What Programming Lang?

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php and mysql might be a good starting point.

you don't have to get all confused working with pointers and stuff.

plus it runs through an interpreter instead of needing to be compiled, further simplifying its use as a first language.

the syntax is similar to C language, but then again most languages are fairly similar.

it also lets you use procedural OR object oriented programming so you can start procedural and work your way into object oriented when you feel more comfortable.

it also makes interacting with a database super easy with mysql. good way to learn the basics of sql.

the only downsides i can think of.... it's a lazy language. you can use a variable that hasn't been cast or defined. it does it for you (if you haven't done so manually) it also lets you get sloppy with data types. you can concatenate an integer with a string. you can take a string that contains an integer value and directly do math (addition/subtractions, etc) to it without converting data type first.

example:

<?php
$a = '15';
$b = 5;
echo $a + $b;
//outputs 20
?>

in any other language, that would give you several errors. in php, that is allowed. somewhat teaches bad habits. (or lack of good procedures)

Java is very popular for these financial apps, and is somewhat web-friendly, but i hate it due to being extremely slow.

there isn't any one good language to suggest, but there are some decent ones to start with. python is another good one for starters.

[SCOLANATOR]

Read a number of comments and this is coming from a 20 year old student.
I started with BASIC which I really enjoyed, spent six months making Pacman.
Really allowed me to get my teeth into programming, enjoyed learning all the basic and many more complex algorithms and taught me good and bad practices of programming.
Has decent documentation too... Pretty certain M$ Defender MK1 was built using BASIC.

When I went to uni I started to learn Java which I despised. Never made sense to me, everything was so convoluted and was pretty horrible trying to debug when compared to BASIC. I hope Java dies off, I don't see what makes it so special anymore, but hey there's far more informed people on here that you should be wise to listen to.

Anyway I switched course and now doing what I set out to do, the nitty gritty stuff. C++ and doing more stuff with programming hardware, basic drivers, some ASM stuff.
Anyway I found BASIC great to start with, just allows you to get in and build a program and chop and change it as you go.

~scol

[UNIXgod]

Originally Posted by SCOLANATOR

I hope Java dies off, I don't see what makes it so special anymore, but hey there's far more informed people on here that you should be wise to listen to.

I agree with you that java was a weak attempt at creating an object oriented c like language with garbage collection and without memory pointers. Sun did a good job at marketing it in it's time.

It wont die because of the jvm. Unless the cell phone and tablet industry dies which it won't any time soon. One of the nice things about jvm is there are many languages that can be used instead of java. jython and jruby are a couple that come to mind. This is through a process called transliteration. It can also be seen for producing applications to compile to objective-c for apple's ios.

[Zer010]

Originally Posted by species8472

Personally I would get into c#. I see a lot of companies moving stuff to c# especially if they are doing anything with sharepoint.

+1

Bottomline: Be multilingual and chose 1 of the major High Level language (C variant, Java, ect) as your mastery.

I work at home for a company that does Workman comp software with a well above my age salary. We are using SQL Server 2012 RC0, C#3.0 (little bit of legacy VB.Net in one project), Entity Framework 4 as the core server side coding. ASP.Net, Javascript CSS and HTML are assumed.

I started in 1999 with VB5 then went to C++ (c99 using gcc) then to MSVC. On my journey to college I picked up Java and that was a colossal waste of time. At one point I was doing LAMP work in 2006 but it was so boring and the code was DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) that I just dropped it. Please note that is just my personal feelings on LAMP; it left a very sour taste with me.

Once I reached my last year of college in 2007 I said to myself that I needed to go where the money and business were going. I went back to my roots with VB.Net in early 2009 leading to one of the smartest decisions I ever made. Then I moved away from MySQL/Postgres to MS SQL and VB.Net using ADO. Landed my first VB6/VB.Netjob the very next month. I have worked for several companies since then doing a mix of C++/VB6 to C#/VB.Net (everything form 1.1 to 4.5 RC0)

IT departments are shrinking and development departments have been growing in all the business I have worked for. Cloud is here to stay so get on it now (we just setup a backup application using Azure in case our SQL Server fails or the IIS7.5 server fails at 1 of the 3 locations we have).

