i'm curious what you all think are the languages i should be learning that will be heavily used for general-purpose programming in the next 5 or 10 years. python is incredibly useful and pretty easy to pick up, but i can't see a big company hiring 30 python programmers to develop some enterprise application in an interpreted language. are Java, C++ and C# really the only contenders? and how often do you think i should give myself pet projects to keep brushed up?

Social/Game Applications like on Facebook, myspace etc.

They've exploded in the past year. The quality of the applications will continue to grow as well as the uses for them.

There is also a great need for database administration programs. A large amount of banks are suprisingly not up to speed. One major project being considered by the government is linking realty and mortgage company databases into a system that can be used by federal employees to monitor home ownership and verify owner citizenship.

I'm not too familiar with the languages, just a few needs out there.

The only real languages being used in the enterprise are those
that you've mentioned: Java, C++, and C#. But we need to go
beyond those ... IOW, beyond the language itself and off to
some "platform".

For example, you really need to be well-versed in a platform
and not just a language - for example, J2EE or .NET.

I've been doing this programming thing (consultant) for over
30 years and the trend really is about platforms. Go out to
Careerbuilder and/or Monster and see for yourself.

.NET isn't going anywhere for awhile. Also, the company where I work is moving towards web-based applications for our users. So that might be something to think about if you're developing applications for the business side of wherever you're working.

As a programmer, learning languages should be just a quick snap to you. Take a day or two in mastering it. Like what centered mentioned, its not about languages. It is about platforms. The platforms (or at least the API it has) generally dictate what languages you can go with it. Remember, there are other things out there beyond the PC, Mac, and Mobile devices to program on. There are custom hardware out there. There are even applications or frameworks that require you to program scripts in their own scripting languages.