I use JS a lot these days but it's not the first one I learned (it was the second). My first foray into programming was a combination of C++ and GameMaker Language. I wanted to make games when I grew up and I remember reading everywhere that C++ was the language to learn. I was also using GameMaker a lot after school to hack together terrible prototypes which, at the time, used GameMaker Language.
After reading through hundreds of pages of a introduction to C++ book, I still never really got the hang of C++ but some of that knowledge stuck around and helped out with JS and Python. Today I haven't written any C++ or GameMaker Language in years but I'm sure they helped me get to where I am now.
What was the first programming language you learned and why did you learn it? Did you have a choice or was it by necessity?
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QBasic and DOS batch files on the family computer, back when those were beige! I wanted to make games, and started teaching myself from an old GW-BASIC reference book.
Then I read all the way through "Teach Yourself C in 21 Days" even though I didn't get a C compiler for a few more years :)
Mostly C++ and Python these days. After doing this for 25 years I still find it fascinating.
The first programming language I learned was BASIC running on a time sharing computer in the late 70s in High School. We'd log in using a dumb terminal and a modem running at 300 baud.
I thought the idea of programming a computer to do stuff was cool!
The Algorithm tells me this is your first comment, and that I should greet you so Welcome! :)
BASIC, because it was, more or less, the only language available in home computer in 80's (yes, I am that old... I was a teenager then).
Actually, thinking twice, maybe it was FORTRAN, the language used at my school (they had a special course on programming using the data processing facilities in the school, it was... mumble, mumble... 1982). It was more or less the same time I bought a Sinclair Spectrum and starting working in BASIC, so it is difficult to say who was the real "first".
Oh, yes, even before that I had a programmable pocket computer TI-57 with room for (brace yourself!) 57 instructions! (Wow...) :-)
Now, almost 40 years later, I use Ada.
Applesoft BASIC as my Uncle let me use his Apple IIC then some Assembly and Pascal as much as I could with limited info. I was saving up to buy a C compiler which if I remember correctly was around $100.
First language ever, QuickBasic at school. I used it just to print 'Hi' and ask for a name to then print it back. Formally, something like C using pen and paper with keywords in my native language
Was it difficult finding resources in your native language when you started learning?
No, we had translated books in the library at university. But, they were a bit outdated at the time, to be honest.
C++!
I started programming back in high school, mainly because I was interested in game dev. So, I did a bit of research and learned that the most popular programming language to dev games with was C++. So, I found a couple of books and started to learn on my own. It was quite fun, I miss the days where I had the time to sink into a language and play around with it.
Nice, that sounds familiar! Do you still use C++ in any capacity today?
Fortran, what Programming 101 was taught in (Spring semester of '75).
Then Pascal, at a different school.
Got hired to work in Pascal. Learned several flavors of SQL.
My shop paid to have me trained in PowerBuilder, used that for a decade.
I learned some VBScript, JavaScript, and Perl at work. Three horrible, filthy languages.
The worst code I ever encountered at work were the Perl scripts I had to decipher because the devloper who wrote them refused to support code they wrote at work for the business.
You've made your stance on VBScript, JavaScript, and Perl clear. I know there are some issues with these three languages and devs have strong opinions about them.
Which language do you enjoy using and what makes it more enjoyable/productive than the three mentioned?
First ever? BASIC, on an Atari XE computer when I was about 11.
First formally learned? Java, in college.
First professionally used? PHP
It's interesting to see the different languages in different contexts.
Was Java taught with the BlueJ IDE?
(I remember using it in university while learning Java)
I honestly can't remember. I think it may have been a combination of eclipse and cli.
it wasn't a programming language ,it was WML kind of like HTML . later i used .asp with it to make wap site
That's so cool, I completely missed this technology.
I started with PHP back in 2008, at the time PHP, Ruby, ASP.NET, and Java where popular languages for server-side programming.
I choose PHP because it had the most resource and everyone I know recommended it.
Nice, do you still use PHP today? How has it changed since when you started?
no, I moved from PHP to Node.js in 2012 and nowadays I use mostly Go alongside Node.js.
I also want to give Elixir a try too.
C++. My dad got me a guy to teach it to me when I was 12.
Do you remember any programs you made as a child and do you still use C++ today?
I was 14 years old. The 56k internet was down for some reasons (probably because we had a cheap plans and used it all) and I started browsing the C:/ drive. I ended up in the browser cache reading some JavaScript.
Then, I learned the whole HTML, CSS, Js, PHP stack, C and C++, python, R,...
That's a unique introduction, I remember the days of 56K and negotiating with the phone line. I'm glad those days are over.
How did you bridge the gap from cached JS you stumbled on, to learning about web development?
