[BuhRock]

My first year just finished. I major in Information Technology. I am very bored so I decided to find an online school that teaches a web based programming language. I have HTML and XML,Java II in the fall next year, and then in the spring I have SQL and php. I don't want to take a class on those, so I'm trying to figure out which web programming language could help me. Would Perl and CGI be a good choice? I'm open to suggestions, even if it isn't web programming.

[Riggs109]

I would like to suggest C#. It's a pretty powerful language. I write applications and do web development and such. The syntax is pretty simple and Java like. Another language I would recommend is C. I recently finished a C class, and I feel that I have a much better understanding of what is going on in the background of higher level languages.

-Riggs109

[pbattisson]

If I were you I think the key thing is not which language but just a language, even if it is php that you will go over again in the spring. There are very few languages (read none) that you could learn and not be the better for it. Ruby with Rails is a very popular web system at the moment, and Perl is never a bad thing to learn, especially if you learnt to use it with regular expressions in a Unix environment as a scripting language.

My advice, you have HTML, XML, Java and PHP covered, so look at something like Perl or Ruby which are a little different (javascript perhaps with jQuery also?) in an attempt to broaden your understanding.

If it doesn't have to be a web based language learn something like C# or improve on your Java skills. I have used C# quite extensively, it is an extremely useful and powerful language and wouldn't be a bad choice. Especially if you learnt how to do Silverlight/WPF with it for the web.

[Riggs109]

Quote

Perl is never a bad thing to learn, especially if you learnt to use it with regular expressions in a Unix environment as a scripting language.

Agreed 100% here. Learning regex or regular expressions is very useful. I was introduced to it via my last programming class in C and I use regex in pretty much everything I do now.

[Sergio Tapia]

+1 to Perl. Seems like it isn't going anywhere anytime soon and it's valuable to know.

[BuhRock]

Alright, thanks guys. I spent most of the night looking for online colleges to apply to that would offer those languages. I don't know how my interest in coding came along. When I first started java, I hated it. I'm more of a networking guy. I forgot to mention that I was taking Javascript also in the spring. I think I will look into Perl.

[W3bDev]

I really enjoy .NET C#/ASP.NET, but that's just me. I came from open source/PHP.