One of the most popular questions in our community from beginners is: “what language should I start?” For the answer we brought in our experts.
It all depends on what region you choose. If you want to work directly with the hardware, write drivers, and various applications that need maximum performance then you can use only C or C++. If your goal is app for mobile phones, you need to learn Java or Objective C, C#. The web server with go, python and PHP for web applications — JavaScript.
If you haven’t decided on the area, you can safely choose C/C++, because knowing this language, you can easily learn any other. There’s only one thing that’s important to remember that just like spoken language, the programming language is forgotten if not constantly used, so it is better to own one or two languages perfectly than superficially know a large number.
In my opinion, the real programmer is never limited to knowledge of only one language. And even if in the future you are going to write drivers and system applications, you can still benefit of some scripting languages such as Perl or python. Moreover, knowledge of scripting languages is now a must for any programmer, in spite of his specialization.
Python is fine for learning General programming concepts. This is a very popular language, it has many libraries, the syntax is easy to read and rather neat code. The main advantages of Python for beginners is that it is quite common and easy to learn. You will easily be able to write it as a web app and a regular desktop. Depending on the subject area, it is necessary to choose object-oriented language. For example, if you are doing system programming, it is better to use C++. If you are developing an enterprise application (information systems companies), it is C# or Java.
I started with Fortran and Pascal, since they were in my Institute. Then was C/C++, Visual Basic Script, PHP and Visual Basic, then C#, then F#.
If you rely on your experience and be able to choose the most comfortable to me was to develop in C# and would I started. Most in terms of understanding the algorithms and mechanisms of operating systems, under which I wrote, gave me C++.
For example, C++ and Java to study the basis of the PLO, and then to determine the subject area and to study their home language.
Guess we’d better start learning JavaScript. Due to a web browsers, this programming language is the de facto standard when creating web applications, one of the fastest growing areas of development. Also it is a great free book, “Eloquent JavaScript”.
It all depends on the problem you want to solve. However, if this is your first language, I would recommend a language is strongly typed, General purpose (C++, Java, .NET): from them in any way will not be lost and will be easy to switch to any other. Another interesting way to understand which language to take is to go to GitHub, enter in a search topic and see what is written by other developers.
It all depends on age. If you have truly decided from an early age to learn to program, and you are under 12 years old – better to start with a simple graphical languages, like Kodu Game Lab or Scratch. It is believed that traditional programming languages to learn after 12. Of the traditional languages I have always been close to C# — it has a good development environment, and programming everything from games in Unity, to web sites on ASP.NET or electronics. For training, you can watch the video tutorials, or read a book C# for students.
For beginners I would recommend to begin to understand that language is just a tool in the work of the programmer. Yes, of course, it is important to speak confidently to create a good program, but in the first place should be the skill of the developer and not the language in which he writes.
But since start is still where it is necessary, and to examine the same algorithms and data structures in a vacuum is not very convenient, you can recommend to use the C language. It is quite low level so as not to accustom to tons of syntactic sugar and to give a General understanding of how the computer that executes the program. But it is not the Assembly language, which gives the opportunity to focus on General things, not spending the better part of mental effort to remember the names of all the love and s register values. As literature I recommend the classic K&R.
You can also pay attention to Python, which will automatically teach you some structure, and style code, which is also useful for beginners. And the execution by the interpreter instead of a full compilation will give slightly faster communication, which is important when training.
The answers to this question rarely is less than 10 pages, and for good reason. But I’m too lazy to write a lot, so do the shortest one: S. Can be attributed to a couple of advantages in the end, it would definitely be a plus.
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