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[TheOfficeMut]

I've made several threads over the past few months that have to do with programming languages and I thank every one who's provided valuable advice. The last thread I made concerned how proficient one should be before inserting a programming language on a resume.

I'm halfway through the CSS portion of a web development bootcamp on Udemy. I went through HTML already and have a decent understanding of it. After CSS, I believe it is JavaScript and Node.js.

I also signed up for several other languages, including Python, R, SQL, and C#. I don't have prior experience doing this - well, except for that one time as a teenager when I made scripts on mIRC. I'm a novice looking to learn new languages that can earn me money, either as a career or through side projects. This brings me to the topic's question:

What are the easiest ways to utilize programming languages to earn extra income?

I'm not an aspiring developer - in fact, I work in due diligence/compliance for a large bank. I learned after searching for a more advanced position in the same field that programming languages such as Python and SQL are sometimes requirements or highly preferred skills.

It is as a result of my findings that I signed up for these languages on Udemy. But if I want to make side income, can I utilize these two languages to do that? If so, what are highly profitable projects or roles? If not these languages, then what?

Do any of you make extra income through programming? I'd love to learn more about it.

I don't expect to be able to do anything worthwhile for quite some time, but I am willing to learn for however long it takes.

 

[teh_pwn]

I don't have experience working on side projects for extra income, but in general once you have a solid background in modern C derived languages and a familiarity with OOP, multi-threaded execution, etc, you don't really need to explicitly be a master in one language. Especially if you have Visual Studio 2015/2017. Without it, I'd struggle to code in Python. But in VS I am proficient in it. They even embed stack overflow searches in the IDE - Microsoft knows what's up. In a world with so many scripting languages, it only makes sense to become a master of one language once you have a project lined up on it. Otherwise knowing programming concepts means you can quickly get up to speed as needed.

Beyond VS, have a good background in Unix based OSes so you can work on Linux and Mac as needed.

 

[Hero Prinny]

From the companies that came to my school they've said SQL is the one thats most seeked out with java being second.

I don't have experience working on side projects for extra income, but in general once you have a solid background in modern C derived languages and a familiarity with OOP, multi-threaded execution, etc, you don't really need to explicitly be a master in one language. Especially if you have Visual Studio 2015/2017. Without it, I'd struggle to code in Python. But in VS I am proficient in it. They even embed stack overflow searches in the IDE - Microsoft knows what's up. In a world with so many scripting languages, it only makes sense to become a master of one language once you have a project lined up on it. Otherwise knowing programming concepts means you can quickly get up to speed as needed.

Beyond VS, have a good background in Unix based OSes so you can work on Linux and Mac as needed.

This too

 

[out0v0rder]

I think theres a push for all the java only developers to get their ass on the frontend too, i see the words 'fullstack' more and more now. Learn that javascript.

 

[ScepticMatt]

Where I'm from the most searched programming languages are Java, C++ und C#.
But I think data analysist and machine learning languages like R will be the most searched things in the near future.

 

[Costia]

I think theres a push for all the java only developers to get their ass on the frontend too, i see the words 'fullstack' more and more now. Learn that javascript.

Whats is java used for these days?

 

[sugarhigh4242]

It's not about languages imo, it's about what skills you have.

Good job security skills right now are:

- Devops (https://12factor.net/)

- Machine Learning

- Data science

 

[Laevateinn]

I also work for a large bank but as a developer. My team has a few analysts and works with a lot more and I would say that learning SQL and python would open a lot of doors for you. Start with SQL. It's easy and the minimum needed for a good role. Beyond learning a tool, I would also seek out a college level statistics course or two if you feel like you are rusty on it.

Don't bother with things like java or C. If you don't have an engineering degree I doubt it matters.

 

[scurker]

For the most "opportunity", javascript may be your best bet. According to the most recent Stackoverflow survey the top 3 most popular languages on Javascript, SQL, then Java. They aren't necessarily the highest paying, but you're going to find more opportunities if you find something that's more frequently used.

 

[out0v0rder]

Whats is java used for these days?

im seeing it used for alot of backend stuff. At least in the financial sector. REST apis that deliver all the data to the frontend. Transforming all that data recieved from SQL queries into JSON.

