First Programming Language To Learn.

Which Language? My Downfall

The age-old question is, which language should I first learn? The question is which language to learn but where are you heading to? I have learned a number of popular languages, I made the mistake of learning a bit of Python there and then a bit of JavaScript here, in the end, I don’t know how to code and wasted years, I do mean years. I only started to have some sort of coding confidence until I stuck with JavaScript and did not follow an endless wave of tutorials, so find your direction and learn the language, if you are interested in AI ML, Data go with Python, if you want to get web developer job go with JavaScript. But if you want to proper knowledge which one?

My Discovery

I was talking to a CS student from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada since I am attending a College I wish to know more about their curriculums, and he told me they start with Python as an intro to programming, one of the easiest languages to see the results and soon after they will be doing Java for OOP (Object Oriented Programming), and then C and C++ for system and also doing Haskell to learn about functional programming paradigm. My take is learning Python for dipping the toe into the world of programming to learn about the basics but the real understanding of how computer programming works will be Java.

Java…?

Why Java? a lot of people hate Java because it is verbose and explicit, it is typed so it will be annoying to new programmers but this annoyance and verbose give programmers a good entry of what programming is about by compiling, understanding types, what garbage collector is, what is heap and stack memory, data structures and algorithm, NullPointerException and most importantly how not to overcomplicate like in Java.

Going low

After that, it is time for C and C++ because as a programmer we need to learn about true memory management and look at the steps; my experience after doing an intro to C with CS50 by Stanford made me understand what memory address, pointers which makes pass by value and pass by reference makes lots of sense, and C still the best language to learn, and doesn’t need to go deep.

FP

After OOP, and PP it is time for FP (functional programming), Haskell is a purely FP language that allows programming to see the world through a different lens. I don’t know pure FP but only JavaScript style FP but you see? JavaScript is a good entry for doing everything (not great but okay)!

Getting a job

But if you are looking for a job focus on 1 language that will get you there! Watch Prime’s video here

My Journey

I am following this journey by Carleton even though my College is only teaching Java, a bit of JavaScript, and PHP. I want to go deep and low if you don’t want to be a coder / code monkey you should pick languages that make you grow and head in the direction where you want to go, I am constantly reminding myself to build a T shape knowledge, and I know which languages will be my bread and butter and the domain that I would like to focus on, find your goal and direction, and head there!