Question:
What is the best programming language for me?
r
2013-03-14 15:24:14 UTC
Hello guys, I am looking for opinions on what would be the best programming language to learn.
I am 15 and have never done programming (except little HTML) so I'll need to start with the basics.
I learn quickly and love computers and would like to do something like software engineering when I am older for my first job.
I think I am going to choose Computer Science as a degree and I think if I learn a programming language, it would help me a lot for uni.
The more suggestions the better! THANKS!
Four answers:
Terry
2013-03-14 19:03:47 UTC
The classes I remember taking in college:

Introduction to programming (concepts behind programming, dealt a little with assembly but didn't go into detail)

Unix shell scripting (easy)

Visual Basic (very easy)

Python (easy)

C# (easy)

Java (easy)

C++ (hard)

C (hard)

Cobol (very hard)



I also took some web development classes which included: (all easy)

HTML and CSS

Javascript (client-side)

PHP (server-side programming)



Oh and take a SQL class no matter what. It's probably the most useful language you could learn. It's a database query language which is used everywhere, and a skill needed for almost any technical job.



If I had to do it all over I would start with Java. It's my favorite and it's easy to learn. Plus the syntax is similar to many other languages.
anonymous
2013-03-15 12:25:13 UTC
I started programming at 12 and, like you my first language was HTML and I progressed to CSS.



I dabbled in a few languages after that and settled on Visual Basic as being the easiest to learn and use however if you are seriously considering going into programming then VB may be a bad place to start. It's syntax and structure doesn't really match anything else. In other words, when you go to move onto another language it will be like learning how to code all over again (which is the problem I had) Your best bet is to start with JAVA, it is extremely versatile and shares syntax and structure with the C languages which makes it an excellent gateway language to start with...



A good and fun way to teach yourself java is to get yourself a copy of minecraft and read up on creating mods... mod making on MC chucks up a lot of the common errors you will encounter with java and offers a practical platform to test and bug check your creations, once you can do that then getting onto a computer science course will easily step you straight into the C languages and make your programming life significantly easier!



I am not saying that Visual Basic is not good, its fantastic if you want to make a really quick and basic windows application, especially if you are looking at dealing with Windows cloud servers like Azure and such.



Hope this helps :)
Jacob
2013-03-14 22:45:51 UTC
As a 15 year old programmer myself, I would recommend that you look into what you want to do with the programming knowledge first. Java is the best choice if you are looking into web development, or gaming another option in those fields is objective-C. C++ is great if you are doing basic scripts and such that will run in the background, or for really large complex projects such as creating an operating system, it doesn't really have a midpoint, you either do complex or simple work. And if you are just interested in computer science in general, I would recommend learning about hardware, and doing C++ or assembly (WARNING: Assembly is a low level language and is really hard to understand/ learn, try it if you want a challenge).

Good Luck!



EDIT: forgot to add that learning to script in basic computer languages is very useful, I would recommend taking a little look at batch (windows) and bash (linux) scripting.
anonymous
2013-03-15 02:41:37 UTC
Many of the programming languages are similar.

Primitive data types, type definitions, variable declarations, conditional statements, loop statements, functions, procedures, etc. Just learn any programming language as necessary for your studies or work.


ⓘ
This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
Loading...