 

[Joe White]

Clojure according recent results: Top paying technologies

 

[Plumbob]

Everyone here talking about specific languages may be missing the point.

Stronger companies won't look at what languages you know, but will try to assess your ability to build and contribute to complex projects.

So go out and start learning how to build things you find interesting. If you're interested in web development, take a course on that and stsrt building small sites. Game development, same. IOT? Learn some C and start messing with a raspberry pi and whatever you can find to plug into it.

If you just like the idea of "coding" in general I would try working with Ruby to start. It's super terse and clean, and serious systems are built on it (Ruby on Rails is a popular backend for web sites).

 

[Laevateinn]

Everyone here talking about specific languages may be missing the point.

Stronger companies won't look at what languages you know, but will try to assess your ability to build and contribute to complex projects.

So go out and start learning how to build things you find interesting. If you're interested in web development, take a course on that and stsrt building small sites. Game development, same. IOT? Learn some C and start messing with a raspberry pi and whatever you can find to plug into it.

If you just like the idea of "coding" in general I would try working with Ruby to start. It's super terse and clean, and serious systems are built on it (Ruby on Rails is a popular backend for web sites).

Ruby is good too even if I hate it. We use it for all of our QA.

 

[Randdalf]

I think you have the wrong idea. If you're good at programming, and your skills are worth paying lots of money for, you should be proficient enough to pick up any language that you need to. Obviously it's nice when applying for a job if they're looking for a specific skill, but pigeonholing yourself is not a good thing to do. But it looks like you're looking into trying out lots of things, which is good.

 

[TheOfficeMut]

SQL is easy to learn according to some of you but what kind of projects can I make? Is it a language where I can make a project to show that I know it?

 

[eosos]

SQL is easy to learn according to some of you but what kind of projects can I make? Is it a language where I can make a project to show that I know it?

Its most useful if you have some large datasets that you can use it with. I wonder if there are any packages online you could download.

 

[Laevateinn]

SQL is easy to learn according to some of you but what kind of projects can I make? Is it a language where I can make a project to show that I know it?

When I decided I wanted to learn SQL and PHP, I had two projects I used to learn it. The first thing I did was create a research portal for my lab where people could upload their presentations and papers and easily search for them. The second was a database I hosted on my home computer to keep track of all of my video games and related things.

When I was hired for my current position, it was beneficial for me to have already known SQL but I didn't have to show them specifically what I had done. I just talked about it and it was clear that I knew what I was talking about.

 

[Hazmat]

SQL is easy to learn according to some of you but what kind of projects can I make? Is it a language where I can make a project to show that I know it?

SQL isn't a normal programming language, it's for querying databases. It's essential knowledge and you'll be asked about it in interviews where database knowledge is needed.

No programming language is the best for making money. If you're a Java expert then picking up C# would be no problem for you and companies know that. Now, knowing the languages used by a specific job will give you an edge but there's jobs out there for (basically) everything.

 

[Hubbl3]

SQL is easy to learn according to some of you but what kind of projects can I make? Is it a language where I can make a project to show that I know it?

I'm guessing in your Udemy course they'll also give you a crash course in SQL with the Node.js portion for server->database interactions. Relational databases are pretty useful and a solid (decent) grasp of SQL helps when trying to make use of all of that data. Basic SQL is easy to learn, but it can get fairly complex quickly.

And probably the best kind of project that you can do to show that you have some knowledge of SQL is to have a webapp that ties together your knowledge of building a client-side webpage (HTML/CSS/JS) that interacts with a webserver (Node.js) that can also interact with a database (SQL)

 

[SciencePilot]

These don't seem like apples to apples comparisons.

Python is a scripting language. SQL is for querying databases. JavaScript, CSS, and HTML are for web frontend. Java is for Android and some server-y stuff. C++ is for more serious computational work. I could go on.

Point is, it depends on the kind of work you want to do. And of course, the best possible resume is having bases covered in lots of areas.

In the end, I personally don't think that knowing a particular language is very important. Having solid software engineering skills is the hard part. When you have that, using various languages isn't a big deal.

 

[HerrPalomar]

Its not that hard to learn a programming language in my opinion. The one thing that a lot of people are missing are solid fundamentals in math and algorithms and data structures. Learning these things is far more valuable than just learning the hyped programming language of the week.

