Career advice programming

It is very wise of you to learn multiple languages. That will make you a
better programmer and stand out from the crowd. As of the fundamentals like
the architecture, data structure etc, I strongly recommend you to pick them
up later. I understand that there are so much to learn and so little time,
but if you want to be an exceptional computer professional, you have to FIND
time to learn. It's all depend on what kind of "drive" do you have...
whether you want to be great or just okay programmer.

Think of it this way, if you have a strong foundation, you can build a house
that is big and tall. Same thing applies to your career. This is the
primary reason why so many companies, especially the major corporations like
Cisco, Nortel, Alcatel, Lucent, etc etc, prefer to hire people with Computer
Science or related engineering degree. People with good solid foundation
can learn any tool that is available, whether it is C or VB or Java or "Yada
Yada". It won't make a difference.

Perl is a very handy and useful language and it is good to know it, whether
it is your 2nd or 10th language.

If you like to do more intensive programming, you should get out of your IT
job and find a software engineer position. Nowadays almost all software are
somewhat web-enabled/related. Therefore, your knowledge in web development
will be a big plus to get your the new job.

Feel free to ask if you have more question. Good luck on your career
development.

simon.

"iom" <iomed@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:3a2e5f3f$1@news.dev-archive.com...
>
> Hello,
> What is the best way to become an expert in web, destributed programming?
> I attended a 1 year intensive computer science certificate program (I did
> quite well, though they did not cover computer architecture, operating
systems,
> and data structure to the extent as a 4yr program would).
> We learned C and some VB. I am now taking an intro java course and I love
> it. I was planning on also taking a 3 month Java certification course: but
> was advised I could learn what I needed on my own?
> According to the previous advise posted on this board it is not wise to
focus
> on on language? I thought of Perl as a second language to learn. What is
> your advice? I do I become an expert in my field... What path did you
follow?
> Currently in my IT job I don't really do as much programming as i would
like.
> On my own I have created some websites: have a working knowledege of
photoshop,dreamweaver
> html...
>
> Help need some advice!!
> Thanks