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Discussion on: How I chose a programming language and beat bad habits

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seanthorpe profile image
seanthorpe

I will add a consideration that a noob programmer doesn't normally consider...

How likely is it that this language I choose
will become worthless trash in less than a decade?

I have had it happen 4 times.
VB6 (work chose)
Visual FoxPro (work chose)
Flash/Actionscript (I chose too late)
ColdFusion/CFML (I chose)
+++++
I agree with his choice now for: Python.
After that, I would say: Flutter or GO.
+++++
But really it's all down to use cases... which language can do what... and do I want to work, for someone/in a career, doing that use case with that language.

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nicolus profile image
Nicolas Bailly • Edited

After that, I would say: Flutter or GO.

Flutter is not a language though. It's a framework for Dart. The thing is Flutter is the only reason you'd want to learn Dart today, which would make me hesitant to recommend it.

Go is a really nice language and is getting a lot more traction than Dart, so it's probably a good choice, even though I might not recommend it as a first language du to its singular approach of OOP. All in all, I agree that starting with Python and then trying fancier languages like Go or Kotlin sounds like a good strategy.

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thesnowmanndev profile image
Kyle Martin

That's the gist of my post. I was stuck in a "I don't really know what I am doing or much about the industry as I am an aircraft maintainer by trade so I will be skeptical of every language due to the trade is so fast pace and fluid. So when I see a YouTube video that says 'why this language is dying' I'm going to believe it and if I'm learning that I will be swayed by it and then be at square 1 again" stage.

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bloodgain profile image
Cliff

You've got the right idea. If you pick one and stick with it while you learn how to program, you'll never be at square one again. A lot of what you learn will translate wonderfully to another syntax. What's important is making sure that you're learning to write software rather than just learning that specific language -- there are different types of courses out there. By contrast, I would want the latter at my stage. I don't need to be taught the fundamentals, data structures, or even a lot of more complex topics, just how to think and talk in the new syntax and a little about the memory model and other underpinnings.