Extending employment options - what to language to learn

[Dannyh1]

Hello again,

For next question on my pursuit to slightly better life what programming language should I learn??!

I am getting the hang of VBA now, but there a very few jobs (in my area anyway) that this seems to be required.

When I search for jobs with "Advanced Excel" or "VBA", the jobs returned are for

.Net
C#
SQL
Java

Given that I have a good base in VBA, which program is most similar & more importantly - which one is 'futureproof' for employment so to speak?

Thanks again.

 

[sous2817]

I was in a similar situation as you. I jumped from vba to vb.net and then quickly over to c#.net. You'll find that there are some similarities between VB.net and VBA, but all of the .net languages are a very different beast from VBA.

Honestly, once you get over the syntax hump of c#, it's really not that bad and quite intuitive.

 

[RoryA]

SQL is a very good one to have. A lot of dev work requires at least some knowledge of SQL.

 

[Dannyh1]

Thanks RoryA/sous.

I have looked at courses for C# / SQL since post & only vey short courses seem to be on offer (5 days tops).

This was similar to the situation with VBA. The advantage I had with VBA however is that I use Excel on a daily basis so was able to self teach so to speak.

I will go on courses for both however & practice at home from there - have feeling it could be a longer process though.

 

[sous2817]

You will get A LOT out of those 5 days for sure. Granted, you won't be an expert but you will have a good understanding of the foundations. I wouldn't take the course unless you can also allot some time to use what you learned in those classes.

The MSDN forums are a great resource for asking questions. I haven't found a c# community that is as helpful as mrexcel, so if you do please share...

Also, if you're the book-learning type, the Apress book on Intro to C# is a great read (and worth shelling out to have as a reference http://www.apress.com/9781430231714). Last bit, I'd stay away from the e-book options (kindle, etc). Apparently the font for the code samples didn't translate well...and that's across the board on all the publishers. So be sure to check the comments on that before you buy the electronic version.

 

[Kyle123]

Another +1 for C# here, it's a great language, though the big bucks tend to be in Java.

A decent level of SQL knowledge should be a given really for most jobs and it's easy to learn, learning the basics really won't take much time at all (once you understand relational database principles).

I suspect that the biggest jump will be learning to properly use and create objects. VB.NET is pretty much the same as C# and it should be fairly easy to switch between the 2, the difference is mainly syntax (remove your dims and throw in a few curly braces and you're pretty much there ). I prefer c# as the code tends to be much more terse and quicker to write.

If you're looking to work with the web there are a few more options (though they don't seem to be as in demand as the others listed), have a look at Python (not just web based - and it's a great language), Ruby - specifically Rails for the web side, and PHP is worth a look (I came to PHP after developing web stuff in .NET and wish I'd learned it first - it gives you a much better understanding of the nuts and bolts stuff than .NET) plus PHP is easy to learn and of course being well versed in javascript is a must for any web work.

 

[speedball]

Other than going on a classroom course, you might want to check out Lynda.com and codeyear.com.

I've found the Excel VBA and SQL Server course on Lynda to be very useful, and many of the languages that have been mentioned above are covered by Lynda (e.g. C#, Python). There are quite a few Excel courses on offer as well. The monthly subscription will cost much less than a classroom course and you can go at your own pace.

I signed up at codeyear.com with good intentions at the start of this year, but haven't actually followed this through. But I think you would probably find this useful as well.