So I need to start learning...

[KevC]

I'm currently doing a undergrad physics degree, and really beginning to worry about my skillset. Yeah, I can market myself as being a fast learner and excellent problem-solver, but I believe having programming background is extremely EXTREMELY valuable in today's tech workplace.

That said, where to start.. where to start?

I'm pretty damn n00b at programming, I've only touched upon basic Java. Unfortunately all the intro to programming courses at my school are first year, and I don't have any more space for first year courses. So I intend on picking up a book and learning.

What should I learn? What's valuable these days? I've heard about "LAMP" (linux/apache/mysql/php) and that seems like a really good place to start.

Thoughts?

 

[Calefaction]

Start with a language that doesn't require alot of "ground work", such as memory managment, pointers, etc. Java is a good one, C# would be another. Once you start to learn basic programming concepts, and good habits, go back and learn a more advanced language like C, then move to C++. You may also want to touch on and pick up some scripting languages such as Python and Lua, as they are used commonly to extend applications these days.

 

[ameoba]

Matlab is probably one of the more directly useful (and widely used) languages for science & engineering (GNU Octave is a FOSS implementation of the same language). I don't personally care much for the language, but it handles matrices and vectors suprisingly well and has lots of libraries for doing interesting math stuff.

Python is a pretty good general purpose language (definately nicer than Matlab, but not quite as math focused) and, with the Numeric package, you get pretty good, optimized, support for matrices & vectors. There's also the SciPy Project that provides various scientific applications & libraries.

 

[mikeblas]

I wrote An Essay for Programming Students, which you might find useful.

 

[movax]

You definitely want to start off with language that require less "ground work" as Calcefaction said, but IMO, it's important to be fully proficient in at least one type of scripting language, preferably more. You can and will get things done faster by simply whipping up a quick script in PHP/Perl/Python. Knowing a scripting language, and a "full" language like C/C++ is awesome.