Languages/Technologies advice

Question

Hi all, a bit of advice required here :). I recently graduated(Computer Science), and need to decide a path to take programming/technology wise.

I have knowledge of Java, C, SQL most of it is university level stuff. I work daily with PHP/SQL building web apps.

Which language / technology would you advise me to learn. I am very interested in Database management, GIS etc. Web dev is also very interesting to me. It is all a bit confusing since i would like to learn something that will have a value at least in the near future. I would like to have some ideas on which language/technology is god choice in order to be marketable.

Answer 1

Learn some HTML5.

You already have web development experience and HTML5 seems to be a hot topic lately and will likely continue to be at least for a few years.

Other than that, just follow what you like.

Answer 2

You can't make wrong if you head to one of the bigger player's in technology: Java and/or .NET. Both support the things you named and both won't go away soon.

Other technologies are interesting as well (Ruby, F#, and so on). But learning a technology is only the first step (IMHO). By learning technology and really thinking about it you can learn the concepts. While technology looks different in different OO language concepts are stick and once understood make it easier to switch. Don't mind me if I'm not saying concepts are learned at university: Really understanding comes with doing after you had a foundation ;)

Answer 3

You're already familiar with 3 out of the top 4 languages according to tiobe-index You could add a funtional programming supporting language like Scala to your portfolio.

For Webdevelopment in Java I would recommend to learn Spring and JEE.

And alway keep in mind where you want to be in the next 5 years ;-)

Answer 4

If WebDev is interesting to you, why not get into JavaScript and play around with some of that? Whatever path you choose will be useful in some way as you'll know what you don't like or you'll find something you do like.

Good luck on whatever you choose and remember that it isn't like you have to pick something and stick to it through thick and thin, no matter what.