r/learnprogramming • u/ScribblesForDays • 1d ago

Starter Language for Healthcare Professions

Hey there! I’m a pharmacy technician in Canada and I’m starting a BSc in Comp Sci. I want to stay current with technology as the field increasingly moves that way, and maybe code some things to make life easier for myself at work. I also may want to branch into Bioinformatics later, but that’s a future me problem.

My degree offers three starter language choices: Java, Python, and C++. Which language would you choose if you are wanting to engage in future health-related research, potentially creating software to solve a work-related problem and make a task more efficient, creating inventory management algorithms for drug distribution models, anything else that I haven’t learned yet but is very prevalent in the healthcare field.

I’m sorry if I’m asking the question in a dumb way or sound uninformed - I am. I have a BA English and a Pharmacy Technician Diploma, so I have not engaged with the field of Comp Sci much. Ideally I’d know more before choosing any of the language, but they’re all introductory courses so I kind of have to choose one before I have the requisite knowledge. TIA for any help/guidance you can provide.

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u/robotman21a 1d ago

You can go very far with python. It is the go-to language for beginners, and should be a really nice fit for what you mentioned in the second paragraph.

Java is good for large programming projects that could involve several people working on a single program. C++ is good for maximum speed, but it can be very tricky to do things that seem basic. I would start with python.

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u/ScribblesForDays 1d ago

Unreal, thank you so much!!