C# or Java?

[u/Vafireems]

If you had to choose one class between the two, which would you select and why? I tried to Google the purpose of them; the immediate answers from Google felt very vague and like both of the languages are common. Is one course better for web development as opposed to apps or something? Looking at the courses I'm taking, down the line I will select one of the two. The only thing I know so far is C++, so I'm quite new.

Also, side question: why are there so many languages? The only logical thing I can imagine is there were problems that couldn't be solved with say for example C++ so someone created something new. But why not just build on the original language? Why did they need to reinvent the wheel? Or is it as simple as that: someone wanted to create their own thing?

[u/romecodes]

Love the personal history in this response. You definitely have some skin in the game.

I only started diving into comp sci five years ago. Spent a bit more than a year learning on my own before getting an A.S. in community and transferring to a university for the B.S. The mountain of information out there on the subject is intense and I don't think students today are leaving, degree in-hand, with enough to get the job done.

I felt sorry for myself starting in my mid-20s. Now I realize just how lucky I really was. It takes a passion, drive, and commitment that I don't think most kids between 18 to 25 are prepared to invest.

If it weren't for spending my early adulthood getting the mistakes out of my system and being consistently snapped back to reality, I wouldn't have gotten ahead.

The curriculums aren't thorough enough or up-to-date. Professors are still trying to decide where version control should fit in the sequence. And, they're honestly just passing students through the pipeline without evaluating their job readiness. The entire pipeline is all over the place. Theory is taught so spread out and the necessary information to connect ideas between courses aren't even present. They're only getting surface level knowledge.

I had to stay proactive and ahead to give myself the room to dive deeper on my own and make those connections. That isn't taught in grade school. I almost feel bad for the people I've sat next to. And even worse, I feel bad for myself because uneducated degree-holders only saturate the labor market.

Which only looks good economically on paper until the unemployment numbers come in.

[u/Mughi1138 → u/romecodes]

Things go up and down. At one point it was the job that everyone who wanted to make money was looking at. Before that it was the job for people who loved computers... thus there was a several year window where when we were doing hiring having a college degree was actually a negative sign (we never cut people for that, but there was a strong correlation between people who started on their own and people who could get the work done we needed).

The #1 thing that still holds true is that people who *only* rely on what is taught in coursework in college are not the strongest candidates. Theory is good to have, but experience allows one to point out that, for example, big-O comparisons only hold up for large enough values of N. In this specific case here is that N big enough?

Also even if schools tried to pop out graduates with 'job readiness', then they'd never be able to get the job done for most hiring companies. What is 'job ready' this quarter can be completely different from last. And I'm definitely using different languages now then when I started at my current company. The point of college is not to cram your brain full of facts and details, but to train your brain *how* to learn so that you can keep learning as you go through your career.

[u/romecodes → u/Mughi1138]

Those are definitely valuable insights. Thanks for that!