Greetings all,

I am an IT person working in general support. I do a little bit of everything here and there but not much programming.

I have decided to go back to school (I already have a BA and MS but neither are in computer science--so I'm just going to the local community college where I can just take the programming courses without having to retake general studies) and I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions as to which of the three "paths" I should take?

The local community college has three paths:

1. The ".NET Programming" which includes the following classes:

An Introduction to Programming with Java OR Introduction to Programming with C++

Introduction to Visual Basic .Net Programming

C# .NET

Advanced C#.Net and ASP.Net

2. The "Java Developer" which includes the following classes:

An Introduction to Programming with Java

Java Server Programming

XML Programming

Systems Analysis and Design

Programming Data Structures in Java

3. The "Object oriented programming with C++" which includes:

Introduction to Programming with C++

Systems Analysis and Design

Object Features of C++

Data Structures with C++

I, by no means, expect to become a master with only 3 or 4 classes in each but I really want to focus my energies in one language and I feel like this is the best way for me to go (classroom over books and such).

I emailed the head of the CPS department at the college asking for help (he said .NET actually--but you never know these peoples' motives!) but I thought I would put this out there to gather as many opinions on the subject as possible! Also I have been looking at this info which seems to say that .NET (c#) isn't used nearly anywhere as much as Java or C/C++ www.tiobe.com

Since I bet a lot of you actually work in the field of programming I think hearing from all of you (about what is in demand, what's good and what's not, what are the dirty little secrets that you can't find from company-published information, etc) would be greatly appreciated and a tremendous help!

First thing you need to consider is, why do you want to program? Personal hobby, future job prospects, game design, something else? That can have a large impact on what language to learn. Granted, the more languages you know, the better off you'll be but everyone needs to start somewhere.

Personally, though I had to take some programming languages for my degree, I now just hobby program for personal projects, hence my choice of the Python language.

Job-wise, pretty much any of your language choices will work. Java jobs are nearly always available, though mostly for enterprise programming or custom in-house jobs. C++ is still really popular for video games and many other apps. .NET is limited to mostly Windows programs, though the Mono project is working on porting/developing cross-platform programs.

C and C++ are the basis of a lot of current languages, including Java and C#. If you pick up C++ as a starting language, it will serve you well when moving to other languages. It will also show you how other languages have improved, or at least modified, upon C++.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't advocate for learning a powerful scripting language such as Python or Ruby. These languages are just as capable as other languages with the benefit of being easier to learn. If they don't meet your needs, you can always move to another language.