NET and C# (C-Sharp). There is a huge shortage of .NET programmers and they command fairly high billing rates. I just wanted to add that I strongly disagree with AI M that the languages you need to learn are dependent on your employers needs. If you're looking at it purely from a financial perspective, the languages you want to learn are the ones that the market is willing to pay the most for -- too many good programmers end up learning old, legacy technology or highly specialized technology that no one, except their employer, is willing to pay for. Therefore, they get stuck -- the key is to analyze the market and see what technologies have a high level fo demadn and not enough supply. Then make an educated guess if those technologies have a long time span (> 5 years) -- if the answer is yes -- that is what you want to learn to maximize your earning potential. I have been in this career since the 1960's and I have loved it. I too prefer to work in a small company where I am either the only IT person, or there are very few of us, so we get to do all the different kinds of work there are * develop new software * maintain & enhance existing software * general tech support & help desk * data base administration * computer security There's no such thing as it all, since every enterprise tends to specialize a whole lot in what kinds of computer systems they get, what OS, what applications, etc. I guess for someone starting out, or relatively new to the profession ... you first need to pick an industry that you want to be good in * manufacturing * retail wholesale * publishing * transportation * government whatever, then within that industry stay on top of what are the leading edge application needs that are developing into the future so that you can learn the relevant skills for those areas. Recognize that a lot of stuff is getting off-shored, so you need to get skilled in topics that are least likely to get that kind of competition. I do not know VB Java or C The languages you need to learn are dependent on your employer needs In the past I have had to become skilled in machine language (binary) and variants hardware based, such as those that preceded computer languages (wiring boards of tabulating equipment) fore-runners to the languages & tools I use today Outside the work place I have learned some languages & tools associated with creating & updating a web site I now work with RPG SQL/400 (the language) DDS CL If I find time to learn another language or tool it needs to be UIM (for help screen linking), which is conceptually similar to HTML and back to basics tools associated with major OS Every few years I take a refresher course in computer security ... how the field & threats have evolved, what needs to be done about those evolving threats I've been wanting to learn basics of the major OS, but not really found the time ... major OS that I am aware of * Where I work we have IBM/400 Novell & several flavors of Microsoft/Windoze * Linux is what I think would be the most valuable today to know more about, because commercial software is getting to be extortionist expensive for many businesses, so open source is very attractive * Unix is still around a lot & may become more popular again after those lawsuits become history |
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