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A comment on Young web dev asking what language to learn?.

Re:Young web dev asking what language to learn? by smoyer on Monday June 11, 2012 @07:16PM (#4097641)
Wow ... there are so many possible answers but I would definitely start with Javascript. Don't learn the whole language, just the "Good Parts". And that would be my first book recommendation - "Javascript: The Good Parts".

With that foundation, you could learn Coffeescript, NodeJS, JQuery, etc. Since you're talking about server side software, Javascript combined with NodeJS will give you both client-side (browser) and server-side capabilities.

You should take a look at the industries you want to join when you graduate to decide what back-end language you should learn. If you're working in a Fortune 500 company you're going to see lots of Java/J2EE. RoR is highly touted but not as wide-spread as you might guess. PHP and Perl are still widely used and there are popular Python frameworks as well.

Have a fun summer and good luck!

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Re:Young web dev asking what language to learn? by joshuahornby on Monday June 11, 2012 @07:27PM (#4097682)
Thanks, I'll be sure to check that out.
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Re:Young web dev asking what language to learn? by andrejewski on Monday June 11, 2012 @07:27PM (#4097684)
I agree. As it stands now it would make the most sense to learn JavaScript, then I would learn jQuery if I were you, then move into sockets and node.js. You could then use this one language for the frontend and server-side.

Don't learn Java. The applet is dead. [Java Hate]

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Re:Young web dev asking what language to learn? by smoyer on Monday June 11, 2012 @07:31PM (#4097706)
Whoa! ... The Applet is definitely dead, but I included that in my list of languages for the back-end server (and in Fortune 500 environments). It may not be considered cool, but there are still a lot of companies using it.
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Re:Young web dev asking what language to learn? by facorreia on Monday June 11, 2012 @07:39PM (#4097742)
You're right, and "a lot" is an understatement... there is a whole lot more than a lot.
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