IT as Career - 3
I wrote two posts before on people who are looking at IT as a career option. So after a long time another post on the same topic.
You can find the previous two posts here – 1 and 2
One of the things that people always ask me is "What languages do I need to learn to be a good programmer?" . The other question is on technologies, Mainframes/.NET/Java,J2EE etc.
This is one of the most debatable questions. Different people will tell you a different language, based on whichever is their favorite. One of the most commonly recommended one is C or C++ and recently Java, as people say these are base languages you need to know. I don't agree.
It is not very important what language you learn. Learn the basics of how a computer works and other basic computer programming structures including structured programming and object orientation. What language you use to learn this is immaterial.. I used COBOL for structured/modular programming and a combination of C++ and VB(4/5/6) for OOPs.
If you are a student, I would recommend learn all technologies and languages you can manage. Learn Windows, UNIX, Mainframes, Linux, Mac, whatever you can get your hands on (Most colleges will allow you access to at least to two of these, Windows and some flavor of Unix/Linux). Learn every language you can, including Java, .NET, Basic, COBOL, C, C++, Perl, anything you find. The idea is to see as much as you can see during the student years, so that you know what you are really interested in when you go to your first job. Mostly I find students making the decision on choice of technologies based on others advice. A friend who is working on Mainframes, so you choose Mainframes. You met a FOS enthusiast, and you choose FOS. You meet a MS enthusiast and you choose .NET. This is not always what you like. So unless you have seen parts of everything, you cannot choose what you like. So use the years of study well…
Next post of the first few years of work…
The university curriculum these days places a lot of emphasis on programming languages which i think is unnecessary. A lot more emphasis must be placed on data structures and algorithmics too. Maybe concentrating on different programming paradigms would help as well :) But, i dont see that happening very soon.
Posted by: Sharath | October 16, 2006 at 09:38 AM
Probably you could recomend a couple of books or resources that could help shape somebody from bottom up.
Posted by: Anonymous | October 17, 2006 at 02:21 AM