Good programming language for a beginner?

Technology and Gaming Help and Support
#1

I have searched for an answer to this, generally on the internet, and on this site. And although plenty of people on the internet have asked this I still can’t decide because a bunch of the answers contradict eachother. So, I’m 16, and have no previous programming experience, and I now want to get into it. I understand that there probably isn’t a definite answer for the best to start with, but I still appreciate someone trying to give one.

I know that C++ is basically one of the best to know (at least for me it is) but I have been led to believe that its too complex to learn as your first language. Is this true? I want a good foundation and understanding, and I have heard that Basic, Python, and some say Java are good to start with. But from your experience what is the most logical choice for wanting to go onto C++?

Peace, :freeman:

#2

Python. REALLY EASY, and will get you started.

#3

Probably Java, since it won’t take long to setup a toolchain and results are uniform along different platforms.

Also, don’t listen to those who’ll say that you’d be better off starting with structured programming. The sooner you start programming in conformity with the OO paradigms, the better.

#4

With a good book anything is possible. Python is a really nice language to work with but is not a lot like C based languages, if that’s where you want to go to eventually then learning PHP may well be a good idea. It is syntactically (sp?) similar to C based languages and you can pick up the basics in a week of evenings.

If you have any plans to go into engineering at a later point in life it may well be an idea to learn MATLAB which is used massively in engineering, is relatively easy to learn, and is C like.

If you have a more eletronics bent about you then buy a an arduino it uses processing. It is also C like, it’ll give you a good grounding in the basics of C, there’s loads of good tutorials and building electronics projects are a lot of fun.

Finally if you want to be mostly like C++ but want to be abstracted from the machine a little more Java or C# would be a good place to go.

Hope this helps a little, I have deliberately omitted BASIC like languages as you want to learn C++ and these languages are (as far as I’m concerned) the quickest way to get to where you want to be.

#5

I’m learning C++ in school in a few months. :smiley: Gonna be fun!

#6

C++, while great, is in some ways becoming a lot less relevant to most programmers, computers are so fast now, and languages like C# and Java are easier and are more than efficient enough to do most tasks.

#7

It’s easy to aquire bad practices in C++ imho. For every mechanism (like visibilities) that should protect the programmer from doing something stupid there is a counter method to circumvent these constructs (like friend functions). Java is more reduced and strict when it comes to that. So if you really want to learn a C++ like language and don’t want to mess around with memory allocation, I recommend Java (or maybe C#).

#8

You could learn Java, you can make a lot of stuff with it, and it has a syntax similar to C/C++

#9

normal learning curve is

html > css > php > C > C++ > java

#10

C can seriously hold you back learning C++. Breaking habits can be hard!

#11

I don’t post a lot but

I say Lua. It’s so easy. SOOO EAAAASSSYYYYYYY

Python’s good too. I just hate needing to have those colons at the end the first lines of a block

Python’s colon shit

if colonsExist == true: // look at that colon there. seriously. I don't know why, but I hate it. a lot.
     myEmotion = "RAGE"

Lua being all better and stuff

if not colonsExist then
     myEmotion = "PARTY"
else
    myEmotion = "WTF this ain't python"
end
#12 
if myEmotion = "RAGE": 
     print "LIVE WITH IT."
input ("Press enter to exit")

You forgot to add this to your code.

#13

I would recommend PHP, it’s very easy to get started with and is very forgiving which is just what a newcomer needs.

And it is probably the easiest C-like language.

And you don’t have to deal with compilers, types and declarations and so on.

And it can be used for both homepages and command line programs.

I found it to be the easiest back when i started programming.

When you master PHP you will be able to learn C++ in no time.

But if you want to move quickly, then i recommend learning some C# after you got the basics in PHP and then go for C++

#14

first you start with C and after C++

#15

You can also learn yourself a polish language so You can do programing of polish people :smiley:

#16

Unless you plan to spend your life coding embedded industrial systems, no you don’t.

#17

no no no no no no no

I’m soooo tired of seeing this given as advice. If you want to learn C++, jump into C++. There’s no reason to touch anything else first if you don’t want to. Get a good book (I like Bjarne Stroustrup personally, but he goes pretty deep for beginners) or even some internet tutorials and just jump right in. C++ is fine for beginning programmers if you’re willing to put some effort into it.

#18

Java uses semicolons in the same way you used colons in that Python one. It’s not that annoying once you get used to it and is kind of hard to stop using.

#19

Yeah the colon’s not a big deal it just bothers the hell out of me. I always forget it. Probably because I do more Lua than Python.

#20

Honestly I’ve looked at C++ on many different occasions, and I don’t get it at all. Some languages just make more sense to me…

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