Programming languages

Hey guys, I’m planning on starting to teach myself to program and have no experience at all. I’m wondering if those of you with programming backgrounds can recommend where to get started. Is there any reason to choose one language over another? I found a free python tutorial online so I guess I’ll start there unless you can give me a good reason to learn something else. Are there any languages that are more prominent in finance? My current position doesn’t require any programming and I don’t know anyone on my desk who does (except maybe some of the quants - who knows what they do). I don’t really have a “goal”, just want to pick up some programming knowledge to see if I like it and maybe it will come in handy somewhere down the line… Thanks for any advice.

C++ is widely used in finance or try MATLAB, MATHCAD do you know VBA?

Maybe someone could say something about the ease of learning VBA? Does anyone here know anything about Crystal Report (BusinessObjects’) and can recommend some approach how best to learn it?

It really depends on what kind of programming you want to do and how far you want to take it. VBA’s main benefit is being able to work with your existing excel spreadsheets. That being said, I think it is kind of a pain in the ass to deal with. Matlab is very easy to learn, but it only really makes sense to learn if you use it at work. I’ve heard a decent amount of quants do their preliminary work in Matlab and then convert it to C++ if they have to. C++ makes a lot of sense to learn if you want to be a quant. If you can learn C++, you can pretty much learn the rest of them.

“I’ve heard a decent amount of quants do their preliminary work in Matlab and then convert it to C++ if they have to.” and you can even do this piecemeal using dll’s (I’m a Mathematica/Delphi guy but the principle is the same except I get to be iconoclastic). “If you can learn C++, you can pretty much learn the rest of them.” Except it’s so butt-ugly. I do wish I had multiple inheritance though.