Well I just started playing with the code to see what it was doing, but I had to properly learn programming from tutorials. I read openclassrooms.com/en/ at the time :D
That looks like a great resource, I haven’t come across this one before.
I started with Visual Basic 6.0, then I decided that I want to be a web developer, so I learned HTML, then JS, then CSS, and PHP.
Today, I mostly code in JS and PHP, and if you squeeze my arm I write Python and Golang.
What did I learn from all of that? Well, the language itself doesn't really matter.
That an interesting journey!
I think this is becoming more and more true, in the past it was much more difficult because languages were more closely tied to the platforms you wanted to support. With languages like JS transcending the web, it's more true than ever.
And JS is a horrible language.
That may be but it's had an undeniable impact on the web.
BASIC on my ZX Spectrum +2 waaaaaay back in the 80s. As a child I found it fascinating being able make the computer run these simple programs. It was the only language available on that early home computer and if I recall correctly it came with a BASIC manual that I taught myself from.
"As a child I found it fascinating being able make the computer run these simple programs"
I remember my very first program ever... It was in the 80's and I have been studying BASIC only on paper, on hobby electronics magazines (in Italy there was Nuova Elettronica [New Electronics], a very good magazine with lots of very interesting projects and tutorials... I learned a lot from it).
One day I was at a computer exposition and there was this computer available with BASIC on board. I wrote a small program that printed the multiplication table of "2" with just a basic for loop...
I still remember how much I was excited (my heart was running) when I typed "RUN" and saw the multiplication table printed on the screen...
That’s so cool, I think that is the power of programming! Making something appear on screen with some simple commands is a great first experience.
There is a wealth of knowledge about programming these days, I know others learned programming this way too.
Do you think programming is as accessible to newcomers as it was in the 80s?
(I understand a reference manual probably wasn't the most intuitive way to learn)
Isn't the web itself made computer and code more accessible - not only by making documentation accessible but by making everybody able to see code source of things they can directly see?
I think the first time I was placed in front of code was when I clicked on "View source" in IE4 or something. I remember Berners Lee saying something like that in his recent article (can't find the source unfortunately).
Definitely, the thing that attracted me to the web is that before GitHub, websites were a way to see source easily. Inspecting a webpage would give you unminified JS. It could give you ideas about how to tackle a problem in CSS by seeing how your favourite website solved it.
This is still the case today however, build tools have resulted in less easy to understand web pages from a learning perspective. The client side code is often obfuscated and minified for performance.
Programming computers was basically a mystical science back then, most people had never seen a computer in person and the web didn't exist. So for most people I think the thought of learning to program computers didn't occur, it was a very niche thing, certainly where I grew up. I was lucky in that my primary school had begin given a Tandy personal computer, which they had no idea what to do with so they just let kids like me play around with it to our hearts content. That inspired me to ask for a computer of my own (the trusty Spectrum) which I was lucky enough to get and from there I was hooked.
Today I think programming is both more accessible due to the vast resources freely available on the web, but possibly also more daunting to get started due to the bewildering array of languages, platforms and frameworks now available.
That said, I recently helped out at with a class of 10 year olds learning code on hourofcode.com and it was amazing how naturally they all took to it. For them I think coding or programming will be less of a specialisation and more something most people can do a bit of, like maths.
It must have been very rewarding to help out with Hour of Code! I have to agree with you that I think there is son much information which is freely available and accessible but it could be overwhelming.
It would be great to see programming a bigger part of the school curriculum. I hated trigonometry and mathematics in general while at school. When it came to programming, I loved learning about trigonometry in the context of solving programming problems.
Locomotive Basic (Amstrad CPC 6128)
I wanted to learn writing games.
Z80 Assember (beginner Level)
QuickBASIC (games)
Turbo Pascal (Applications, Games)
80386 Assembler (Games, graphics programming)
Delphi (Applications)
Perl (Web, Shell, Backend)
Java 1.1 (Applets, graphics/games programming)
Javascript, Actionscript (Web)
..
..
..
That's a lot of variation. It sounds like you chose languages for developing games. Do you still develop games today and what are using now?
I studied graphics/communication design. But today I'm writing business applications. Frontend and Backend.
I use Java,PHP,Perl,Clojure in the backend
and Javascript,Typescript,Angular,clojurescript on the frontend.
When I have time I'm playing with erlang,prolog and purescript.
Awesome stuff, is ClojureScript a new addition to the stack? What's your favourite feature of Clojure that makes you more productive?
figwheel and shadow-cljs are very great!
I think the immutable nature of clojure's datatypes is one point why this works.
the good interoperability with the javascript language
the simplicity of the language. I'd like e.g. purescript too. But often you fight with the type system and forget to solve the problem first.