I won't speak harshly of C or C++. In my opinion you need to specialize in either java or .net to make a career of it. On the topic of programming languages,

I won't speak harshly of C or C++. In my opinion you need to specialize in either java or .net to make a career of it. On the topic of programming languages, general knowledge asserts that a programmer should at least be able to program in each of the following 'types' of programming languages: Procedural - C/Go etc. Object-oriented - C#/Java etc. Dynamic - Python/Ruby/Groovy etc. Functional - F#/R/Haskell etc. A lot of languages cross boundaries (ex. php is procedural and object-oriented) - some programming languages can be all of the above-mentioned tyes. The real 'trick' to get started is to specialise in development frameworks. It's all about rapid application development nowadays. There are a ton of frameworks available for traditional desktop and web development, including: WinForms, WCF, WPF, ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, Django, Rails, Grails and a ton more of opensource frameworks.