Which computer language should I learn?

Hi Seema,

So it depends on the type of problems you'd like to solve. If you are interested in data science ( economics is a great bridge into data science) and quantitative analysis, I'd take a look at R and Python. R is a statistical programming language that is very popular with people coming from stats, economics, and other social science backgrounds. They've done a great jobs in putting tother a set of tools for data analysis, predictive modeling, and visualizations. Common R libraries used are dplyr and tidyr (Hadleyverse) for data manipulation and ggplot2 for visualization.

If you're interested in machine learning, AI, and building ML powered applications, I'd recommend checking out Python. A majority of the production AI and ML research and software development work utilizes Python. Common python libraries for ML include scikitlearn, pandas, numpy, and the various deep learning libraries (Keras, Tensorflow, Pytorch, etc).

If you're interested in software engineering or developing web applications, there's many different language. But those employers are usually looking for engineers with experience solving computational problems.

Before jumping into a language, I'd recommend taking an intro CS class. Harvard's CS50 is a great class that introduces the field of computer science and touches the wide variety of problems you can explore. It also touches on C, HTML/CSS, javascript and python, so you can get taste of programming in those languages.

I was looking at refreshing my coding skills and I read an article I found at http://www.codingdojo.com/blog/9-most-in-demand-programming-languages-of-2017. It is a year old but I would image it should still apply now.

Top one is "SQL." I don't consider this a language per say but agree with learning it as it is very important for data analysis, which is a HOT topic now in the IT industry.

Java is #2 and has been around for years. I see it staying top for many more.

Hello Seema,

Learning a language is a good start to see if your interested in programming. From your background it sounds like Data Analytics might interest you. If this is the case I would research Data languages such as SQL or big data platforms such as MongoDb. There was a response that mentioned C as a starting point. This is or can be a difficult conceptual leap, don't get me wrong its a great step if you can get it and are interested in doing long term OO development (Java, Spring, C#) but may be a little daunting as a first step.

Before taking the class I would suggest some intro to programming via an online site that can make it fun. I enjoy codefights.com and have used some of the free CBT's on pluralsight.com. Both are good entry points to determine what direction you may want to go in. I should mention as well that JavaScript has in recent years become a Class A language and is also worth a peak into.

While some of the glitzy trendy languages can be fun long term success in my career has been in the understanding of basic concepts and pattern recognition. Having solid data analytics and programming skills like Oracle Pl/SQL and Sql Server T-SQL have also served me well in my 20+ year career.

Good luck to you!

KC Jones

Sr. Application Architect

ESPN

C#, JEE, SpringBoot, JavScript, SQL, PL/SQL, C++ and anything else anyone needs me to write in.