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Ask HN: Programming Language for Ambitious MBA

5 points by pierrefar ↗ HN
A friend of mine is a non-technical MBA and has asked me for advice for which programming language he could learn. He has a few ideas he wants to hack and wants to do it himself as opposed to outsource or hire, at least in the early stages.

As a PHP guy to bone, I am hesitant to set him on this path just yet and thought there must be better languages for him to start with. I'm thinking either Python or Ruby (focusing on Rails) but don't know how to help him decide.

So which language is good for a beginner and what resources are best for him to start learning with?

Thanks.

9 comments

[ 13.6 ms ] story [ 1799 ms ] thread
sabj
I think that Python is really fun and readable and easy to learn, and a great place to start! But, he probably couldn't go wrong either way. As a similarly not-ultra-technical person who wanted to jump in, I found Python to be a great fit, but both have well supported communities and lots of great tutorials etc.
LeBlanc
Ruby is a good choice and is similar to Python. However, if you do choose Ruby, I would recommend starting out with Sinatra instead of Rails. Sinatra is simple and easily understood so it makes a good starting point. Rails does a lot of things by 'magic' so it is a lot more difficult to start out with.

http://www.sinatrarb.com/

On the other hand, if you do go straight into rails, this is the best rails tutorial I have found:

http://railstutorial.org/book

Someone
If the problems he is thinking about are MBA-related, Excel could be a good choice. Yes, it has its limitations (limited interactivity, too easy to end up with spaghetti-code, its debugger isn't too good, etc), but it makes it exteremely easy to build a basic interactive UI that allows data entry and storage, has lots of built-in functions, has some graphing capabilities, etc.

But honestly, without knowing what those 'a few ideas' are about, it is impossible to answer the question.

pierrefar
Good point.

He didn't explain his ideas specifically but was clearly talking about web-based apps, hence Python vs Ruby.

brudgers
I would agree with the general direction suggested by "Excel."

For an MBA it would make sense to learn C#. That would allow them to manipulate Excel and all the rest of Office from on high...and do all sorts of other MBA type things within the Microsoft stack.

Edit: Integrates into the Web too via ASP.net.

julius_geezer
I would vote Python, simply for the PythonWin environment.
pierrefar
Thanks for all the answers. He has already emailed me a very simple Python program. I think he's on his way.