 

[PeskyToaster]

if we are talking about extra income as in side gigs then web stuff might be the way to go. You can make web pages for people on the side.

 

[RustyNails]

VBA scripting is really basic and easy, and I charged around $85/hr for a side project.

 

[Mexen]

Side jobs? Web apps or mobile apps (convert business services to mobile applications eg for financial institutions such as pension management). Corporate jobs? Full stack web development, C# or Java. SQL a must.

 

[TheOfficeMut]

Thanks for the replies, everyone. I'll probably look into SQL next before Python.

 

[Syriel]

Go with Go if you want to be leading edge.

 

[Makai]

Programming's really not a side job. Based on your current stack, you should probably learn React and Typescript for hipness compliance.

Also that StackOverflow survey data is useless.

 

[nullset2]

Javascript as a fullstack (get up to date with node)

Ruby with Rails for fullstack development

Python for data analysis (get up to date with jupyter)

Oracle SQL

Those are the most profitable jobs in tech right now

 

[soldat7]

Python is a scripting language.

Python is a general purpose language that happens to be great for scripting.

 

[xk0sm0sx]

This is like an engineer asking which machinery should he learn to earn money.
It's not about what machinery you can operate, but what you can build that earns you money.

Not entirely sarcastic, because I found this out myself, even though I'm proficient in C, once I started looking for jobs, I found most didn't fit me because even though it may be building something in a language that I know, I lack the knowledge to build it.
And getting the knowledge to build something is a seperate, time-consuming process that is completely different from learning languages. (Ex: 3D Math for games, databases for servers, etc)

Programming languages are only a tool for you to be able to build something, and what you can build is what earns you money.
That's why even if you spend 10 years just learning languages but never actually try to build something, that's a useless skill for job finding.

Here's an example. You are learning Obj-C, the language that allows you to build iOS apps. You have spent so much time mastering Obj-C, but nothing about building apps. So when it comes to the time you want to build a shopping app, you found out you need the knowledge of these things:
How to use the iOS SDK.
How to use the SDK to draw UI on the screen.
How to use the SDK to orientate the UI.
How to create a server for your app.
How to create a database for your app.
How to debug and publish your app.

This is the reason you want to specialize in knowing how to build something, a programming language is just part of that process.
​

 

[JohnsonUT]

SQL is not a programming language. Anyone who learns SQL alone will not get a programming job. SQL is a way to handle, manipulate and view data in databases and other data stores. SQL is often used directly within another programming language.

 

[-COOLIO-]

with javascript/html/css you can make software for pretty much any platform.

for desktop apps you would use electron.

for phone apps you would use something like phonegap.

for webapps, well, the languages were made for that in the first place.

the only area where you would be shit out of luck with those 3 skills is performant 3d game development and cpu bottlenecked applications.

 

[Discotheque]

SQL is not a programming language. Anyone who learns SQL alone will not get a programming job. SQL is a way to handle, manipulate and view data in databases and other data stores. SQL is often used directly within another programming language.

yeah. Learn SQL and Database concepts and work in conjunction with like Java or C# or some shit on a small project to learn.

 

[hateradio]

All of them. 😎

 

[nullset2]

SQL is not a programming language. Anyone who learns SQL alone will not get a programming job. SQL is a way to handle, manipulate and view data in databases and other data stores. SQL is often used directly within another programming language.

Oracle DBA positions pay a really pretty penny if you know what you're doing. You're right that it's not a programming language per se, but there's tons of demand for highly knowledgeable people in the field of databases.

 

[Slo]

It's not about languages imo, it's about what skills you have.

Good job security skills right now are:

- Devops (https://12factor.net/)

- Machine Learning

- Data science

Those are all relevant buzzwords, yes, but those aren't exactly fields that a person could credibly pursue side work in when they're currently teaching themselves HTML/CSS. I

Whats is java used for these days?

Java (and other JVM languages) are still really dominant for web service development, distributed systems (like anything in AWS), and Android development..

 

[The Albatross]

For making extra money on the side, WordPress development is still highly in demand. Almost all of my freelance clients are on WP and it's a steady stream of income and projects.

WP is php, MySQL, and uses html, CSS, and js in theming. It's not anything sexy but wp powers some 25% of websites and it's still growing.

