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Which programming language would you start with and why?

Bobby Iliev on March 19, 2021

Hi all 👋 If you were just getting started with coding now, which programming language would you pick? Here is a list of the most popular programm...

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Raphael Jambalos • Mar 19 '21

I'll start with Python because of its versatility. It can be used in

web development
data science
scripting
etc

It's also easy to learn and will help you get started with the OOP concepts quicker.

Bobby Iliev • Mar 23 '21

Very good point! I love it!

Vincent Milum Jr • Mar 19 '21

This question comes up a ton, but I personally think it is misdirected.

It shouldn't be based on popularity. It shouldn't be based on what a peer enjoys using.

What should it be based on?

Well, first off, what is the problem domain? Figure that out first and foremost. Understand the problem domain as best as possible. Then and ONLY then, figure out which tools are best served to address that problem domain.

For reference, I'm saying this as someone who's worked with 50+ languages over 20+ years. I have my personal favorites, but they're married very closely to my problem domains, so that makes sense. Others have languages they love/hate too, and its generally related to what is best suited for their problem domains.

MiAn • Mar 24 '21

I was about to re-phrase your response into another version of the original question: "What language of the 50 you have used, solved more of the problems than others?"
But then I realised the error of putting things that way because that would be imprinting a solution not appropriate for the task just based on that 50? What do we do for case 51 boss?

When we implement a language we are bringing into being the perceptions of the person that created the language, who did so for a purpose presumably because nothing was in existence at the time.

But has someone else since addressed a core concern of management level types ? and that quite like would included this: "Is this code solution able to be understood by new or replacement staff in the future, with the orginal coder no longer present?" So eventually Language creators try to accommodate that aspect and make their language cover as many cases as possible in an attempt to make it universal in it's ability to solve.

Sometimes I wonder if they are 'universalising' our perceptions instead with smoke and mirrors on the task at hand to accept their offering. The real first tool to reach for might well be some literary work that engages critical thinking in us.

I wouldn't like my mechanic to service my car with just a few tools. They may cite their skill is so high they can fix anything with a roll of barbed wire and pliers. I think you'd be politely saying good by to that workshop.

I love using Forth, the RPN nature of it alone puts my mind into a relaxed state. From there I might see something in the problem that represents my perception of how to use leadership to bring the outside world to effective and productive satisfaction. But I would not foist it upon the people who contracted me, so I have to find a language that translates my perception faithfully into what it does, and submit my account.

And therein the original question rears it's head. "which one"?

Bobby Iliev • Mar 23 '21

Very well said! I wish more people could read your comment!

Junxiao Shi • Mar 19 '21

If I'm a freshman taking my first programming class, I want it to be Rust.
It's strongly typed, has no memory leaks, and easy to get started.

(I haven't actually learned much of Rust but I know the basics)

Rishit Khandelwal • Mar 20 '21

Rust is amazing

Bobby Iliev • Mar 23 '21

Nice! This makes me want to try out Rust!

Matthieu Cneude • Mar 19 '21 • Edited

I would say Golang.

It's pretty simple because it's opinionated. See below.
It has a C-like syntax, it's easier to learn another language based on C afterward.
It's quite trendy and there is a big community out there.
It's fast.
The tooling is awesome. Learning a programming language is not enough; knowing how to use the tools can be a pain.
It's opinionated, which means that you have often only one way to do something. I think it's great for beginners.

Bobby Iliev • Mar 23 '21

I've been wanting to try out Golang for a while now! And now I've bought a Udemy course after reading your comment :D

Gabriel Ramirez • Mar 19 '21

As someone that went through the university path, I'm biased towards strong typed languages first. And that's because I consider the need of syntax and organization of the code make you learn more concepts than you would do if you jump right into a script language. For that reason I would say C++ is a good start, but only if you have the time to spend learning languages.

If we want to learn something on the go and make cool projects at the same time, I would say Python and JS are great first starters. I would go with python first in that case.

Bobby Iliev • Mar 23 '21

Fully agree with you! I could not have said it better!

Kimmo Sääskilahti • Mar 20 '21

I'd recommend Scala, for getting hands-on experience of both functional and object-oriented programming. My first course was in Java and it took years to learn that not everything needs to be a class 😁

Bobby Iliev • Mar 23 '21

Sounds very good! I personally have never used Scala before.

