Hello aspiring developers!
I'm about to start coding and need advice on choosing a programming language in 2023. I'm looking for a balance of beginner-friendliness, versatility, and growth potential. Here are some questions to guide the discussion:
What language did you start with and why?
Which beginner-friendly languages do you recommend now?
What languages are great for web, data science, or app development?
Any favorite resources for beginners?
Any new languages worth considering?
Your insights will shape my coding journey. Thanks for being a part of it!
Top comments (5)
I'd recommend JavaScript/TypeScript by any means. It runs everywhere and will allow you to do so much in so many fields: web development both front end and back end, desktop apps, DevOps scripting, data fetching, processing and manipulation, automation of any kind, you name it. There might be alternatives, even more specialized depending on the field, but JavaScript will allow you to reach anything at least as a starting point. Sure, Python shines in other things (Machine Learning) and might be easier, it "does everything" as well, but JavaScript is king a requirement on the web while Python allows you to just build back ends.
Hey Harsha!
I started with HTML, CSS, then JavaScript and PHP. The only thing I would say is that trying to learn two imperative languages (eg. PHP and JavaScript, HTML and CSS are declarative languages) at the same time was challenging, and held me back a bit because I was trying to split my brain in two!! When instead I decided to focus on JavaScript only, I got much more proficient at it to the extent that I decided not to pursue PHP for a while. Hope you enjoy the journey!
My first programming language was C but I would recommend learning Python, it is beginner-friendly, rather "easy" and because it has a lot of materials/libraries you can build a small project faster. It can be used for data science, backend, machine learning, and so on.
Start small and see how it goes, programming can be hard at first but with dedication and effort, you will get the hang of it sooner than later!
Thanks for the insight. Yeah, I heard so many good things about python and its applications.
Python is great for data science and is also beginner friendly. You can do almost everything with python. Meanwhile, learning JavaScript, HTML and CSS will be helpful if you want to learn web development.
IMO you should start with Python to grasp the concept of programming. After learning the basics you should create a project like building a calculator app and working with Matplotlib to create graphs etc...
After learning the basics you can move onto any other language that you want to learn. At the end of the day, however, it wouldn't matter what language you start with. I started with java.
All the best!