What kind of code..........

[Xaos]

Do major companies use? What are the most popular ones? I see thousands of different results for this. Basically, what will places like Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc. require me to be great at if I applied there? I was thinking C, C++, Java, Javascript......but i'm not sure.

[Jackolantern]

There are actually some decent resources for telling what the most popular languages are. The most popular language at this time by a long shot is Javascript. However, that is obviously not that hard to believe considering it is the only choice for native scripting in the browser.

Probably what you were interested in are what the most popular traditional programming languages are. The top 3 flop around from time to time, but they are typically C++, Java and C#, with Java and C++ competing for #1, and C# moving back and forth from #2 and #3. After those 3, come C, ActionScript, and Python. Under those are Visual Basic and Ruby (largely for Ruby on Rails). That pretty much rounds out the most popular languages, with the lower languages being a random assortment of languages not widely accepted, languages with a specific purpose (such as Obj-C or Dalvik-Java), or commercial offerings such as Delphi.

Of course, sometimes it can be a better plan to master the obscure, since it separates you from the herd. Pretty much every coder coming out of college is going to know Java, and there is a lot of work for Java developers, but there is still work in Fortran and many older languages, and almost no one is learning them anymore.

[Xaos]

Yeah, gotcha...

Another question of which has always puzzled me - what kind of code goes into things you wouldn't think has code in them, such as "smart tvs", appliances, etc. ?

[Jackolantern]

It used to be straight-up Java if it wasn't proprietary. However, more and more it is starting to be Android (which uses something called "Android Java" or "Dalvik Java") if it is not proprietary. Many appliances and TVs still use proprietary systems, in which case it would likely be in C, since C is by far and away the most popular language of OS, and since it can drop down very low level. You won't find standard Oracle Java in many appliances anymore since manufacturers were at the mercy of Sun (now Oracle) to license and build a runtime engine (JVM) for them. Now with Android being open source, they can build it themselves. But it will still be a while before you see Android taking hold in more atypical devices due to its requirements, which are quite a bit heftier than a custom JVM.

[hallsofvallhalla]

I have been through this process and thoughts 100 times. I have researched the jobs out there and interviewed for a few. It all comes down to 2 choices. .Net and Java

It is impossible to not find a job when you know >net. Especially C#. They are everywhere and I get offers seemingly daily. Especially off of Link'd in. Problem is most entry level .Net positions pay around $35k-$45k a year which is very low end.

With Java you will most likely have to move unless you live in a big city but the starting pay for it is around $50k+. While that is still low in my book it is a better start. I get offers for around $60k on a monthly basis but it is still too low but I am seriously thinking of taking the pay cut just to get my foot in the door on a Java platform. An advanced Java developer can swing $100k+ easily.

[Xaos]

Awesome, so I have learned to be excellent with Java, lmao

[BobMann]

How did Java get so popular? It is the bulkiest(read: Slowest) language I know.

[Jackolantern]

It is quite impressive, actually. There are many languages that are slower when comparing similarly-loaded functionality. A lot of the original benchmarks that started the urban legend of Java being "hideously slow" were based on Hello World apps, which does tip the scales against Java. Once you start comparing performance of non-trivial applications, Java performs much better. Also, many of those articles floating around about its speed are based on Java 1.0 and 1.1, which are dinosaurs which really did have serious speed problems as it was almost entirely interpreted with little optimization and basically no JITing.

The bulk of Java development is done in Java EE, or Java Enterprise Edition, which includes web development, servlets (a pretty cool design aspect in itself), and others. Java and C# basically own the enterprise market (domain-specific business applications), but Java offers the ability to run on Linux machines, offering large cost savings.

Java also has excellent networking and threading support built-in which still seem ahead of most other environments. This has helped Java become a juggernaut in the area of threaded, socket-based servers.

[BobMann]

I am still keeping my anti java stance.

[Jackolantern]

To each their own lol. I don't set out to change anyone's mind with this kind of stuff. Just explaining why I and over 9 million other developers like it. However, I like many languages. I would probably be working more in C# now if not for the fact that .NET's web stack has become connected at the hip with Entity Framework, which in my opinion is one of the sloppiest ORMs I have ever seen.