Which Programming Language Did You Choose to Start with, and Why Did You Choose It?

I didn't chose my first language, they were the one we had at school: Matlab, a tiny bit of C and some weird scientific stuff.

Then JS because… well, it did what I wanted. Chose a Rails bootcamp to start coding for real, because it seemed promising, and I liked it a lot. I think it was really cool for learning and wouldn't mind doing some Rails again.

In the end, I got a React/Svelte (and tiny of Python) job… and it's all great too!

So yeah, the one I truly chose was Ruby, but JS kept being the thing to do again and again 🤷

Technically TI-Basic, a language used to program their TI-83/4 calculators.

But I like to say my journey started with Powerpoint 2003 ( : Because I think elementary-aged me picked up on a ton of useful programming paradigms just by messing with animations and button triggers.

Well... my first contact with programming was a small HTML tutorial from a magazine in the late 90s when my handdown computer was still a x386 and we used Netscape on a win 3.1 to access the internet. But I'd say my first real programming language was ASP (O.G.). Then in the early 2000s a friend of my father's said that future of internet was Linux and PHP and then I moved on to the LAMP stack... then JS, but those languages I found in my path as a hobbyist web developer.

The first language I CHOSE ro learn by my own was Vala in 2018, an OOP superset that compiles to C. It helped me study OOP programing and kickstart my professional path as a developer.

ZX Spectrum BASIC - because it was just there - as soon as you turned the machine on

C++, I didn't choose, it was the only language taught in my school.
And I still think it is the go to language for anyone who wants to start programming as it teaches the basics of programming and logic building.

C++ was my first language, because that's what I had access to a book about. There wasn't any Codecademy or CodeNewbie back then so I didn't know better. My next language was Python. That was lucky because if I'd had to deal with pointers and memory management again I might have given up for good. (I wasn't even a teenager yet!) I think it's better to start with a garbage-collected language and move on to manual memory management once you've got a rock-solid understanding of different data types and structures, if ever.

Most recently I learned some Rust to write an extremely performance-sensitive simulation. Rust is a delightful language for people who love to code: internally consistent, safe, and fast, with a compiler that holds your hand and nods encouragingly the whole time.

I didn't choose, VBA chose me...my first experience with programming was writing Excel macros...it has been downhill from there! 🤣💗

Started off with C++ because that was what they taught in my college class. However, the day someone from Microsoft visited my class and showcased C# as an upcoming language which I believe was NET Framework 3.5 at the time, it instantly caught my attention.

I went out and bought the "Pro C# 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Platform (Windows.net) 4th Edition" book; a whopping 1370 pages and read every page, and worked every exercise and feature in it. I was hooked on the language and started building everything I could.

Today, I still use C# as my main programming language, but typescript is gaining that same appeal for me with its type safety and ability to be used everywhere for web and desktop applications.

I Started "playing" with coding at 6/7 thanks to a relative who was a programmer, using Turbo Pascal.
Then I moved at 11 years old to python since I fell in love seeing my first programming book in a bookshop (python 2.5) and after that Lua .
14 years old C/C++ thanks to school and now I'm using mainly JS/TS .
As obvious, I also had to study (and use for working purposes) php and Java but I'm not so much into these two languages so I tend to forget about those experiences 😁

I personally started with Python. I enjoyed creating simple terminal programs and experimenting with different modules and libraries.

During my apprenticeship as an electronics engineer, we learned C in school. At first, we learned how software works, and what functions exist. However, we eventually transitioned to embedded C, which required a deeper understanding.

While I may not have chosen to learn C initially, I found the experience to be invaluable. It taught me how computers work at a fundamental level, as well as the basics of programming, which have proven useful.

Regards

Actually, I started with basic & assembly programming (8085,8086) during my college days.... because only at that time I was introduced to computers and games. Then all those console games draw me to learn C programming...Even if you are working on modern technologies, please go back and learn these languages.... then we can understand the minds and creations of tech geniuses before decades

My first language was JS. I had broken my back and was stuck in bed for a while. I got bored with my games and decided I wanted to mod Minecraft. At the time I didn't know that Java and JS were different. A year later and I was learning C++ and PHP. My first language used professionally was PHP During the PHP 5 years. I started using PHP 5 to build small websites for companies in my area that allowed them to modify content on their page. No framework. Just what was bad authentication, PHP rendered pages, and a database connection to grab content from the MYSQL server on the LAMP server I setup. I had about 1 site per month that I built for someone. I've now been in the industry for 8 years. 6 of which have been professional.

A few years back my friend showed me a website he made, I asked him how he did it, and he showed me the HTML and CSS code. It was just a fun activity of his, but i wanted to make a website so much that I started learning HTML which was my first programming language.

The first language I used was bash at school. Then after being interested in coding I picked up python on my own, then changed to Java.

I chose python as it seemed simple enough to learn the basics without all the type and memory nonsense other languages force you to learn. After I learned the basics I went to java and had to learn more about types. I think this is a good way to approach learning coding, first focus on the basics, then start adding more complex topics little by little. This way you don't get as overwhelmed

The first language I wrote code in was Z80 Assembly, because at that time, I had nothing else, I was 8 years old and couldn't afford an extra compiler. The second one was Mallard Basic on an old Schneider Joyce.

I learned a few other languages on the way, including C, X86 assembly, Lua, until I became a developer by profession and was drawn into the abyss of web development, where I first learned and then slowly mastered HTML, CSS and JS (and by extension TS). I still try to learn new stuff now and then; the last thing I picked up as a hobby was Rust. Currently, I'm learning C# for a project.