Choices
So I’ve been wondering lately about programming languages. I’d like to thoroughly learn one but I’m stuck as to which one. Over the years I’ve used many different languages from a variety of BASICs to Pascal to Perl to Java and so on but I’ve never really sat down to dive in head first and learn it as if my job depended on it.
I don’t really see a future for me using BASIC even though RealBASIC looks really nice given that it’s a cross platform compiler. If I were writing programs and selling them it would probably be the way to go. I just don’t see how it would benefit my career any at the moment.
The company I work for uses Ada is many of their programs. I’ve taken the internal course and like the structure of the language. In fact, I think that it looks an awful lot like Pascal. They appear to share various key words and such. But as I look at the newer programs and the requirements in the job market I
just don’t see myself going there.
I took a Fortran class in college and received the dubious honor of being the only one in class that thought the language looked like BASIC. My instructor took offense to my half-joking comments but I had an almost perfect score in the class so he didn’t say much about it. 
That was 16 or 17 years ago (yikes!) and I never used the language outside the class so I think it’s safe to say that Fortran is off the list.
PHP is just a hobby language for me because the only thing I’ve used it for is my own website. It’s not used hardly at all at work. I did make a file browser-type application for some friends but that’s about it. There are several things I like about the language.
I almost forgot my OS/2 days and REXX. The only thing worth while I did with REXX was to write a desktop background changer that stored the history in extended attributes. I thought it was cool.
A few languages that I’ve looked into but never really got very far (disclaimer: I have studied them enough to perform code walk-throughs while providing meaningful input): C, C++.
This just leaves Perl, Python and Java. Of the three, I have the most experience with Perl. In fact, my employer has sent me to classes to study the subject. We have a ton of home-grown applications written in Perl. The most complicated program I’ve written is server-client application that checked with NIS to check on password expiration on successful user log in. There are plenty of opportunities to make use of Perl expertise but they would be limited to server maintenance, which isn’t all bad I assure you. Is this skill portable? As a sys admin, yes but there just aren’t that many jobs needing Perl programmers.
There’s not much Python expertise where I work, unfortunately, but there are some groups that use Mentor Graphics and Python appears to be integrated fairly well. I bought a book to learn Python a while back and have been slowly reading through it and trying it out. I really like the structure and object oriented code that’s used. What I really like is the idea that one would code for maintainability and readability! I know a Perl programmer or two that write code at such a level that it can’t hardly be maintained at all. I look at the code and think that it’s overly complicated. To be honest, I just wanted to check it out to see why so many Perl guys hate Python so much. As I search around the Internet there appears to be more Python programmer positions that Perl but there’s still not a huge demand for them.
A few years back (5 or 6), I was in between projects at work and thought that I might learn Java since I had heard that an upcoming major contract was going to need Java programmers. It was web-based and pseudo-interactive with a somewhat limited amount of knowledge to convey. However, it did whet my appetite concerning objects and GUI programming. I think I spent 2 months studying Java but, in spite of my enthusiasm and constant nagging, my manager never approached the software engineering group about a job. Being too good can prevent you from expanding your horizons, evidently. Anyway, the whole episode just depressed me and I trudged on like a good corporate robot. That was then.
The reason I’m even bringing it up now is that the IT group in my division is laying a few folks off across the corporation (50 total) and even though I’m not on “the list” I’ve been looking anyway. What I’ve found is an over abundance of Java positions and some of them are fairly high paying jobs. In fact, some of them even require a certification such as CISSP of which I am a holder.
I think for now I’ll just do some Python and Java reading with the hope that one of them will jump out at me and say, “I’m the one you’ve been looking for.” We’ll see what happens.
