What path to follow, IT or just a language

I was an electro technicien when I finished school. After that I did a graduate/Bachelor in Electro-Mechanics.

I started everything in LAD 8 years ago. FBD is something that I knew naturally because of electronics. After 8 years I'm able to program in LAD, FBD, STL, GRAPH and a little SCL. The HMI part, It becomes difficult when there comes scripting...

What I wanna say is...

I did some Visual Basic basic lessons and they helped me out for understanding a little SCL, VBA and VB scripting. But still I'm not good in it I think...

What should I do: a graduate in evening school for 'Industrial IT' or should I just follow some advanced VB.NET lessons... The chart to follow in the graduate is long..., maybe too long...

But, I don't know if VB will help a lot...

Take the Industrial IT course. Then, continue your education on your own. VB is important. So is Visual C, and the C language itself. Learn how to self-teach. You need this to stay on top. Do it at home and through the Internet.

Amen Keith

"Self learning" is the only way to stay on top, read keep your job!

Combo said:

What should I do: a graduate in evening school for 'Industrial IT' or should I just follow some advanced VB.NET lessons... The chart to follow in the graduate is long..., maybe too long...

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I defenitly wouldn't go to BME(Bachelor eveningschool in Belgium for all who are not from arround)
I follow the A1 Elektromechanics over there and i have to say the educational level is loooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwww.

I only keep on doing it for that piece of paper, second year to start and still didn't learn alot. If it wasn't for that piece of paper total waste of time.

The VB.net course, will help but it is not the same as the programming languages used in todays HMI.

I prefer self-learning, the other things you need to know are the quircks and weird logic some programming languages use, you only learn them by trial and error.

Marsupilami

Learn math and physics

BTW, on another thread I said I am learning Java. Two steps forward and one step back. What a struggle.

Languages are fads. The math and physics will be useful forever.

I would learn C# before basic but if you really want to understand what is going on I would get an embedded micro controller that you can program in C or assembly language.

I agree

Agree with Pete here. Unless you're a professional software developer, it's not the language itself that you really need to master. Languages will change. Learn the background things that matter. For Pete it's math and physics. For an IT guy it's TCP/IP, networks, and operating systems. For a programmer you learn object oriented paradigms, work with APIs, algorithms, etc. Nothing says you can't be comfortable with C and Visual Studios. Learn to jump into projects and teach yourself. Start with the basics and go from there.

Lately, I've been branching into Cisco programming, virtualization, and network security. Just don't stop expanding your horizons. In our field pretty much all of it's relevant.

Peter Nachtwey said:

BTW, on another thread I said I am learning Java. Two steps forward and one step back. What a struggle.

Languages are fads. The math and physics will be useful forever.

I would learn C# before basic but if you really want to understand what is going on I would get an embedded micro controller that you can program in C or assembly language.

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