I know, I should ask this somewhere else, but I don't trust somewhere else...
My son is an economics researcher for a think tank, and he uses statistics programs -- SAS, SPSS, and SDATA -- all day long. He took it upon himself to learn scripting for all three, an he's become pretty facile at writing scripts in their dedicated scripting languages. Now he wants to learn something about programming.
He has no interest in becoming a programmer, but he'd like to know something that may be useful in his work (he had a math minor, and he's now going for a Masters in applied mathematics). I used to dabble in C and Assembly, so he's asked me what he should learn. I have no clue.
Some people he works with have recommended Python. I know nothing about it. I suggested C, but I made the mistake to telling him it's like Latin for a language major, and he hated Latin. He's not going to be doing anything that relates to the Web. His interest is mostly in things that will help him deal with data.
Any thoughts?