Programming

[kanjiman]

OK! so for all of you who do some type of programming, what style do you mainly work with/enjoy? i've been working on HTML, XHTML, and CSS and have been enjoying it a lot but i'm wondering what other people like. i'm not 100% sure i want to do web programming for my career and want to kinda feel other languages. and yes, i definitely think that i do want to go into programming of some sort for a job. I love looking at the code and just messing around with it to make things better. the code just looks cool in my opinion!

i've been looking at javascript and java. i'm not completely sure what kind of programming i want to do though...

So, any thoughts on different languages is much appreciated!

Thanks!

[SirKerrald]

I'm taking Java now as my first real language that I've put time into (sorry qbasic, I just didn't have the time in the 90s) and seriously considering pulling the trigger and going back for a masters in CS. I'd love to hear thoughts from anyone working in the industry. Looking at taking C this summer, but never really messed with web stuff.

[titsworth]

I use a lot of different languages day to day. In my job, I work with a combination of scripting languages, such as python, and also some heavy-duty application frameworks, Java/J2EE. For my "hobby" programming, I like to do web development, mostly in Django, which is a python based web framework.

In no particular order, here are the languages I code in or look at in my current job:

• Java[/*:m:3fpcqbmx]
• Python[/*:m:3fpcqbmx]
• Perl[/*:m:3fpcqbmx]
• C++[/*:m:3fpcqbmx]
• C[/*:m:3fpcqbmx]
• Shell Scripting "languages" (bash/ksh/tcsh)[/*:m:3fpcqbmx]
• Matlab[/*:m:3fpcqbmx]
• ADA[/*:m:3fpcqbmx]
• PHP[/*:m:3fpcqbmx]
• C#[/*:m:3fpcqbmx]

My opinion is that you can never know too many languages, but you do need to dive deep into one in particular to have a solid base in something. From my experience, employers want versatile people, but they catch on quickly if your experience ends at "Hello World."

As for what languages you should go after and learn, here are a few of my thoughts:

• Learn one of the "core" languages: Java or C/C++ (ADA or Fortran if you want to limit your possibilities) These are the languages most big businesses and military projects use under the hood to run their core applications.[/*:m:3fpcqbmx]
• Learn a scripting language like Python, Perl, or Ruby. These are normally for getting down and dirty, but they have seen a lot of improvement and acceptance in the industry and are core to some big companies. If you are going for web development, alot of the big web frameworks are written on top of python and ruby (and java as well)[/*:m:3fpcqbmx]
• Figure out what you want to do. If you like business applications, learn Microsoft C# or J2EE. If you like mobility apps, try Objective C or JavaFX. If you like web development, read up on what your favorite sites use under the hood and learn that. For example, this bulletin board is an open source PHP application. You can see all the code that makes this possible and learn it. Which brings me to my next point.[/*:m:3fpcqbmx]
• Find, follow, and contribute to open source. Languages are easy to learn, but learning the development processes is the hard part. Find a project you are interested in, follow the message boards and start plugging in some code where you can.[/*:m:3fpcqbmx]

There are so many opportunities for software developers, so just find something you enjoy and nerd out on it. Hope that helps!

[kanjiman]

awesome! thanks a bunch for the info! i was thinking the exact same thing you wrote, Titsworth, about becoming well-rounded and learning many languages because this is something that i do think i want to do for a career and anything that will help me have success there is worth doing and doing well. honestly, i had no idea about the scripts that you posted but i'll definitely have to look into them.

SirKerrald, let me know how you enjoy C. that was another one of the many languages i was looking at too.

Thanks a lot for your two guy's input!

[Steve]

I know almost nothing about programming, but this thread makes me happy. Love to see nerds helping nerds.

-Steve

[Neoski136]

i've been working on HTML, XHTML, and CSS and have been enjoying it a lot but i'm wondering what other people like.

Java, C#, and ASP.NET/PHP are highly recommended since it appears you're heading down the web applications development path. I've found that larger business use mostly Windows IIS webservers which utilize ASP.NET and smaller businesses use LAMP servers (Linux Apache mySQL PHP) which best utilize PHP.

If you're a student (ugrad or grad) you should check out http://www.dreamspark.com. You can get almost any Windows based server or application development software package for free. I think you need a valid student ID number at that's all.

[kanjiman]

thanks again for the info guys. i had one question, i'm still planning on going back and taking classes but i was wondering if ya'll had some good resources that you used to help learn or keep up with the languages. the next class i'm planning on taking is a Java class and that's not until June. so i wanted to get a little bit of a head start. thanks again!

[PORKLE]

I do Ruby on Rails web development. I gotta say, developing web applications is super annoying. In order to be marginally competent, you need to learn HTML, Javascript, CSS (including IE quirks), the DOM, SQL, HTTP, your framework (Rails, J2EE, whatever) - AHHHHH. If you've ever tried to write Ruby server-side that generates Javascript to be sent back to the browser to inject HTML... it's a quoting and escape character hell. If it wasn't for jQuery, I'd probably have thrown my monitor out the window.

If you can get a job where they let you do local development (iPhone dev, Windows GUI stuff, DBA, etc) then you get to focus on the actual cool problem solving and programming instead of fighting with a giant pile of tools.

I just realized I've been bitching and not helping you at all. What I would do is dominate at school... if that's not enough work, build something FOR YOURSELF. Make a mod for your favorite game, web site for a club, build a blog, make a skin for your media player, host a family email server, whatever. You're always more motivated when it's a project that you are passionate about. Also, it's great for future employers to see that you have already built something successful. Finally, developing software is an activity where you tend to screw up a lot and learn through experience. Fun personal projects are a good place for that since the stakes are usually low.

Anyway, I like programming in general but sometimes the good stuff of programming is obscured by crap (bad tools, poor management, etc). Good luck!

[PORKLE]

thanks again for the info guys. i had one question, i'm still planning on going back and taking classes but i was wondering if ya'll had some good resources that you used to help learn or keep up with the languages. the next class i'm planning on taking is a Java class and that's not until June. so i wanted to get a little bit of a head start. thanks again!

If you want to just keep up with the general news, I'd try browsing http://news.ycombinator.com/ or slashdot or building a personal reddit with r/programming, r/linux, r/java, etc. Other than that, I usually check out whether OReilly http://oreilly.com/ has a book for the topic I'm trying to learn. You have to pair the reading with some practice projects though, otherwise you don't really learn anything IMO.

[SpecialSeth]

You have to pair the reading with some practice projects though, otherwise you don't really learn anything IMO.

Absolutely! If you really want to start picking up new languages I would recommend you start writing down things you would like to create in them. Have a backlog of good ideas and projects so that you are never stuck wondering "what now?". Taking the next step and learning good project management practices can never hurt either.

Most languages and frameworks today have excellent documentation right on their website so it is not 100% required that you go out and buy a book to learn. Also, sites like www.stackoverflow.com offer quick and excellent community access to just about any aspect of programming you will run into (just remember to search before you inquire).

Also, if you feel like you would rather not start a project from scratch their are online repositories (http://github.com/) of open source projects where branching of the project is encouraged, so go grab that open source MP3 player and add some functionality to it. You will learn how to read someone else code, integrate new functionality, and probably learn a couple of tricks.