Another help thread

[Majolic]

Hey HTS
Ive been a lurker for a while reading some interesting posts here and there, but i just made an account.
I Recently went back to college, i start in January for winter classes 2012, I am majoring in Computer occupations technology with a focus on Networking and Security hoping they will blend into each other at some point and get me a job securing networks or penetration testing. Anyways i am interested in teaching myself a Programming language and would like to know if programming is essential to network security or if it will be a time waster, and if so what language should i focus on first.
The extent of my knowledge involving any kind of code would be Linux command line. And if im correct the two are unrelated.


TLDR: what language should i learn to supplement a degree in networking/security?

please move if i posted in the wrong place

lol sorry about all the editing errors i just noticed them all.

I would also like to request recommendations for good books relating to programming.

[illusion_]

I would suggest either C (and C++ after that) or Perl, since they seem to be the most popular languages for exploit POCs. Python or PHP wouldn't be a bad choice either. Really, just about any language would do.

[Rijnzael]

If you want to be taken seriously in the infosec world, you're going to need to know how to write C programs which utilize the POSIX socket APIs. Get your feet wet with a few introductory C programs (how to write which you should be able to find on the web) and then delve deeply into http://beej.us/guide/bgnet/