JS has a powerful advantage as far as usefulness in that it comes with all the browsers already, so you’re going to have to learn it for client side if you are doing web apps. My suggestion to newbies trying to find a quick 10-minute intro is coffeescript.
I’m still leaning towards Python and Haskell as things I should be learning for various reasons. (Python seems useful and career-friendly, and I already know enough to be dangerous. Haskell seems to teach a different kind of math/thinking, which is attractive long term even if I never use the language.)
However Javascript is pretty friendly, especially with CoffeeScript and NodeJS. It might actually be a better language for the web-entrepreneur track since the hottest apps will be optimized for the client side.
One thing I’ve noticed about the NodeJS community is they seem really good about removing trivial inconveniences. For example with Meteor I was able to get an example set up in about 30 seconds.
JS has a powerful advantage as far as usefulness in that it comes with all the browsers already, so you’re going to have to learn it for client side if you are doing web apps. My suggestion to newbies trying to find a quick 10-minute intro is coffeescript.
I’m still leaning towards Python and Haskell as things I should be learning for various reasons. (Python seems useful and career-friendly, and I already know enough to be dangerous. Haskell seems to teach a different kind of math/thinking, which is attractive long term even if I never use the language.)
However Javascript is pretty friendly, especially with CoffeeScript and NodeJS. It might actually be a better language for the web-entrepreneur track since the hottest apps will be optimized for the client side.
One thing I’ve noticed about the NodeJS community is they seem really good about removing trivial inconveniences. For example with Meteor I was able to get an example set up in about 30 seconds.