What is the best programming language to learn for growth hacking?

[walton]

I know coding ability isn't necessarily a requirement for growth hacking, but I strongly believe this is a skill that'll be in increasing demand and will really set me apart from others. I hear ruby on rails is the language i want to go for, but what do you guys think?

P.S. I have some programming experience...I've dabbled with Objective-C (created a super basic calculator), and know a good amount of html and some CSS.

 

[louis21]

@walton PHP. It's the language of hacks. Google anything you want + PHP and you will find an answer. It's the easiest to pick up. Python has a greater learning curve and will be more frustrating to learn, I can't argue against it, but I would not advise a newbie to learn python. Outside of PHP or Python I'd stay away from any trendy languages.

 

[purewords1611]

@louis21 I agree with PHP. It's easy to learn (just a step beyond HTML) and I use it constantly... One way that I constantly use PHP is to develop simple WordPress plugins to help with my "growth hacking"...

 

[fig]

@purewords1611 Php is def a safe bet because it is so versatile and everyone uses it! I would suggest also ruby on rails because you can build apps so fast with it.

 

[bradleyhiggins]

@walton As a GrowthHacker myself I would strongly suggest PHP/HTML/CSS + Ajax/jQuery/Java Script.

If you can do these you will be far more advanced than 90% of online marketers and growth hackers.

Here is the thing to remember, most likely the company didn't hire you to be a programmer or coder so don't try to be one. Focus on growth oriented skills. Knowing how to manipulate PHP or insert a jQuery element to increase UX/UI is far more important to know how to do than code in Ruby/Python or ASP.

 

[evalove]

@walton Python would be my language of choice. Excellent libraries and community support.

 

[walton]

@evalove Does it have any big advantages or disadvantages to ruby on rails?

 

[evalove]

@walton Anything you do in Ruby, you can do in Python and vice versa. The same holds true for all other languages. However, Ruby has an associated with Rails, which is a web framework. In some sense, it's starting to become a domain specific language that way. Most people use Ruby because of Rails. Whereas for Python, while it is also widely used in web development with popular frameworks like Django and Flask, Python is also widely used in Finance, Devops, Academia and Scientific Research.

In that sense, I suspect the amount of 3rd party libraries for Python, will be more.

Now coming to what you want to do. I imagine most programming related tasks to growth hacking will involve some form of interaction with the web. Be it scraping, loading or automating tasks. Python has very good libraries for doing that. I'm not sure about Ruby because I don't use it. So perhaps a Rubyist view will complete the view points.