Many students wonder what programming languages they should study when they're starting out. We use Python in this class, but CIS 122 has historically incorporated VBA or Javascript. CIS also teaches courses on Javascript, C#, Java, PHP, and Ruby (not counting database languages like SQL). In addition, the CS department teaches courses in C/C++ and CAS teaches classes on Flash and Cold Fusion. You can also pick up some Assembly language, LabVIEW, Python and Scratch in various courses at PCC. So, there are a LOT of options. One way that I make sense of this when students ask me for advice is to go to:

Indeed Job Search

This search engine has open job listings. By searching for the language, you can see how many open job listings there are, and you can also read the listings to get a flavor for what the jobs are like. For example, Java is one of the languages with the largest number of job listings, and here's the results of a search on Java:

Java jobs from Indeed Job Search

From this search, we see there are thousands of open job listings (even quite a few if you restrict to just Portland, OR.) These numbers change on a daily basis, so Your Mileage May Vary). So, there are lots of job openings for Java programmers. Looking at some of the listings in Portland, we see that a lot of them are related to web development. There are also some listings having to do with application development, and with Android development. So, that tells me if I want to write web applications or Android apps, then Java is a good language to study, and that there are a lot of jobs available.

For this week's question, I'd like you to pick a programming language (either from the above list, or from anywhere else. There are dozens of other languages that aren't on the list above), look it up on Indeed, and tell us a little bit about how many jobs there are, and what types of jobs there are for that language. Try to pick a language that hasn't been covered by one of your classmates, so that we can get the widest possible survey.