What language next?

[southwind]

I've been working in PHP for a while now, and I'm happy where I am...but it makes me a bit nervous when I see so few jobs out there for PHP developers. I don't feel very "diversified."

What languages do you see as the most valuable to have in your toolbox? Which way is the wind blowing this week, and how long will it last?

Thanks for the input.

[PeOfEo]

a full fledged programming language like java would do the best. If you know something like that it can be extended to other things. Java can turn into jsp or java applets. If you want a good job in the web design market and learning asp.net now would be the best thing to do because businesses are slowly beginning to shift from asp classic to asp.net and asp.net developers are going to be in great demand in the next few years.

[sharkey]

To my knowledge i thought PHP was the most industry used server side language but im possibly wrong.

[buntine]

Nar, Microsoft's technologies still dominate the web development industry. Especially now that .NET has gained popularity.

I would go with either Java or .NET. Both are easy to learn, but if you haven't had much experience with Object Oriented programming, its a pretty bit learning curve.

Regards,
Andrew Buntine.

[sharkey]

Kool you learn something new everyday:D

[john_h]

learn the bash or ksh. unix has been around, umm, a long time and hasnt changed much. chances are, its going to be here quite a while to come.

you can earn $70k if you are a good unix admin, more if you write the scripts, at least in my neck of the woods, which is actually funny -there are so many unix jobs around my home, and I live 15 minutes from Redmond.

.net is a good bet, but that is going to change some day too, and probably before someone rewrites the bash.

Perl is pretty similar in some minor respects to what i mentioned above, without the history, well, not 30+ years of it at least, and Perl does get a overhaul from time to time, so it does change.

[PeOfEo]

personally i hate using java, sun's java is teh suck, it needs more cream and suggar. But it can get you places I guess.