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Ask Slashdot: How Does an IT Generalist Get Back Into Programming?
CanadianSchism writes "I've been in the public sector for the past 6 years. I started off doing my work study in web design and a bit of support, eventually going through the interview process to fill in a data processing technician post, and getting the job. The first four years of my work life were spent in various schools, fixing computers, implementing new hardware, rolling out updates/ghosting labs, troubleshooting basic network and printer problems, etc. I was eventually asked to work on the administrative information systems with an analyst, which I've been doing for the past 2 years. That's consisted of program support, installing updates to the pay/financial/purchasing/tax/energy systems, taking backups on SQL servers, etc. I've never had the opportunity to take time for myself, and jump back into my first love: programming. I've picked up Powershell books (have two here at the office), but haven't gotten anything down yet, as there are always other projects that come up and whittle my attention to learning a language down to zilch. This new year will see a change in that, however. I'll be setting aside an hour every day to devote to learning a new language, in the eventual hope that I can leave this company (take a sabbatical) and hop into the private sector for a few years. My question to you all is, what language should I start with, to learn and get back into the principles of programming, that will help me build a personal portfolio, but will also lend to learning other languages? At this point, I'm not sure if I'd like to make/maintain custom applications, or if back-end web programming would be more interesting, or any of the other niches out there."
It's been my experiance that good programmers always have a project in the works. It's almost a disease. I can't go 2 weeks without writing something. So if you've gone 6 years without writing anything, I've got to wonder if it's really your thing.
That said, the next question is where to start. Pick something with high demand where it's relatively easy to get your foot in the door. The biggest problem you'll encounter is that everyone wants 5 years of experiance. If you can work programming into your current job, great. That's how I switch from systems administration to programming. I'd recommend learning C# and MVC. The tools are excellent and there's huge demand for it right now. The HTML and Javascript side of it will translate over to anything else you want to do.