which programming language(s) has the most job prospects?

[jon]

java is the only language that has room to grow

e.g. while C is not popular, this is not because it is a bad language, it is because the design of other languages better suits more applications than the kinds that C is suitable for

in other words, C has the greatest coverage in its market, perhaps 99% of market share. there are a number of places where truly ancient code has not been updated to C yet, and there are a number of places where libc has not been fully implemented yet. platform support is either lacking, or provides its own incompatible runtime, built in the assembly language for the host architecture

but in markets where java could have been used, java is not an undisputed king, because programmers are free to "play favorites" and do things with, in order of popularity, another language: PHP, python, C#, C

even so, overall, java is twice as popular as PHP, PHP is twice as popular as python, python is twice as popular as C#

[Autistic Spectrum]

i think tim should pick a project he wants to make and pick the right lang to make it, unless he wants to stand around in wallygong saying hello world the rest of his life, HE NEEDS TO DIVE RIGHT IN

all the payment systems i work on are java embedded

[Autistic Spectrum]

u want a niche lang that nobody uses to make the big bucks java programmers are literally a dime a dozen, since they teach it in the 9th grade now

[Autistic Spectrum]

tim learn cobal and fix traffic lights, and really old systems u will be a millonare

[Autistic Spectrum]

become a cobal master

[jon]

C# is java-like, and not all that bad, but being tethered to microsoft's .net framework it is destined for obsolescence

java can and will innovate wider and better and do it without losing cross-platform support, it is already stable on every major architecture that we will ever build personal computing devices with

JDK 8 will be bringing in all the features that C# now has, and they are so esoteric (e.g. true lambda functions and closures) that nobody even cares that C# had them first

[Autistic Spectrum]

i have a couple as400's u can play with em if u want i don't care tim, just be a cobal GOD,

u want a niche lang that nobody uses to make the big bucks java programmers are literally a dime a dozen, since they teach it in the 9th grade now

you have to know java and shit like visual basic
there is so much legacy scripting shgit that uses microsoft office things for output that i work on where i have to use visual basic

[Autistic Spectrum]

ya java runtime lol thats not destined for the garbage can, oracle is doing a bang up job

become a cobal master

pakis did that for y2k

[Autistic Spectrum]

learn a dot syntax lang and how to read documentation this is not tim.this.is.not.that.hard stack overflow will help u more than monde ok

[Autistic Spectrum]

cobal guys make big bucks, lol, cause nobody knows wtf

learn rpg iv

[Autistic Spectrum]

learn game maker, impress your friends,

just use punch cards and make sure they don't get unsorted

learn game maker, impress your friends,

guy, i'm talking about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RPG

[Autistic Spectrum]

monde i have like 3 ibm xt's ok i think i know a thing or 2 on how to write kick ass basica apps

would you rather generate forms and reportsa using cobol or rpg? it's u[p to you, bro

[Autistic Spectrum]

cobal is still in use in alot of places, take the cobal challenge tim

all the banks STILL use cobol in some way
army and govt systems are all using old as shit legacy crap

[Autistic Spectrum]

What is the first thing which springs to mind when you think of COBOL? Did you know that 200 times more transactions are processed daily by COBOL business applications than there are Google and You Tube searches made? COBOL is not about to drop dead – it still dominates the business language world. Here are our top ten reasons for learning COBOL.
1. COBOL is easy!
Learning COBOL isn’t like learning a completely new language: it’s English! It consists of English-like structural components such as verbs, clauses and sentences. Its readability means that you can understand what a program is doing without having to learn a whole new syntax.
To demonstrate how straightforward it is, here is an example of the “Hello world” program in COBOL:

