Best Beginner Programming Language?

albionrovers

Informix or Mantis.

ClarkeKent

Interesting info on BizSpark, I'll take a deeper look. "you just aren't allowed to use in production" but can I develop applications, sites for 3rd parties?

"Where do you want your career to go?" Not sure yet to be honest, recently lost my old job in back office of retail store. Always done side web projects at home. I am quite into Digital Marketing so initially looked at that, but not too keen on the selling/client interaction/rip off side of the industry.

It is really just whether programming is going to interest me enough to be a passion and get good at it. I have tinkered with PHP for years, but never delved any deeper.

Got a couple of months to do what I want, so now is the time! I have a Lynda.com subscription, a load of best selling Udemy courses. Just trying to find the right road to go down for me, with over 20 platforms/languages suggested over a forums/blogs/sites so far!

theEnd

The BizSpark stuff is for start-up businesses, not someone trying to learn. That said, studio and express versions of most of the stuff is available free from MS.

Java's an option, but personally not that keen.

I still say C#.

Cycrow

Just to be clear, mobile development is not the same as web development.

for mobile developing, learning c/c++ can be pretty useful, especially if you want to develop for multiple mobile platforms

[Deleted User]

MUMPS or COBOL, obviously... #Kidding

I honestly don't think it makes a jot of difference as long as you gain a 'developers' brain, and understand OOP while your're at it.

I make a living doing a bit of Cach! ObjectScript (Which is OOP MUMPS), JavaScript, VBA, Java with the occasional sprinkling of C#. In the past i've worked using Python, PHP and Perl, plus a few other 'bespoke corporate' languages.

Once you've got the knack of it, you should be able to pick up a new language pretty quickly. I've got my 6 year old learning Scratch 2.0 at the moment

bod1467

ringo_24601 wrote: »

Once you've got the knack of it, you should be able to pick up a new language pretty quickly.

I said basically the same in post #29. Apparently I was wrong ... but obviously not if you're saying it too.

jaydeeuk1

Udemy is pretty good imo - I've put a few of my staff through some of the SQL and javascript courses.

Programming is like being an artist, a lot of people can pick up a pencil or brush, but even with practice a lot of people just aren't able to do it to any decent level. With programming if you have a brain that can think logically like a computer, you're halfway there before even learning syntax for a language and it will just 'click'. If you can master c# or any other lower language, you'll be able to learn anything. The beauty of programming is not only is there more than one way of doing something, but there is always more than one language that will work too.

IMO, javascript is always a useful language to know. Whether its web based stuff you're doing, or even android, IOS, PC gaming. A lot of game engines like Unity support Javascript, so its a language that will never be outdated. Hell, you can do some impressive stuff in javascript that you just can't or with extreme difficulty in another language.

Want an example? Look at this chess game written in 1kb of javascript.w
http://nanochess.org/chess4.html

[Deleted User]

bod1467 wrote: »

I said basically the same in post #29. Apparently I was wrong ... but obviously not if you're saying it too.

Wonderful, but you'll notice I've tried to emphasise that it's more about 'learning to programme' than 'learning a language'. Hence my 6 year old learning Scratch 2.0, which isn't exactly useful in the real world, but will give his little brain an understanding of the logic you need to apply to programming (Also repeating the content of the post from jaydeeuk1)

paddyrg

For all the plusses and minuses listed above, I'd still consider C# as a good option.

C is ancient, C++ is ancient, C# is the current flavour. You can get started and even very deep in for free. It's supported on Microsoft and Linux(Mono) platforms. Other platforms understand syntaxes similar to C# (Objective C, even Java) so you can transfer your understanding. You will find LOADS of support and sample code.

Ultimately, though, all the languages do more or less the same thing in the same ways - they try to provide a human-readable syntax which gets compiled down into 1's and 0's (with some VERY clever tricks along the way), so learning to programme and learning a language aren't synonymous.

I personally don't favour Java because the JVM (the bit you have to have in order to run code you write, in effect it does a lot of the turning it to 1's and 0's for you) has been such a huge risk vector for malware. It had great days, but it's not used a whole heap any more.

Another option, bang up to date and more 'webby' is to get into some HTML5 'stuff'. It'll make writing web pages and mobile apps near enough the same, as more mobile apps just frame HTML5 pages!

ClarkeKent

Yeah I see PhoneGap(Adobe) is pretty much HTML5 apps, so HTML5 worth a look. Thanks

C# really standing out amongst all the resources I have looked at. Just whether I can hit it straight off as a newbie.