what language to learn?

[kpmwrestler]

I was wondering what language I should learn? I already know batch (and ms-dos if you call that a language) I have two questions:

what language is easiest to learn?
what language can do the most?

[kpmwrestler]

anyone????

[chrisling]

Which language you think it can help you the most then you should learn it...

[pangea33]

I think the answer to this question depends mostly on what you want to do. Are you looking to make applications that users install on their computer, or are you talking about web applications?

Personally I think that web based languages are an area with a lot of potential for career, and usability. ASP.net and Java are both well known and useful. Recently I have been teaching myself ASP.net and while it's pretty straightforward, and has a graphical interface for the IDE, there are a lot of things that I think are restrictive. Java is not terribly simple to learn because it is a real object oriented language, and that requires a real understanding of programming logic and design. It also has a lot of developers out there, which walks a fine line between competition reducing the financial value and being popular enough for businesses to invest money in it.

I recall one time when a programmer was making fun of me as a web application developer, because Cold Fusion isn't a "real programming" language. Being honestly interested in considering J2EE as my next project I asked where he was working. His answer? "Well, I can't find a job right now."

For web application languages, php and cold fusion are two that I would recommend. For quick time to market and simplicity of learning, cold fusion wins between those two. Problem is that knowing the language by itself isn't enough. Not only do you have to understand basic programming logic concepts, you also need to know something about database design and web page building.

You're asking a very difficult question to answer, and that's probably why you haven't got much feedback. What I suggest is deciding what it is that you're looking to do, and let that drive the language you look into. Most recently I've been focused on using ajax within php pages on apache servers, connecting with mysql database. These are all open source technologies, although ajax is more of a methodology, and I think the virtual non-existant costs are going to make them big in industry. They already are I guess, but I think they're going to also have longevity.