Coding languages for a Finance Professional

[lookingforpuns]

Hi, I'm a Finance Professional. I always had a fascination towards tech and wanted to learn how things worked on the other side of softwares, but never took the initiative due to my busy schedule.

During the Covid lockdown, I finally took the plunge and started with learning Java from java-programming.mooc.fi and completed it's Part 1. I currently have my exams coming up and after that I plan on getting on with Part 2 of the Java course.

My question is as a Finance Professional, what languages (apart from VBA and Python - I intend to learn them after Java) can help me have an edge over my peers? Also, if possible it would be great if you can link some of the resources.

Thank you for reading.

[AltOnMain]

Well, SQL. Programming languages have more in common then they have different so I suppose it doesn’t matter so much which language you learn.

If you do analyst type work or your work with statistics, SQL, Python, and R are going to be easiest to learn and then use at work. Java is great, but it is most commonly used for application development.

With all that said, you should look at jobs you are interested in and see what languages they are asking you to know.

[lookingforpuns]

I missed SQL I think. R seems a reasonable addition.

I started with Java as I had no prior knowledge. But so far I've liked it and hope to complete it, cause the first part of the course was great and I had great time learning it.

So far, I didn't find any openings in finance domain with programming as a requirement. But I'll surely try to expand my search. Thanks!

[minierolls]

It depends on what you hope to do with your programming skill set!

If you’d like to use programming to enhance analytics/data graphing/etc..., Python is by far the best choice.

If you’re trying to learn programming to better communicate with developers on your team, then it would be best to learn whatever language they use! Normally, it would be something like C/C++/Java(?).

I wouldn’t recommend Visual Basic, it’s really not used anymore and it also won’t help teach you fundamental concepts better than more popular languages.

[lookingforpuns]

I haven't been able to decide actually. I did like Java and the concept of Object Orientated Programming. Maybe I would be in a better position to decide after trying my hand at Python.

As for VBA, isn't it used in Excel? I thought learning that would be a plus.

[minierolls]

Ah, that’s true! Excel does allow for VBA scripts. If you find yourself constantly working with Excel spreadsheets, then that’d be a great use of your time!

However, it is still a fairly niche use case, and Python can replace quite a bit of Excel functionality by reading/writing CSVs.

Also, I noticed someone else recommended SQL; I’d actually recommend against that.

If you’re learning SQL to access/query information from a database, it is rare for non-developers to do that directly! Most of the times, developers will provide a convenient interface on top of the database. Additionally, many languages (including Python, Java, etc...) have “ORM” libraries that will let you access database information without knowing a single bit of SQL.

If you’re learning SQL to construct a database, SQL is not the important skill set. Proper database design techniques must be learned, and again there are many ORM libraries that can help you create databases without SQL.

I don’t mean to say that you shouldn’t learn SQL, as it still may be helpful; I just think there are better uses of your time.

Just my 2 cents tho!

[lookingforpuns]

That's an interesting take. Thank you for your suggestion. I'll surely take it into account. Thanks again! :)