On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 5:07 AM, Allen <[email protected]> wrote:
> I was asked by a friend who's son has enquired as to what is best to learn as > he is fresh from uni. What an interesting question. I had a couple reactions. - He's learning the first language after university? Isn't that about 12 years late? Not meant as a snark. After learning reading, writing and basic arithmetic, a language is great for young fertile minds 10 - 12 years old. - What's he want to do? If he's just curious and wants a hobby, a language with a good basis in computer science without a lot of proprietary extensions is a great introduction to the logic and process of computer programming. You can learn the gnarly implementation details later. Python would be my first choice. But learning a language is a long way from learning enough details to be useful in delivering apps, imho. - If he's looking for a job, it might be best, as you indicated, to see what's selling. Rather than _computer_programming, in which he'd be competing against kids who've been writing assembler and C since they were 10, it's far more likely he's interested in working with people to get computer applications to work (that's how a lot of us got into VFP, back in the day). I'd recommend a crash course in CSS and HTML and then try to customize some web sites in Joomla, Drupal or Wordpress. People who can't program their way out of a paper bag can produce attractive and functional sites, and there's a lot of demand for that kind of work. It's not programming as much as install, customize and configuring, but it's a foot in the door... -- Ted Roche Ted Roche & Associates, LLC http://www.tedroche.com _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
