"Best" is a very relative term... People who work with a particular technology usually feel that it is the best.
You put "language" in quotes... Does that imply that you understand that many of the items you list are not really Programming Languages ? If so, then my reply may be pretty unhelpful. Since I'm not feeling very elated at this moment (tough week, deadlines, abusive client, lazy team), I'll assume that you don't understand the difference... ;-) Disclaimer: The views expressed below belong exclusively to me and if someone disagrees, they are welcome to, but don't tell me I'm "wrong" ! .NET - Technology, not P/L. AJAX - Technology, not P/L. ASP.NET - Technology, not P/L. C - The mother of most modern P/L's. C# - P/L. It's the ECMA/ISO standard. C#.NET - Microsoft's version of the ECMA/ISO standard. Sweeeet ! C++ - P/L. Object Oriented C... unrivalled in power. Classic ASP - Technology, not P/L. CSS - Technology, not P/L. DB2 - Database solution, not P/L. DHTML - Technology, not P/L. HTML - Markup language, not P/L. HTML/CSS - See above. J# - P/L... Not a very popular one, though. Java - P/L. One of the most popular, but damn, it's slow. (This ain't a Java group so I'm allowed to say that !) JavaScript - P/L. Web Scripting language. Its support for objects promotes it to a P/L. (IMHO) Oracle - Database solution, not P/L. SQL - A standard database Query language, not P/L. SQL Server - Database solution, not P/L. SQL Server 2000/2005 - Database solution, not P/L. Unix - Operating System, not P/L. VB 6 - P/L. Pre-2002, one of the most popular languages worldwide. VB.NET - P/L. Sweeeeter !! Visual C++ - The most powerful language of 'em all... Ask any game developer. WSE 2.0 - Technology, not P/L. XML - Technology, not P/L. XSD - XML Technology, not P/L. XSLT - XML Technology, not P/L. IMHO, you need to first evaluate the type of work you want to do... (Game development, database administration, web development, web design, multimedia design, software design, etc, etc). Only then can you decide which technology is best FOR YOU. Try reading up on Wikipedia about each of them... that may open your mind. On Jan 23, 1:30 pm, Mark246 <[email protected]> wrote: > Like most of the USA, my finances are in the toilet. > > Many forecasts indicate that the future could be bright for a computer > programmer / analyst / developer / engineer. > > I need to learn one (or more?) of the modern languages and get a job. > My big question... > WHICH LANGUAGE should I take the time to learn? > > I was programming Assembler language on IBM mainframes 40 years ago, > and I've been playing with computers ever since, > but I haven't kept up with any of the modern technology. > > There are so many "languages" mentioned in the ads... > > .NET > AJAX > ASP.NET > C > C# > C#.NET > C++ > Classic ASP > CSS > DB2 > DHTML > HTML > HTML/CSS > J# > Java > JavaScript > Oracle > SQL > SQL Server > SQL Server 2000/2005 > Unix > VB 6 > VB.NET > Visual C++ > WSE 2.0 > XML > XSD > XSLT > > Any suggestions? > > Thanks, people. > > Mark246
