What will be advantageous on the market in 5 years? What is also simple enough so adult who never programmed can learn?
I'm no programmer either, but I've been using GNU/Linux for a decade now and I've spent a fair amount of time around various related discussion boards.
Many times when this question comes up Python is recommended for beginners.
It is one of the easier to learn but it's not a kiddie language. Quite powerful and respectable.
Often people will also say don't worry so much about which language as getting the common principles and logic down that are applicable to all languages.
I'm no programmer either, but I've been using GNU/Linux for a decade now and I've spent a fair amount of time around various related discussion boards.
Many times when this question comes up Python is recommended for beginners.
It is one of the easier to learn but it's not a kiddie language. Quite powerful and respectable.
Often people will also say don't worry so much about which language as getting the common principles and logic down that are applicable to all languages.
I'm not very familiar with the programs used in that field, but here is a recent article on jobs:programmers ratios in finance: http://news.efinancialcareers.com/uk-en/137065/the-six-hottest-programming-languages-to-know-in-banking-technology
Python seems to be in most demand in general. R seems to be especially in demand for statistics and data analysis.
Python is generally one of the easiest languages to learn, so I would just start with that. I only dabbled in it (after already knowing Basic and Pascal from when I had more time), and I could write some useful programs for my job.