I'm looking to learn a new language or expand on what I know (I.E VB). I would like to learn a useful language that will not fade away in the next 10 years and could POSSIBLY be useful for a career or side jobs. Once people reply (hopefully) with good suggestions I will take it into consideration and go buy a book on it.

Input from those who know alot about this would be greatly appreciated (Grok, Iago & Others).

There are only two I can think of that have a low probability of disappearing in 10 years.

1. RPG - This is hardly a hobbyists language, but it is a programming language. You won't find many RPG programmers that have a clue how the IBM works, or how their OS works. But RPG will be a very good career, especially now. Most of the RPG programmers are near retirement, over 50, and the whole computer industry is about to go through a major shortage. Universities no longer teach mainframe or RPG skills, yet nearly all mission-critical applications are on mainframes and minicomputers. A few line-of-business applications go onto microcomputers like Sun, Dell, Compaq, HP servers, but most go on larger systems.

2. C - There's simply nothing better overall for general purpose programming than this language, at least that has any market force. C will be around at least 15-20 more years. To be replaced, something significantly better will have to come along, and C will have to have problems which cannot be overcome in itself, to give people reason to want to switch. Finally, millions of programmers will have to abandon C and convert to whatever else, for C to die off. I don't see it.

As far as the others, Java, .NET, et al, these have been rapidly transioning, relatively to the above two languages, and you can expect that to continue so long as both vendors are throwing in a new kitchen sink every two years. They're still in heavy competition with each other, and that leaves their programmers behind and disillusioned every few years. At least I can say that about Microsoft. Maybe someone else has a Sun perspective about the Java platform evolutions.

I forgot to mention I'm planning on going into a career in computer networking/engineering. Would RPG be the best choice in that situation?

[quote author=j0k3r link=board=5;threadid=2198;start=0#msg17037 date=1060035693]
I forgot to mention I'm planning on going into a career in computer networking/engineering. Would RPG be the best choice in that situation?
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Then you want scripting languages used on the various platforms. Perl is #1, hands down. Know it inside and out. Anyway I'm no longer a network admin, so ask one of those.

Thing might be able to help here. Or a number of other people.

Ah how about PHP? I love PHP... I've heard it's growing rapidly. Poeple I've asked said it's similar to Perl. Should I start with Perl or can I stick with PHP?

Thing, any input would be greatly appreciated.

Someone -1 me for not researching.

I spent half an hour reading up, and decided Perl is better to learn than PHP for what I plan on doing, PHP seems to lean more towards web applications.

I also read in a couple places that both PHP and Perl contain very C like syntax, and was wondering if I should just learn C first and then I can do both PHP and Perl?

You will probably encounter all of those someday. I would do a bit a PHP and C to understand the main gist of it, then work heavily on Perl. And it's always easier to learn another language when you already know one. VB has helped me a bit with understanding my very limited knowledge C++ (maybe it's because I hate MFC).

I went to chapters and bought "Perl in a nutshell" because it looked like a real professional in depth book, but I was blown away by the first chapter of installation due to it being on Unix (and myself knowing nothing about Unix [yet]). The second chapter included Unix command lines embeded into the programming which I did not understand at all (-e, -r, /e, /u, BLAH). Anyways I think I'll go buy the PHP book this time and learn that, since it has alot of stuff that is more relevant to myself right now and contains stuff that I know I understand (I previously started learning it but had to return the book).

I'll start learning Perl in a couple years, I think I gotta learn Unix first...

Thanks for your input guys.