Ask HN: Which programming languages(s) should I focus on to get a job?

[Onixelen]

- I live in a non-tech hub area, I might consider moving to a tech-hub later.

- Most boot camps teach Ruby on Rails, and I know one teaches Javascript in the backend. But there are no major boot camps around here, which leads me to believe hipster languages like Ruby and Node aren't as widely used among employers here. Plus I don't know how long these languages are going to stick around for.

- Java seems to have the most jobs available.

- I'm interested in web development. There's a small chance I might consider pursuing my own startup. But if I make enough as an employee I might refrain from doing that.

[brudgers]

It might just be that lack of bootcamps correlates with the degree to which a location is not a tech-hub. The reason Ruby on Rails and Node are popular is because they're used in many industries to get work done with reasonable productivity. Rails is more than a decade old and NodeJS nearly eight, both are relatively mature and often chosen on technical merit.

For employment, it probably makes sense to learn whatever is commonly wanted when hiring entry level programmers...I mean there might be local companies writing code in C, but they would probably be less likely to hire someone at entry level and when doing so might be more likely to want a formal credential over self-teaching.

Anyway, I think programming is more about higher level abstractions than any particular language and it probably makes less difference what a person picks than picking something and writing code regularly makes.

Good luck.

[davelnewton]

What kind of job do you want? "Web development" is a hugely broad area. Personally I'd pick a relatively well-known one at random, but these days, I'd point people at modern JavaScript.

That said, "knowing" the language is only a tiny part of the battle.

[Onixelen → davelnewton]

> What kind of job do you want?

Software developer/engineer who works w/ websites/web applications.

> "Web development" is a hugely broad area. Personally I'd pick a relatively well-known one at random, but these days, I'd point people at modern JavaScript.

Being in a non-tech hub area, I don't know if there are a lot of jobs here for JavaScript in the backend. If there are a lot of JavaScript jobs in non-tech hub areas, I would probably go w/ it, since it seems like the easiest/simplest language. Job descriptions mention JavaScript but then there are many other languages also thrown in.

[davelnewton → Onixelen]

It turns out JavaScript is pretty popular on the front end as well.

[Onixelen → davelnewton]

My impression has been that back end pays more, that's why I was more inclined towards it.

I don't think I would pursue my own startup, even though I said so above.

[davelnewton → Onixelen]

There's no "pays more, pays less" based on front-/back-end, there's only individual jobs. It totally depends on the market, the market in your area, your skills, the technologies involved, and you.

[edburdo]

The one that interests you the most. Look at the language, the types of jobs, etc. Find what you want to do, then learn the language to do that.

Learning languages is easy once you get past the first one. So pick stuff that you want to do, so you'll stay interested.

[rerx]

What line of work are you interested in?

[Onixelen → rerx]

Software developer/engineer who works w/ websites/web applications.

[fazkan]

the one that you like the most...