Sicaire when you say shops--is that a form of school or is it a workplace? And thanks Ephexeve I am getting into Python at the moment--hoping to get better at programming so I can jump into a more advanced language. Last time I dove head first into C and crashed.

Oh that is awesome. As a penetration tester, are you generally given free reign over your methods or are you restricted to certain methods such as SQLi for example in select cases. Thank you for your replies, I am learning alot.

What is application security testing, would that be testing for buffer over flows and such? And what specifically does a penetration tester do then, since I had always assumed they kind of monopolized the whole playing field.

Hey guys, I am an aspiring penetration tester and I have been lurking around forums soaking up as much as I can and learning however I think it is time for the next step, but I need to know where its best to start. I am currently learning python because of its simplicity, yet from the standpoint of a penetration tester, would php be the way to go? I know it is widely used but it is losing ground to python. I am also torn between learning C/C++...