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What is the best programming language for a beginner to learn?

Hi! My name is Anina and I'm a high school senior interning at Career Village. I was wondering what the best language would be to introduce my younger brother to programming. Should I have him use a harder language like Java so that he'll find all the other languages easy, or start him off with something like easier like HTML? #computer-science #technology #programming #software-engineering #coding

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Johan’s Answer

Hi Anina,


I'd say the most important thing is to introduce him something that captures his interest and makes him want to learn more. I'd recommend something that produces graphical results like for example Scratch(https://scratch.mit.edu/) or Kodu (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/kodu/). Me and many of my colleagues started programming because we wanted to write our own games. It was only later that we discovered that it was more fun to program than to play the games :)


When those start to be too limited, take a look at e.g. Python, Javascript or C# as those are relatively easy to learn while still having all the features you need from a programming language.


Java has a lot of "power user features" which can feel very heavyweight for a beginner programmer (and for experienced programmers too).


Personally, I learned programming "for real" using C# and Microsoft's Visual Studio. In the beginning, I found it very helpful to have the support of an IDE when coding, and Visual Studio allows you to write pretty advanced graphical programs without having to learn a ton about coding.


Once you've learned one programming language, learning the next one becomes much easier so start with the ones that are the most fun and the rest will work out just fine.
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Randall’s Answer

If I were you, I'd definitely learn Python.


It's a really fun programming language to get started with! It's fun, it's simple, it is easy to play around with. There are lots of great tools and examples available.


There are also tonsss of awesome free resources and groups out there to help teach it to you!
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saurabh’s Answer

C/C++ should be the language to start with and learn Java, Python, Ruby along the way.
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Hanish’s Answer

There are different types of programming languages. There are strong typed and weak typed, object oriented and prototype based, etc. For someone who is starting out in programming, I would suggest a weak typed languages like python! What do I mean by types? Programming languages have data types which are variables that store data of various types like characters, integers, etc. python doesn’t have this that’s why it’s called a weak typed language which makes it easier to understand and code with.
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Alex’s Answer

I can tell you what languages I learned - in order :

1. Basic
2. COBOL
3. PASCAL
4. C
5. Visual Basic
6. C++
7. C#
8. JAVA

Along the way I picked up some OS experience and frameworks:

1. Windows
2. WIN32
3. ASP.NET
4. HTML / HTTP
5. .NET
6. ASP.NET
7. MVC
7. Android
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Gary’s Answer

Hi,
Some of this information is from a website, www dot codementor dot io.
Python is another highly recommended language for beginners, and is the most popular introductory language at Top U.S. Universities.
Also, Javascript & Ruby are good for beginners.
There is another website, codeacademy dot com that offers some free coding training.
Good luck.
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Julius’s Answer

Hi! You may want your brother to take this course in edx https://www.edx.org/course/cs50s-introduction-to-computer-science. This is completely free and it will guide him throughout the course to choose the programming language he likes.
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kalyan’s Answer

Python , Jscript , Golang, Java . These all are the best programming language . But i would prefer to start from basics which is C++ the basic building block for all software engineers
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Syed’s Answer

If you're thinking of learning to code, the language you decide to pick up first has a lot to do with what you're trying to learn, what you want to do with the skill, and where you want to eventually go from there. Still, some languages are easier to pick up than others, have a community dedicated to teaching, or offer more useful skills once you learn them. Here are five of the best, based on your nominations.


Let's be clear—we're not trying to absolutely settle the question of which language you should learn first if you're trying to code. Everyone has different opinions and depending on your specific reasons for learning, perhaps none of these would be appropriate. You offered up way more suggestions in our Call for Contenders thread than we could possibly highlight here, with much more description and rationale for each. That said, here are the five most popular of your nominees, in no particular order.


1) Java
2) Ruby
3) Python
4) C/C++
5) JavaScript


Source:
http://lifehacker.com/five-best-programming-languages-for-first-time-learners-1494256243
http://lifehacker.com/five-best-programming-languages-for-first-time-learners-1494256243


Happy Learning :)
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