Which language I should learn to get a job easily?

[jison_ma]

I am an Chinese man and want to immigrate to Canada.
My major is Mechanical Engineering, but I'm also good at Visual Basic 6.0.
I once wrote a big Information Management software for a company using VB and SQL sever2000.

Now I hope to know the job prospect of the computer programmer.
Could you tell me which language is widely used in the software companies and can make me well-equipped for the futrue job?

Thanks a million.

[copthesaint]

Well there is a lot of work for PHP CSS and net beans if you want a job right away. In Toronto there are always MANY companies looking for people to hire in these fields, however, the amount you are paid has a large range, depending on your experience and how credited your schooling is. That being said, many companies will hire you with no schooling as long as you submit a portfolio of all the work you have done with your r?sum?. I know Places like TheTorontoStar and some banking companies were hiring last me heard. However you might want to talk to a professional to lead you to a proper field for your expertise. Good Luck

[Tony]

Java is a de facto standard standard for many large corporations. Java is old, mature, already has libraries for everything, and most developers know it in at least some capacity. It's good a stable but boring job.

Ruby and Python are popular with fun and exciting but risky startup companies. Though if you are working in a team where the entire company is 5 people, you'd really need to be on top of your game.

[btiffin]

Not so much a language, but a technology suggestion. North Americans are keen on virtualization at the moment. If you can handle a few interview questions (umm, meaning, actually know the topic, not bluffing ), VirtualBox and similar make a nice Resume entry.

Oh, and I'll add, learn C. When you can read/write C, you can pretty much go to sources to figure out a large number of other languages. Python is written in C, Ruby, REBOL, OpenCOBOL, Vala, and on and on.

Cheers

[Alexmula]

knowing english would be essential if you want a job in north america

[jison_ma]

Thank you everyone.

Now it's at least one year to immigrate, so I think I have enough time to learn the C language.

But I don't know if it necessary to learn the college courses of Computer Science.

[wtd]

The older and more mature the language, the more likely you'll need formal education on your resume. The more cutting edge the language you want to use, the more a portfolio will benefit you.

[ProgrammingFun]

Computer programming is being ported from North America to China and India....isn't it?

[Tony]

@ProgrammingFun: No; the OP said he wants to come from China (I'm assuming that's what he meant) to North America.

[[Gandalf]]

Honestly, if I was going to learn one language for a year with the purpose of getting a job, it would not be C. Most jobs that use C are systems programming, which requires tons of related experience. Certainly more than 1 year of learning the underlying programming language.

A majority of software development jobs, from what I've seen, are either Java and related technologies, C# and .NET, or PHP/Ruby on Rails/Django/other web technologies.

[ProgrammingFun]

Tony @ Sat Nov 27, 2010 4:24 pm wrote:

@ProgrammingFun: No; the OP said he wants to come from China (I'm assuming that's what he meant) to North America.

I know that but I was talking generally that isn't the programming (minus web development) job market in NA dropping?

[jcollins1991]

ProgrammingFun @ Sat Nov 27, 2010 7:47 pm wrote:

Tony @ Sat Nov 27, 2010 4:24 pm wrote:

@ProgrammingFun: No; the OP said he wants to come from China (I'm assuming that's what he meant) to North America.

I know that but I was talking generally that isn't the programming (minus web development) job market in NA dropping?

I'd think so, I know of one company that just dropped pretty much all of it's IT staff so they could outsource it :/

[Tony]

We must be hanging out in different industry circles, because the unanimous decision among every software company I know is that they can't find SDEs fast enough.

That being said, there is a lot of difference between Software Development Engineers (in a U.S. sense of an "Engineer") and rebooting someone's desktop so that Outlook quits "acting weird" for that guy in accounting (IT).

I can talk in length about why software jobs that you'd want to be doing are here to stay for the foreseeable future, but this doesn't seem like the proper place to talk about it. I might put together a blog article if I get enough PMs with questions to address.

[ProgrammingFun]

Yes, please put up the blog article....it would help me a lot....

[SS1389]

Good luck Mr. jison_ma.