I actually feel really lucky RE: all the technology that's out there now. When I learned to program, the only option available was 'BASIC', then years later, C++. When I went to university (1997) I was surprised at how many other languages there were, but it still was relatively simple compared to today.
I remarked to my partner who's also in IT that I feel sorry for people trying to get into IT nowadays, because the number of languages, frameworks, platforms etc. is so huge. It's awesome in some ways but it must be overload for a newcomer trying to figure out where to get started.
I suppose to any newcomer my advice would be to go depth first into something like RoR or Django.
Learn the framework and learn the language really well, then once you're comfortable building things well (after a year or 2) experiment with something else on the side.
The hard part is figuring out what is worth learning, and for this a mentor can be priceless.
I feel for people getting into programming today. While GPLed software and better dev environments than I ever had are easily available, there's less of an emphasis on computers being programmable for users - less useful manuals, etc
Sure you can get Ruby if you know where/how/of it, but your computer likely doesn't even come with BASIC installed by default.
I remarked to my partner who's also in IT that I feel sorry for people trying to get into IT nowadays, because the number of languages, frameworks, platforms etc. is so huge. It's awesome in some ways but it must be overload for a newcomer trying to figure out where to get started.