Alex Georgiev • Mar 19 '21

An interesting discussion, Bobby! I believe that a lot of people will choose the language that they believe will help them to land a job offer or an internship in a company. In my opinion, this should not be considered a wrong attitude since, in the end, people don't work for free, but in your spare time, you can be interested in some cool projects so you also should enjoy programing and love it or at least like the language you've chosen to learn.

Bobby Iliev • Mar 23 '21

You've got a very good point there Alex! Love this!

Alex Georgiev • Mar 23 '21

It's just my point of view, everyone is free to agree or disagree. Love your content, Bobby! Keep up the good work!

Jesse Phillips • Mar 20 '21

ZZT-OOP

Jesse Phillips ・ Dec 25 '19 ・ 2 min read

#zzt #oop #tutorial #programming

It is easy to think the first programming language would be a general purpose language. In reality the first one is best served in a domain of fun.

But for general purpose, I like D.

official_dulin • Apr 23 '21

Golang.

There are very few grammars and keywords.
Strong typing to ensure code safety
There is basically only one way to complete a function
I like the concurrency model of goroutine+channel

Scott Griffiths • Mar 21 '21

Universally Python seems to be the way to go as it can be used across the board and most roles will let you get away with having python skills but not strong in C# / Java etc.

Other than that I really like Rust and think that it has a lot of benefits and very straightforward to pick up

Bobby Iliev • Mar 23 '21

Indeed Python gives you a lot of opportunities in the fields of ML, AI, Big Data, Web Dev and etc.!

Davyd McColl • Mar 20 '21

the top two (pyhton and javascript) are, imo, the best choices:

both have a lot of good free tooling available, large communities, lots of code examples & free courses
both run on just about anything, have lots of packages & decent package managers
python is very well structured, good for learning as it doesn't have a lot of strange behaviors
javascript is available in the browser - another place one can learn and make; it has a few more gotchas because of the history of the language
python will set you up for a career in data science or back-end dev, or systems / user-facing apps
javascript can set you up for back-end or front-end dev

I'd say try an intro course to both, and pick the one that you're having the most fun with. Come back to the other in a few months because learning a new language is good for expanding your general programming abilities.

Bobby Iliev • Mar 23 '21

Very good points! 🚀

Kelly Wong • Mar 20 '21

One related to something I'm interested in. I feel like it's more important to have something motivating me to keep studying than the theoretical advantages of any particular language.

Since I like games, maybe Lua to get into Lua LOVE, or C# for Unity.

🐤🥇 Jasper de Jager • Mar 19 '21

I'd start with typescript. A good way to get to know typings and easy to get an app up and running with frameworks like angular, so you can keep the joy in programming 😊

Ondrej Pinka • Mar 24 '21

IMHO depends on what interests you. Algorithms? Almost any language will do. Kernel and drivers hacking, embedded software? C, C++, Rust. Backend? Many many languages will work. Frontend? JavaScript, its clones or transpilers, infinite (and growing!) number of frameworks, or Wasm if you dare. Full-stack (same language for f/e and b/e)? F#, C#, Clojure, OCaml, Kotlin, JavaScript, Rust and many more. For mathematical / computation modelling (e.g. used in finance) probably F#, Haskell, for statistics and data analysis Python, Julia, F#... Databases? SQL and all its flavors.

Or if thinking more in paradigms - for procedural probably C, C++, Python, Go... For object oriented probably Java, C#, C++, Smalltalk, Python... For functional dynamically typed languages it would be any flavor of LISP, Elixir, for statically type it would be for example Standard ML, F#, OCaml, Scala, Haskell... For maths, proof theory, category theory and what not, probably Idris, Haskell, Coq, TLA+...

If thinking about platforms: for .NET it's F#, C#, VisualBasic, for Java VM it's Java, Scala, Kotlin (both of them are cross-platform and work on pretty much any major OS) for BEAM it's Erland and Elixir...

I am sure I missed many, I meant no offense :).

When I was a young person, there was no internet and PC was as expensive as a car, if not more. Now the options are almost limitless but with difficulty of choice and risk of being overwhelmed :).