Programming language to use to make plots from a database?

[Zerhyn]

I am a graduate student who has basically no experience programming but I would like to learn so I decided to give myself a project. What I would like to do is build a web application that can plot data (2D & 3D) from a database. Once I get that far I would like to have the web application conduct model calculations. I would like users will be able to select the data they are interested in and then proceed to run a model.

What programming language would be best to proceed in this direction?

Thank you!

 

[Zerhyn]

OK. So what I have gathered so far is that I should develop the UI via HTML 5 (I would like this web app to be universal on almost nearly all platforms). Then outsource the data processes using API's to the likes of Wolfram or Microsoft's Azure.

 

[Adyssa]

I feel like I'm advocating this website a lot lately, but I'm very enthusiastic about it and I can't help but recommend it to anyone wanting to learn programming.

www.udacity.com

If you take CS101 you'll learn how to program in Python in (nominally) 7 weeks, although the course is not running per se, you'd take it in your own time (which could be a week). I'm currently taking CS253 which is web application programming in Python using the Google App Engine framework and a backend SQL database.

They won't teach you graphics, but you should probably learn the basics first.

Take a peek, I think it would be a very good path to consider - Python will do everything you need, it's pretty easy to pick up, it's interpreted (no compiling - interactive and rapid development) it has great math libraries, it's cross platform.

Having said that, you could accomplish what you want with almost any language / platform you choose.

 

[Zerhyn]

Thank you for the replies! I have been playing around with Code Academy [codeacademy.com] for a few weeks and I'll look into udacity as well. I guess what I was wondering where programming for the web is headed and what were the types of things I should keep in mind. But it appears I just need to start doing and I'll find my way there eventually.