Anina
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
9 answers
Johan Wikström
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.
Gary Petito (Veteran)
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.
kalyan Raja
kalyan’s Answer
Hanish Salindra Parthasarathy
Hanish’s Answer
Alex W.
Alex’s Answer
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
Syed Kashif
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 :)
Randall Degges
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!
Julius Mebalo
Julius’s Answer