Yes, that really is all you need to write to run this program. Did I hear someone say COBOL is verbose?
2. You can run it anywhere you like
COBOL has been ported to virtually every hardware platform. Programs written in this “write once, run anywhere” language enables businesses to reuse COBOL applications that were written decades ago on new platforms like .NET or JVM. The language itself is portable with data types and structures which enable developers to write applications that can be ported to new platforms with minimal or no change. COBOL has been able to adapt to change: each new enterprise platform which emerges has had COBOL applications deployed there.
3. It will work tomorrow as well as it does today
Businesses already using COBOL are likely to continue to use COBOL rather than replace it. Replacing COBOL would be expensive – due to its enormous scale, time-consuming and risky, as well as being completely unnecessary. The year 2000 problem demonstrated that COBOL applications are cheaper to fix than applications written in more recent languages.
4. It gets the numbers right!
It is no surprise that the financial sector is underpinned by COBOL systems: banking, insurance, fund management, pension systems, payroll and credit cards, all depend on COBOL. COBOL’s numeric processing functions make it the perfect choice for applications where the tiniest fractional rounding error can make a crucial difference. It delivers arithmetic accuracy to 31 digits, making it the favourable choice for financial software.
5. You can use it with your favourite IDE
There’s no need to worry about learning a new toolset. You can develop COBOL applications using Visual Studio or Eclipse. These IDEs bring all the great productivity aids you use today
such as IntelliSense and content assist, snippets, UI design tools and more, so coding in COBOL isn’t a chore.
6. You can get to your data fast
Whilst COBOL can process data from a variety of sources including just about any Relational Database Management System (RDBMS), it also provides direct language support for data files, outperforming database processing by miles. COBOL systems use indexed data files which maintain internal B-tree structures (meaning that speed and efficiency are two important features), providing rapid access to data even when data stores run into terabytes.
7. You don’t need to spend hours on documentation
COBOL is self-documenting. The readability of COBOL code and its rigid hierarchical structure make COBOL easy to read and maintain. When was the last time you read a comment, found that it had no relation to the code and spent the next half an hour trying to make sense of the code and the comment? This happens all too frequently as a result of general application maintenance. Code changes but comments are sometimes forgotten.
With a language that doesn’t need the same level of commenting as others, maintaining someone else’s COBOL code shouldn’t leave you tearing your hair out in frustration.
8. It’s fast!
COBOL has 50 years of optimizations under its belt, so it knows what it’s doing when it comes to data processing. Micro Focus’s COBOL “code generator” uses target platform technology to deliver maximum performance, as well as enabling the creation of fully portable and executable code.
But it’s not just the generator that maximizes performance. Most COBOL code is also procedural, not object-oriented, so its old-school straight line performance can give it a real edge over other languages.
9. It integrates with everything
COBOL systems have retained business value by integrating with new technology. For example, COBOL programs can be called by most other computer languages, deployed in Java application servers, provide backend Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) logic, read or write XML directly, or work with Unicode strings. By combining your new found COBOL skills with systems you know today, you can enhance existing COBOL applications in the web, mobile and Cloud.
10. COBOL is everywhere!
We are surrounded by COBOL: it runs over 70% of the world’s business transactions. On codinghorror.com, Jeff Atwood comments, “the vast majority of us will use COBOL in one form or another as part of our daily existence.” As senior programmers retire, they must be replaced with a new generation of COBOL programmers, or the business world is likely to collapse completely. It makes sense to replenish the supply of COBOL programmers by training new ones.
Bridging skills gap with Visual COBOL
As the COBOL developer cooking pot boils dry due to retiring veterans, there is likely to be an increase in demand for COBOL developers. Learning COBOL could therefore make you highly desirable.
Micro Focus Visual COBOL enables COBOL teams to work on the same projects as the Java or C# developers, by working alongside each other. It also provides an immediately-available learning environment to enable other programmers to pick up sparse COBOL skills.
Micro Focus Visual COBOL Personal Edition enables developers and aspiring developers to learn and use COBOL for free. See for yourself how far COBOL has advanced: experience its robust features and innovate with the latest technologies: http://www.microfocus.com/product-tr...cpe-trial.aspx

[Autistic Spectrum]

[maks]

http://esolangs.org/wiki/Brainfuck

[timmy]

with all the sarcasm in this thread... i dojnt know who to believe

:) visual cobol

[Autistic Spectrum]

srsly learn cobal i dare you

[maks]

++++++++++[>+++++++>++++++++++>+++>+<<<<-]>++.>+.+++++++..+++.>++.<<+++++++++++++++.>.+++.------.--------.>+.>.

[Autistic Spectrum]

you could program the next gen of automatic car washes,,,

[maks]

serious answer barry if you're going to program for a living listen to dp and m0nde and jon, but if you're going to be a network admin you won't need anything but bash, batch, and powershell and they're all incredibly easy to learn.