What Programming Language Should I Learn First?
Info-graphic of programming language guide Image Source
Do you wish to become a programmer and you are confused on the programming language you should start with? Worry no more for your blockchain web developer is here to guide you and also answer your question.
There are lots of programming languages out there for you to choose from, you have Python, C, C++, SQL, C#, Java, Swift, JavaScript and so on down down down the trail. That notwithstanding, I am not here to overwhelm you with the number of programming language that exist.
It is very important to understand the reason behind the existence of any language i.e knowing why a particular language exist and know the one to start up with first which is the most important question and the very reason why I am writing this post.
Let's say for instance a novice walk up to me and ask which language will I start up with? In terms of human language, you must never start with Japanese because it is complicated than Spanish and English which are pretty simple. Note that the simplicity of a language does not affect it power.
Going back to languages in computer programming, to answer the question of what language to learn first, I will say start off with the simplest language and not the most complicated ones. This is because if you don't know the concept of language at all, you really have to start off with the simplest because from the simplest language, you will learn and understand easily the concept of programming languages, it will be very much easier to translate it to another another language, hence learning other languages not be as tedious as expected.
For instance if you know how to INSERT data into the database using PHP, and you are currently learning Python, you can make research like, "How do I Insert data into the database using Python".
The concept of programming language is the same, the difference is just the syntax and specificity. For instance, the emotions that people in Nigeria feel is the same emotions that the people in England or United States feels, but they might have different ways of reacting to it. Same is applicable to programming languages.
Programming is like trying to express your ideas to a computer so that it can translate it for you. It is like giving a computer instructions using certain conditions.
What Language You Should Not Start With
As a newbie or novice who is diving into the world of computer programming, the following are languages you should not start off with:
C, C++, C#. Basically the C-languages. The reason is their syntactical difficult level is very very high. That is you have to worry about each tiny little detail else what you are saying to your computer will make no sense and this will be very frustrating to you and if care is not taken, you may want to quit.
You have to start learning a language whose syntactical difficulty level is low and understand the concepts.
My Recommendations
There are lots of language you can start up with, but I recommend you start off with Python. Python is one of the top growing programming languages in the world and it is also used as the introduction language in most universities. The reason for choosing Python is because it is simple and elegant. Don't be confused with its simplicity and its power. What I mean is that don't think because it is simple, it can not do more.
Google, Dropbox, Pinterest, Reddit, Instagram, Youtube and so on where built on Python. Sergey Brin, one of the founders of Google made a statement and I quote "Python where we can, C where we must" which means we want to use the C programming language where we have to and Python programming language where we can.
Reasons why you may want to switch languages
You can always branch out and go to other languages but there must be a reason for that. Some of the reasons why you should pick another language when you might have attained some level of proficiency in the language you were using is because of its benefits. For instance coming back to the human language, most of us can speak many languages ranging from English, French and so on, this is because of some benefits we may get when we communicate with certain languages. Same is applicable to Programming languages. Below, you will see the benefits and areas of proficiency of some programming languages.
Languages and why you may want to learn them
Image Source
Note: If you learn Python, you can easily translate to any other language.
Python: This is a powerful language that allows you to do pretty much anything you want. For data science and lots of data analytical stuffs and scientific stuffs even down to building responsive websites, Python is pretty much good at that. Python gives you a tremendous level of power and it makes it really easy to do complicated stuffs
JavaScript: if you want to learn about web development and the front end aspect where you click on things and they respond pretty fast with custom and amazing animations, that is JavaScript. That is the beauty and magic of JavaScript. Like clicking on things and you see a dropdown and dropdown menus and all the fancy stuffs on the web are all the hand work of JavaScript
C or C++: You may want to learn C or C++ because of their speed and efficiency. These languages are very handy when it comes to building Operating Systems and things that involves powerful gaming softwares because you really need something that is very fast and can process in nano seconds.
Java: Java is a very popular language when it comes to video game design and android applications.
That's it ...
Thank you guys for reading and I love you all. I will be writing on more of things like this to guide you. Please check my blog out to get more...
I am @casweeney your blockchain web developer