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Antonio Moura
Antonio Moura

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Tips for beginners on how to choose a programming language

I believe that the best way to choose a programming language is to understand the context of the application that will be built. Evaluate whether the quantity of tools available in the language will truly contribute to productivity or if it will just be an additional burden on the project.

This happens when we choose a language solely for a specific framework, prioritizing something that has already been done at the expense of the product's own business logic. Another point to consider is whether performance in milliseconds is truly crucial. It is common in the field of programming language testing to claim that one language is faster than another in certain contexts, although the client may not care if the report takes a second longer to generate.

One of the things I see most in the market is discussions without the context of project scope regarding migration to a language X, claiming that it would be better to increase the system's speed. However, today we have various alternatives for application growth horizontally by adding more machines or vertically scaling by increasing the resources of the existing machine.

However, each case is unique, so it is important to analyze the best approach for your project. The main factor that leads me to choose a programming language beyond the hype is the language community. The more active and collaborative, the better. Another relevant point is who is behind it; whether it is a large-scale language and if it has a track record of not abandoning its projects after a certain time.

But the big tip I leave for those starting out is to look for a language that has demand in the market, regardless of the hype around it. In the beginning, the most important thing is to be involved in a real project. Over time, you will learn to deal with challenges efficiently without being tied to a specific programming language.

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