Programming Poll
// The #1 & 2 questions I receive on this blog are always from people who are just starting their painful journey into programming because they don’t know any better, poor souls. They want to know 1. what language to take up first and 2. what they should work on. So I’m trying to compile some resource posts to direct them to, and I thought since I have a lot of obviously knowledgeable followers, I’d ask you all for your input. This way when they come back later all pissed, I can blame someone else. Or. You know. Provide other opinions. Yeah, that.
Anyway, what is the best programming language for beginners, especially if they are learning on their own?
Wow, that’s a loaded question. Too much to answer in 300 odd characters you have for the ‘answer’ section in Tumblr.
To be honest, the best thing to do is find out what they want to do. Do they want to make web pages? Do they want to write games? Do they want to make the next latest and greatest accounting software? If they just want to get an idea with general programming however, I usually recommend Python first. It’s pretty clean language, and generally fairly readable to someone not familiar with programming. Personally it’s not my language of choice to use, but it is an excellent starting place. Especially with the amount of documentation and number of communities that are available for it.
I think one of the most important things for a new programmer to learn is that their first choice of a language is not going to be their only choice. It will get them up and running, but once you have started, you always keep learning. Consider your programming language a toolbox (or maybe an entire workshop!). One language may be the hammer to drive home the nails, another may be the planer you need to trim the wood. Languages have their areas of expertise from web languages, to enterprise systems to dealing with vast amounts of files. Sure you could always try applying your hammer, but it’s best to slowly add new tools as you need them.
