Software Engineer

[efoote868]

A little background. I am a senior in Electrical Engineering at Purdue University, and I have almost 2 years of job experience as a co-op for Technicolor (in their set top box division).

In high school, I learned C for robotics (back when the controls were from IFI), and Java from AP computer science.

Knowing what I know now (school / job experience, and languages since then including Matlab, Python, Javascript, Actionscript, Assembly, C++, Objective C), I wouldn't hesitate to tell you to pick a language and learn it well. Concepts you learn in one language usually transfer easily to another language.

If I were to recommend a language to you, I'd suggest a strongly typed one such as C/C++/Java.

At work, the language I use really depends on the application and situation. For instance, for quick and dirty desktop programs, I use Java almost exclusively (I recommend NetBeans for your IDE).

For driver level software and embedded systems, C is pretty much the de facto standard (well, depending on what type of chip you're using).

In the application layer of cable boxes, blu-ray players, and many phones, Java is widely used.

For web pages, Html5 / Javascript is common.


As far as factories and manufacturing goes, every factory will be different in the way they implement their controls. Usually these setups are very expensive and hard to obtain, and more than likely you'll receive on the job training. The more languages you're exposed to, the easier it should be to learn another.


Best of luck.

[sanddrag]

I'm not a programmer, but I do know a little bit about it, and have dabbled in a few languages.

First, I would never tell someone you learned to code from Myspace, unless you actually were employed by Myspace. My understanding is that these days, Myspace is completely dead, and typically regarded as an atrocity of coding and a hall-of-horrors of web-design.

I've heard every engineering student at Harvey Mudd takes a class in Python, and I've read it's a very key/core efficient language to learn the fundamental concepts. That being said, I've never learned it myself....so this is purely hearsay.

[EricVanWyk]

I know 16 languages, actively use 5, and expect to learn at least one every year or two for the rest of my career. Advocating one programming language over another is a bit like saying that a hammer is better than a screwdriver.

My suggestion is to find a cool project and then learn the language that is most appropriate for that project. The most important part is to understand how and why the new language is different than the ones you already know.

Otherwise, you can freely download "How to Think Like a Computer Scientist" from http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkpython/ . I'm a bit biased, as the author was one of my professors, but it may be one of the easiest ways to learn the important high level concepts. It also happens to be one of my favorite education stories - Alan learned Python by reading his own book on Python... He wrote the text for Java and open sourced it. Someone downloaded it, translated it to Python, and sent it back to him. Voila! He learned python by reading his own book!

[krisloz]

Wow, thank you all I never knew C was that universal of a language for coding.

For web designing, is Python and Javascript the newer languages that's kinda replacing Html/CSS?

I also want to know what my work area is like. Is it going to be in a lab? Factory?

Thanks again for all your input.