Re: Looking for Advise...

["Martin, Chuck" <chuckm -at- EVOLVESOFTWARE -dot- COM>]

On Monday, January 26, 1998 5:40 PM, Elna Tymes [SMTP:etymes -at- LTS -dot- COM]
wrote:
> CHRIS AND JOE CUNDIFF -
> > I have to eventually take at least one programming
> > language. I was interested on any thoughts to which would be the
most
> > adventageous to take for technical writing?
>
> JAVA Java java!   It's not going to go away.  It's somewhat like C, in
> that learning one structured language will make it easier for you to
> understand another.  It's in high demand right now.
I'd be rather cautious about Java. Although it's the language my company
is using, and although I'm trying to get into a Java course this
semester (twice as many people wanted in as was the course's capacity),
many industry pundits are wary regarding its usefulness as a robust
programming language. In addition, there are many incompatibilities
between the different versions of Java that Sun has released, and the
virtual machines on different platforms don't always work with the same
Java code. PC Magazine did a good report on Java's incompatibilities
sometime last year.

>
> If you have time to learn another, learn C++.  A lot of current
> development is done in C and C++, and it's worth your while to
> understand them.
Both of these are good. Definitely take C before C++.

>
> Learning things like Visual Basic is a good idea, but to me VB doesn't
> really qualify as a full programming language, any more than HTML
> qualifies as a real programming language.
Please ignore the computer language bigotry. VB is indeed a powerful
language, one used by many thousands of programmers. Because earlier
versions of VB were interpreted, rather than compiled, many programmers
looked down on it. But the comparison of VB to HTML is completely bogus;
VB is a programming language, HTML is a markup language.

One additional bonus for learning VB: VB is a subset of VBA (Visual
Basic for Applications). VBA is the new object model for all the MS
Office apps (except Outlook). If you learn VB/VBA and you use Word,
you'll be able to create powerful VBA macros that can really streamline
portions of your work. You'll also be able to create robust templates
and wizards that will enhance your marketability.


--
"You don't look American."
"Everyone looks American, because Americans are from everywhere."

- Doonesbury
Chuck Martin, Technical Writer
Evolve Software                  | Personal
chuckm -at- evolvesoftware -dot- com        | writer -at- best -dot- com
www.evolvesoftware.com           | www.writeforyou.com