Application Support Jobs?

What languages do you need to know or does this depend on the application? I work in IT Support but want to learn some programming to widen my job prospects in the future.

Reply 1

Sydmin

It varies a lot on the application, but PowerShell/Python/Bash are all fantastic languages to learn and start out in. All very accessible, lots of good free material online and the experience using them can be transferred to other languages quite easily once you get going.

Reply 2

ThuggerThugger

Original post by Sydmin

PowerShell isn’t classed as a programming language though is it?

Reply 3

winterscoming

Original post by ThuggerThugger

PowerShell isn’t classed as a programming language though is it?

Yes, it's a fully-fledged programming language (and it has full support for the .NET Framework just like C#/VB/etc, it also supports OO programming, etc), although its use cases tend to be around automating tasks for sys admin tasks - e.g. Windows configuration, server maintenance, running superuser commands, manipulating local files, security/backup stuff, database config, deploying apps, scraping log files, etc.

So while it would be technically possible, I don't think you would see anyone in their right mind ever using PowerShell to create a Web server or a WinForms app because C# is just a much more appropriate tool for the job. PowerShell is great for writing rather short/quick scripts to automate tasks and get sysadmin stuff done quickly - its main advantages are really in having a powerful command-line interface for Windows sysadmin/ops tasks.

The tools for writing PowerShell code for deployable software/apps aren't anywhere near as good as the tools you can get for creating software projects in C# (visual studio or Rider) -- The syntax can be a bit clunky in places, the code editor is quite primitive, and you generally end up doing nearly everything on the command-line (including lots of things which Visual Studio and Rider would both allow C# people to do through nice friendly and intuitive GUI menus )
- Also, C# is great for writing cross-platform services to run on a linux server/container, whereas PowerShell is Windows-only.

If you're interested in learning programming for software engineering, then Python, Java or C# are all good places to start, since those are all frequently used for general-purpose apps, widely used by colleges/universities for teaching students to write software, with tonnes of online support, free courses, tutorials, stackoverflow posts, documentation, etc. Python is almost certainly the most accessible out of those.

(edited 4 years ago)

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