I have dabbled in programming before, mainly Java (and some Pascal back in college), and would like now to go more in depth. I'm interested in network applications - I've hacked together a couple of Java programs to download and parse emails, pull content from a web page, etc. and I would like to do more in this area, albeit larger and more complex projects.

I am trying to decide which language to focus on given my limited free time and Java and Python look the most interesting and promising to me. Thoughts and recommendations?

(FYI: While I'm not looking to start a career in programming right now, I might consider it - if anyone has advice on making a career switch into programming after 30, I'd love to hear it!)

Thanks!

where are you?
you'll find it much easier to get on the ladder with formal qualifications.
I switched after 30 it's not too late by a long way.

for fun: python, loads of work in java though personally i don't like it.

Limited time fits best with Python because productivity is higher. And Python is more fun, as bigearsbilly said.

Thanks for the answers.

Without starting a language flame war (I hope!), how much higher would you say productivity is in Python? And are there any performance issues re: network applications with Python?

jdrietz, it's subjective. You will get different answers from different folks. But (I think) most people would agree that you can generally do more work with less lines of code using python. More importantly, IMO, python is easier to read and maintain. You will take a performance hit using python, so for large applications where that's an important consideration you may want to think twice.

As for which language will give you a better return on your time investment, how much of a java expert are you? Are you an expert in any other c-based language? If the answer to both is "no", then... I'm strongly of the opinion that python is more intuitive. Learning java will require additional time.

Which is a long way to answer your question with: use python.

Twisted is the best Python framework for really high-performance network programming. But it takes some time to be mastered.

Compared to C... about 10 (or even more) times more productive.
Compared to Java I sincerely can't tell how much but it's surely a lot more productive.