 

[Aquavelvaman]

I'm sort of surprised that there are any jobs left for front-end only web developers. It's so easy to learn and use the libraries, anyone can do that kind of work. There's still room for visual design talent but the technical floor is really low. It's no wonder that everyone is focused on fullstack.

 

[jvalioli]

with javascript/html/css you can make software for pretty much any platform.

for desktop apps you would use electron.

for phone apps you would use something like phonegap.

for webapps, well, the languages were made for that in the first place.

the only area where you would be shit out of luck with those 3 skills is performant 3d game development and cpu bottlenecked applications.

This is terrible advice. You should care about the performance for programs you would build for most companies when you have users across many different hardware specs.

For server technologies, you definitely won't be writing it in JavaScript/HTML/random frontend technology.

 

[FyreWulff]

learn as many as you can. one you learn one you can grasp otherones pretty easily, and lets you pick up maintenance contracts here and there. I once did a job where I fixed a site's PERL code without having used PERL before I looked at it but it was pretty easy to figure out having already done C / PHP

 

[-COOLIO-]

This is terrible advice. You should care about the performance for programs you would build for most companies when you have users across many different hardware specs.

For server technologies, you definitely won't be writing it in JavaScript/HTML/random frontend technology.

i never said you should build slow, crappy apps

there's tons of great phonegap and electron apps.

you can also write server side js with node and it's pretty performant on servers with good single thread performance, though i feel like elixr and the phoenix framework are the way to go for a modern backend.

edit:

some examples:

phonegap: http://phonegap.com/app/

electron: https://electron.atom.io/apps/

 

[JohnsonUT]

Oracle DBA positions pay a really pretty penny if you know what you're doing. You're right that it's not a programming language per se, but there's tons of demand for highly knowledgeable people in the field of databases.

I agree but these positions are much more than SQL. SQL is one of many tools for administrating databases.

 

[Slo]

This is terrible advice. You should care about the performance for programs you would build for most companies when you have users across many different hardware specs.

:rolleyes Performance is always something you should care about, but it's only a real concern in very specific scenarios. None of the scenarios where performance is mission critical will be staffed by self taught dudes doing random freelancing.

 

[jvalioli]

:rolleyes Performance is always something you should care about, but it's only a real concern in very specific scenarios. None of the scenarios where performance is mission critical will be staffed by self taught dudes doing random freelancing.

Performance matters in more than very specific scenarios. And I wouldn't discount self taught freelancers. The company I work has a large engineering team and we still contract some stuff out to people like that.

Edit: and to be clear, I'm talking more generally and not about the specifics of the OP's situation.

 

[Skytylz]

:rolleyes Performance is always something you should care about, but it's only a real concern in very specific scenarios. None of the scenarios where performance is mission critical will be staffed by self taught dudes doing random freelancing.

Yep, most performance problems can be solved by writing a better algorithm or query. Not a lot of problems you tackle will perform poorly because of the language you chose.

 

[ZOONAMI]

Whats is java used for these days?

A shit ton of ERP software.

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

Its not that hard to learn a programming language in my opinion. The one thing that a lot of people are missing are solid fundamentals in math and algorithms and data structures. Learning these things is far more valuable than just learning the hyped programming language of the week.

I guess I'm so bad because I'm bad at math. I've been trying to learn for 9 years and still can't grasp the basics. I get frustrated and bored. Too much of it seems reliant on my memory too. I just want to get straight to creating.

 

[digdug2k]

If you're just looking for random side work I think you'd be better to look into something specialized. Webgl, Rust, becoming a cmake God, etc. Write lots of blog posts as you learn. That seems like stuff that someone might hire a one off contractor on to me.

 

[Slo]

Performance matters in more than very specific scenarios. .

You're being hyperbolic. As I said, people should care about performance but in the majority of applications you're not going to run into performance bottlenecks unless you're doing things completely bass-ackwards. If the difference between "first cut" and "fully optimized" is not perceivable by the user, then it's not important.

Edit: and to be clear, I'm talking more generally and not about the specifics of the OP's situation.

So did you reply to the wrong thread or something? Because the guy who you quoted and said gave "terrible advice" was actually talking to the OP.

 

[Tater Tot]

Learn Assembler and hate your life