Important Programming Languages

[Revert]

If a person was considering entering into a career of professional programming, what languages would you consider to be essential to learn, and what are the merits and common complaints of each? Right now I'm pretty familiar with Java and have just started working with Python (mostly for game programming). C/C++ I know are important, and I've heard a lot of people say that I need to try Lisp, not necessarily to actively use it, but to be exposed to how the language operates. What are some other especially important ones, and can someone give a run down of the pros/cons/common feature of some of these (even the ones I mentioned) ?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[cwaldbieser]

If a person was considering entering into a career of professional programming, what languages would you consider to be essential to learn, and what are the merits and common complaints of each? Right now I'm pretty familiar with Java and have just started working with Python (mostly for game programming). C/C++ I know are important, and I've heard a lot of people say that I need to try Lisp, not necessarily to actively use it, but to be exposed to how the language operates. What are some other especially important ones, and can someone give a run down of the pros/cons/common feature of some of these (even the ones I mentioned) ?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

For any particular job or shop, there may be desire for experience with a particular language. However, if you intend on being a professional programmer for the long haul, understanding of the fundamentals of computer science is more important than having experience with a given language.

If you apply for an entry level position, many companies will not really expect you to have a lot of experience with any language or tool. They may have their own way of doing things that you will be trained internally on. As you gain more experience, other skills may actually be *more* important.

[zK9]

I don't think that there is a definate answer to your question, You can't say that you can pick a particular language and 'specialise' in it. Currently if I was to pick a language to stick with, I would pick java, but thats just me. The language that you would want to learn, would also depend on your interests, java for example cannot be used for hardcore 3d game programming, C++ would be better in that area.Your programming style also matters in that if you a person who prefers RAD as a development method then the languages for you would be VB or Delphi. you cannot use C++ or java for RAD.
hope this helps
zK9

[Revert]

Yeah, I realize now the way I worded my question was pretty bad. What I'm trying to find out is, out of the current crop of common languages, what each one seems to specialize in or is most commonly applied to. I understand most of them cross over and such, but stuff like C/C++ being better than others for games due to their performance. Something like "Going into such and such a field, you'd commonly see ____ language(s)." Is there very much specialization where languages are concerned anymore, or are most pretty ambiguous?

If you apply for an entry level position, many companies will not really expect you to have a lot of experience with any language or tool.

Thanks for mentioning that, I hadn't heard it before.

[thumper]

C++ is still considered the swiss army knife - powerful (yet complicated) and works for almost any area. In the areas that I have worked, C++ is used mainly for server side work. That is client app talks to some middle tier, then through to the back end (the server side). Java is often used as the middle tier, and the GUI's are either C# (most people still on Windows) or web based.