detox — Mon, 21 Jan 2002 00:54:47 +0000

The choice really comes down to where you want your career to go. I would agree with the others when they say that once you have learned one you can pick up other languages more easily. I have essentially stayed on an MS base, with MS technologies. But the days of MS being the ONLY choice are far gone. I am now branching out into PHP etc.

I personally would suggest starting off with core MS programming like ASP, VB etc That way you have capped the majority of the market to begin with. The other thing is to do a search on job sites and look for the core programming skills that are listed in industries or companies you would like to target.

The problem is that if it were easy to tell where the market was going, we would all be millionaires. Having long since tapped into the 'one' language or technology. This conversation would be taking place over martini's on a 120ft yacht!!

Wil — Sun, 20 Jan 2002 16:57:06 +0000

Hm. There are a handful of very succesful small to medium sized companies concentrating on engineering web projects in Perl, PHP, ASP and so forth. A lot hit the brick wall when the wave of "we expect everything to be free" craze hit the Net a few years back.

I'm just trying to frgure this out myself really. Trying to gauge the next trend shift will be. I'm thinking of my own situation 5 years, and more, down the line really. I don't think we will view the internet in the same as we do today. I doubt we will all be viewing the internet on computers, even. That's where the market comes in for all these PDAs, Mobile Phones, the digital television boxes and so forth. All of these will be built on platforms such as Java or the new .NET platform. And with the big push .NET is recieving now from you-know-who I think we'll see a big market for .NET technology and a great need for such programmers very soon. This of course, if Bill's dream of connecting your toaster to the microwave, to the televison, to your PDA is true of course.

I agree with your point of a solid base, however. Most programming languages are all based on one-another and having a solid ground in one before developing to the nest level is always a good idea. At least this makes the transition a little easier when new technologies and new languages emerge.

I'm very keen to see a preview of the new Perl 6 with the massive push towards obect-orientated programming. I think this will casue a big stir within the programming community and push it more towards language such as Ruby which have been slowly gaining ground while the giant has been dormant. This also pushes the language more towards Java and .NET which can only mean good news for programmers wishing to jump from one to another when the time is right.

ardaee — Sat, 19 Jan 2002 23:51:50 +0000

I see thank you...

Suzanne — Sat, 19 Jan 2002 22:49:24 +0000

I respectfully disagree that you need to go to proprietary to make money.

There are definitely different markets, however. If you wish to work for a larger firm and deal with only enterprise level sites (of which there are fewer, but they usually have deeper pockets), then making a choice for Java or MS languages is a good idea. Actually, it's your only hope.

If you want to work with medium sized firms, it's a toss up.

If you want to work on your own, as a freelancer or independent, you should look at ASP, PHP, Perl, and possibly Cold Fusion. A little bit of Perl is going to stand you in good stead, regardless, as it's THE most used language on the web, as it was the standard for CGI for years. Since the logic in programming translates well between the different languages (it's just syntax that differs, really, for most things, the bigger differences come out at enterprise and expert level programming), I'd say start with PHP to get a feel for it, and then build from there depending on where you want to go.

Knowing more is never going to be a drawback.

Suzanne

Wil — Sat, 19 Jan 2002 18:24:20 +0000

Oh my! Now this has always been a good starting point for a flame war on Usenet!

The only piece of advice I can give is ask you a few questions. What are you aiming to achieve? Have you got a given project in mind? Why do you want to program? For whom do you want to program? What operating systems are you most comftarble with? Windows or a *ix variant? What level of programming are you hoping to achieve? How much time and effort are you going to put into achiving this? What method of learning will you be using? Books, free web sites reference? Classroom style learning?

And on a much more serious note () are you hoping of making money out of this as a profession? Or is it just a hobby? If you're thinking of making money, I would shy away from the open-source community and head for the realms of Java, .NET, Web Objects and the other big players. But if this is just a hobby, maybe you'll get more fullfillment out of contributing to the open-source community associated with such languages as Perl, Python, PHP, Ruby and so on.

Hopefuly this will trigger you into thinking more about your long term goals. I know I know, a very boring set of questions, but essential IMO for us and yourself to get a grip of what you're aiming for. After we know that, we can be of more help to you.

Or don't bother thinking about it, and dive straight into perl.

ardaee — Sat, 19 Jan 2002 11:18:20 +0000

Thank you for answering mairving besides I need more comment by the people going to guide me so please write down any suggestions thank you...

mairving — Fri, 18 Jan 2002 14:02:07 +0000

Therein lies the argument. A lot of choices out there. The top ones are PHP, Perl and ASP. PHP and Perl are mostly used on the 'nix side of things. ASP is primarily a Windows thing. I personally prefer PHP since it is easy to use and runs fast.

Now if you want to become a programmer, you might be better off learning C+. It gives you a good foundation for programming. Once you become a master at one language and understand things like arrays and variables, then it is much easier to learn another langauge