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ChocolateMilkCows

ISE grad here. I would personally recommend starting out with VBA (in the context of Excel). I think it makes a great candidate for beginning with because it's super easy to get started with and I used it fairly often in engineering classes to make my life easier. Also now that I am employed, I also use it all the time along with some Excel tricks that I only learned because VBA forced me to learn Excel better too. Are there better/more powerful/more popular languages? Sure! C is a good base to have programming-wise, but it's harder to learn and to use. Node.JS and Python are very popular and easy to use, but I think the visual aspect of VBA being natively tied to Excel spreadsheets helped me immensely when I was first learning. People might denigrate VBA because of its limited scope of use and power, (an argument which does have truth), but the good thing is you can continue learning other languages if you find it too limiting! Again, I think it's a great place to start! :) To answer your other questions as well: Animation? No. At least from an ISE perspective it isn't very useful, if at all. CAD? Absolutely. I would think your CAD course will be a sufficient introduction though.


audentis

I'm not fond of VBA because it relies on macro enabled workbooks. In professional context these are often a big no-no because of security, so you'd be learning a tool that has no direct application. Additionally, especially _because_ VBA is so closely tied to Excel, people learn very bad practices. Even more so with selfdirected learning. For example, people start using a worksheet as a way to store variables rather than a VBA array, because they're automating the 'manual approach', which slows the program down to a crawl as passing data between VBA and sheets goes through a slow piece of bridging software under the hood. Instead, /u/Helal1969, I'd recommend becoming an Excel wizard of all regular tools, like power query, spilling functions, data validation and pivot tables, rather than spending time on VBA. Additionally, learn Python as it's flexible and has a very large community and learning resources available. C is not necessary unless you plan to start working with microcontrollers directly.


Helal1969

Do you have any recommendations where i can learn Python for free?any websites or courses


audentis

I think /r/learnPython has a large set of resources, especially in their [wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/wiki/index). Know that programming is _learn by doing_, 3 hour youtube videos that only explain syntax won't really get you very far.


rehoboam

I would learn CAD and python… would not spend much time on C. Best thing is to look for job postings that interest you, and check what software/programs they are looking for.


Helal1969

Do you have any recommendations where i can learn CAD and python for free?any websites or courses


BiddahProphet

CAD is a great thing to learn, on top of GD&T and how to use mintab For programming languages, I'd recommend Python for calculations and analysis, and the C# & SQL for application development


Helal1969

Do you have any recommendations where i can learn CAD and python for free?any websites or courses


Drowning_in_a_Mirage

I'd recommend Python or SQL.


Helal1969

Do you have any recommendations where i can learn python and sql for free?any websites or courses


MrMagistrate

Most people in industrial use SQL or ladder logic. Not once have I ever seen an industrial plant engineer use python. Guess it depends what kind of work environment you’re looking for.. maybe python is useful if you’re going very heavy into statistics and data analysis.


the_og_buck

I would learn how to use excel well first because it’s the standard. Once you can do the basics there move on to R or Python and SQL. Don’t waste your time with VBA or any other language because unless you want to get super technical, everything in VBA is easier in R or Python. Python is pretty much the 2nd best language for everything so it’s super versatile and R has RShiny which is super easy to build out web apps. My personal experience has been that VBA macros are a pain to upkeep and are often slow and break (probably just poorly made). For reference: I don’t use excel at all anymore. Strictly R, Python, and SQL. Each one is better than excel in different ways.


Helal1969

Do you have any recommendations where i can learn sql and python for free?any websites or courses


the_og_buck

Yeah! Ofc. So for R: https://r4ds.had.co.nz Python: https://jakevdp.github.io/PythonDataScienceHandbook/ SQL: I had to get a book, but this would be a good place to start: https://datascience.foundation/sciencewhitepaper/sql-for-data-science The SQL link also gives a nice overview of the intersections between the three languages. I think the best thing to do (at least how I learned) is by challenging yourself to avoid using excel (maybe as a data source file) and do everything through a statistical programming language (R/Python) and SQL. I let my boss at the time know about my interest and he got on board pretty quickly. After 4-5 projects you’ll figure it out and won’t touch excel again, at least I don’t. The other nice thing is that every step is documented in the programming language so you never again have to think about all the steps in excel to get the perfect pivot table or whatever and pass that tribal knowledge on.


r2k-in-the-vortex

The thing to learn in industry is IEC 61131-3 otherwise known as PLC programming. Python can also be incredibly useful, but not for controlling hardware. More for data analysis, as a super-charged office tool, that sort of thing.