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Hey guys, quick question regarding employers and stuff.

I'm 14 and I've been learning and making things in PHP for around 1 and a half years now. I quite like PHP as, despite the code being quite messy sometimes, it's super easy to learn, and has plenty of features for any use case. My biggest concern is that, when I end up getting a job, whilst 5 and a half years of experience using the language is good, do you guys think PHP will still be in-demand, or should I look towards learning a new stack? Perhaps I should use Ruby on Rails, or Express - React and Redux, or maybe Django? With so many options available for developers, I'm finding it difficult to choose a stack that will stay in-demand in the future. Could anyone help me out with this? Thanks.

Edit: I've been learning Laravel, too.

Comments
  • 9
    You are 14, do what you like, you have time.
    It might be a good idea to try something new not because it's in demand but because you like it and you want to learn it
  • 0
    @just-basic-user Are there any languages you'd recommend that are particularly fun to use? I don't really care about difficulty. If it's a harder language, like you said, I have time to learn.
  • 1
    @thomasjowsey What do you want to do? Do you want to make websites, or would you like to make apps for the mobile?

    PHP won't really be going anywhere btw. It's most likely still going to be there in 10 years time. Though you might end up like me back on 2k14 when was done with my vocational webdev education and found that pretty much all the php just simply where about setting up and maintaining wordpress (and other cms) sites.

    And if you want to do web stuff I'd suggest learning Javascript and actually getting familiar with the language
  • 0
    @inaba Yes, I'm mostly looking at web development. I'm competent in HTML, CSS and JavaScript, however at the moment I'm mainly looking for server-side languages to use.
  • 0
    @thomasjowsey
    Some easier stuff (but very fun):
    - if you like games, C# with Unity
    - if want to make apps, Swift for iOS or Kotlin for Android - two very nice and popular languages

    And if you are up for a challenge use Swift as Webserver on Linux, it’s hard but very interesting.
    Also C++ is nice if you think of a nice project utilising it.
  • 0
    @thomasjowsey Yeah then I'd say definitely go ahead and learn JS.

    I've recently through school had to learn and use ASP.NET Core MVC which is backend development with C#, which is really lovely!

    But, really I'd suggest to try things out yourself. Since you're able and it's all free to do.

    (Also personally I really like NodeJS with Express for backend)
  • 1
    learn some python. You can do so much with it, writing scripts, doing data science, machine learning and web development.

    Especially machine learning is going to be more and more important in the coming future.
  • 2
    Learn cobol and you will always have a fallback in reprogramming traffic lights.
  • 3
    Basically what these guys said.

    I work in a company that is 90% C#, with the rest being Java, PHP, Python and ruby.

    Look at your local or even not so local market and see what positions are trending, mind you you have 5+ years before you actually have to worry and as the webdev world changes daily anything could be true in 5 years.

    Best bet - if I had to, would be JS and nodeJS (not that I’m a fan) and API development for micro services.
  • 3
    I watched a YouTube video recently where someone said - roughly - "Many developers forget that a language, a framework, a library, these are just tools. What's more important is to be able to understand a problem and how you can use technology to solve it in general terms".

    I would make that sound snazzier as - you can be a master with a tools to chip at and carve wood but if you do not have an understanding of the form you want to create you will always have a block of misshapen wood and never anything more.

    So yeah pick things up, try them out, mess around with languages, learn more about the things you want to learn about.

    With that said in my experience the angular, c#, entity framework stack is the best for getting a job, followed by some other full javascript stack.
  • 0
    Well I personally don't think php is gonna be that In demand once you get employed I personally recommend you learn those more in demand and "stable" languages such as the classic c++, java python but you do you and learn what you want I recommend you branch out and try many languages they all have their advantages and disadvantages plus you might find a Language that you really like and get good at it. For myself I personally love python due to its simplicity and versatility its a fun Language to work in :).
  • 0
    C# on .net and .net core!
  • 0
    You're too young to go insane because of PHP.
  • 1
    @varikvalefor Haha, I actually really enjoy working with PHP for the most part. I'm not going insane, anyway!
  • 1
    @thomasjowsey along with all the stuff the other guys have said here (good, solid advice), may I also recommend learning things like algorithms and data structures? They really help you grow as a programmer and make you stand out from the crowd. Also, maybe a lower level language like C.

    Also maybe hacking around with basic electronics, Arduino/Raspberry Pi/some other embedded platform? There's a lot more to programming than making websites/web apps, and programming jobs are available across the industry in everything from cars to chemicals.

    You're 14 right now, unless you have money constraints or really need a job ASAP I would suggest you explore as much as you can. You won't get that flexibility later, and you may be surprised by what you like.
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