Branching Out / "Diverging" from Delphi

I am wondering what the general concensis is what would be the best
programming languages to learn to help improve my career, salary and to
generally improve my overall confidence in the languages I use as a
programmer.

Originally as a programmer I studied VB *ack!*. I don't think I can ever go
back to VB, left a bad taste in my mouth.

Came to work with Delphi 5 for the past 6 years and it has been a wonderful
immersion into the world of OOP. It is an easy language to work with and I
appreciate the community that is available. I have been functioning in a
managerial position for the past 4 years and this has meant interviewing
additional programmers needed for our team. None that we have hired have
had any experience in Delphi or even heard of it for that matter.

I feel though I am sitting on a chair with one leg. (One very wobbely leg.)
I guess I get this very sickly uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomache when
considering the possible future of the Borland and the Delphi language.
(Now if others can give me reassuring words that will boast my confidence in
Delphi they would appreciated.)

Here is what I feel my options are based on my research of Job Postings and
looking at sites similar to TIOBE.

C#, Java, C++, C and possibly Python or Perl or Lisp

I haven't had the need to work with any of these in my career, but I feel
the need to become proficient with all or some of them in order to achieve
my above described goals. I am curious what the general Delphi community's
opinion would be about these languages, and which they feel I should pursue
and in what order of priority.

I know that many familiar with Delphi will say C#, and it sounds like a
wonderful language, but I haven't been entirely convinced of its future. C
and C++ seem more flexible towards different OS and environments. Java
seems too much like the popular kid at school that will eventually become
fat, ugly and forgotten, or like the Rubix cube in its novelity, or like the
dot com era right before the big crash of 2000. Python, Perl and/or Lisp
seem important for their variance in programming methods. Assembly - I just
don't think I have it in me to go there, I am ambitious, but I ain't crazy.

Bill


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Noun Oriented Thinking Considered Harmful
    ... I like Delphi because it doesn't force me to use classes or interfaces to ... Object Pascal and entirely object-oriented languages like Java and C#. ... again need one or more diagrams - UML diagrams showing inheritance trees, ... programming paradigm introduced in Pascal and perfected in languages like ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
  • Re: compiler for Chinese development language
    ... This relates to the development of vernacular ... Indian vernacular display, OS and programming languages. ... Bangla and other vernaculars. ...
    (comp.compilers)
  • Re: Head-in-the-Sand Liberals (LA Times Columnist)
    ... You claimed to have known several computer languages, ... If you lie about knowing computer languages, ... of the programming loop for a functional ... You also don't know Java. ...
    (rec.org.mensa)
  • Re: Is there a mainframe skills shortage?
    ... That's because the author of the article is comparing it to standard SQL. ... and material around Lamdas and functional programming. ... obvious which languages were the ones to learn. ... stick to writing system software and leave applications to the COBOL ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)
  • Re: LISPPA
    ... >> a match for such imperative languages as C, ... >comparing Lisp with languages like C, Pascal and Basic, ... I can accept that Lisp tries to compensate of the lack of compile-time ... If you have tools of visual programming, nice editor, advanced ...
    (comp.lang.lisp)