Note: Regarding Java this will be here to stay for longer than most people think due to the embedded device market ie devices like in airport terminals as a point of reference and newer vending machines. This is also a good reason to avoid Assembly unless a opportunity presents itself or you just want to learn (warning: timesink)

[Mark]

I prefer c#, but recommend learning any language that interests you!

Here was my order: cobol, c, pascall, c++, asm, perl, php, vb3-6, .net 1-current

I do not regret any of my time in any of those languages.

[OS-Wiz]

Originally Posted by Mark

I prefer c#, but recommend learning any language that interests you!

Here was my order: cobol, c, pascall, c++, asm, perl, php, vb3-6, .net 1-current

I do not regret any of my time in any of those languages.

COBOL, wow, dating yourself there, LOL! I started with IBM Assembler (mostly operating system coding, even some EXCP stuff), then COBOL (business stuff) and was amazed how much easier it was. When COBOL didn't lend itself to some of the trickier stuff, back in the day, you could enter Assembler in a paragraph and even loop back into it. Had to be careful not to step on any of the registers COBOL was using, LOL.

[Zer010]

Originally Posted by Mark

I prefer c#, but recommend learning any language that interests you!

Here was my order: cobol, c, pascall, c++, asm, perl, php, vb3-6, .net 1-current

I do not regret any of my time in any of those languages.

Now if you just had LISP on the list

Been a longtime since someone mentioned COBOL. My Professor was great about making use write a few things in it just so we could appreciate our new tools

[sysigy]

Originally Posted by Mark

I prefer c#, but recommend learning any language that interests you!

Here was my order: cobol, c, pascall, c++, asm, perl, php, vb3-6, .net 1-current

I do not regret any of my time in any of those languages.

I was much the same...

Assembler, Pascal & Delphi, Cobol, C++, Java, ASP, C# .net 1.0 - current, HLSL, vb.net 1.1 (for legacy systems)

All good but currently loving web development using ASP.net MVC3 (Razor) in C#, looking forward to MVC4 RTM

The systems I design and develop professionally are normally centered around C#.

[UNIXgod]

Originally Posted by sysigy

All good but currently loving web development using ASP.net MVC3 (Razor) in C#, looking forward to MVC4 RTM

Ruby on Rails really did impact web development. It seems to have found it's way into many "new" frameworks. Grails and PHPcake are a few and as usual I see M$ has a very limited view on naming things. The MVC architectural pattern is older than microsoft itself. I'm glad they didn't call it asp on rails.

[sysigy]

Originally Posted by UNIXgod

Ruby on Rails really did impact web development. It seems to have found it's way into many "new" frameworks. Grails and PHPcake are a few and as usual I see M$ has a very limited view on naming things. The MVC architectural pattern is older than microsoft itself. I'm glad they didn't call it asp on rails.

The pattern is awesome whoever invented it... I also use the WPF & Silverlight equivalent (M-V-VM)

[Culex]

Bah...

Learn Emacs. It's primarily a Lisp interpreter whose main feature is text editing. It's fully configurable through elisp (a Lisp dialect) and once you get to know it, you'll be set for some time to come.

Also, MVC is oldschool. Let's move on to MOVE http://cirw.in/blog/time-to-move-on

I should mention: I've been doing some PHP, but mostly have been working in Javascript. Using jQuery and Backbone.js extensively, as well as RequireJS and Openlayers. I'm coming to enjoy Javascript greatly. Maybe I'm a masochist.

[chriselviss]

If you go with Microsoft you will get everthing from one development environment, so it is a good start for beginners. In Visual Studion you can start vb.net and sql server and then you can study c# http://csharp.net-informations.com and finally asp.net. The advantage is that you can study desktop development as well as web development from the same place. So for a beginner better to start with MS level.

chris.

[UNIXgod]

Originally Posted by Culex

Bah...

Learn Emacs. It's primarily a Lisp interpreter whose main feature is text editing. It's fully configurable through elisp (a Lisp dialect) and once you get to know it, you'll be set for some time to come.

Nah vi user here! When I'm really board I'll use ed =)