What language would you recommend for a beginner?

Update on this twitter thing twitter.com/graphext/status/118221...

It's my interest in computers in the mid-80s that "forced" me to learn to read English (before that, I often didn't understand most of what I was reading). All the good programming magazines (what's that?) and books were in English.

My first response is always that Python seems like the best entry-level language, for all the reasons everyone has already said.

But JavaScript has some giant plusses that make it worth the struggle to persevere through its endless surprises (hey, it's not that hard start with).

1. No installation, it's everywhere.
2. No compiling, and therefore, instant feedback / gratification.
3. Very easy to see the benefit / come up with own ideas.
4. Very to find help and inspiration from the community.

The fundamentals can come later, but for a lot of people like myself who never imagined that programming could be real thing they'd do, lighting the fire and getting results goes a long long way.

If you really want to understand core concepts then start with C and cover the basic topics like printing, input, variables, primitives, macros, command line, arrays, struct, union, function, pointers and DMA then start implementing Data Structures and Algorithms in C. Shift to Traditional C++ and learn about OOP Concepts after covering all that do Modern C++ (Modern C++ doesn't have proper documentation so this would be hard) then look at the code of open source projects and try to understand them. Have a language reference by your side and find something if you don't understand. Join communities if you can't get help online.

If you want to take the easy way then start with Python. Its syntax is easily to understand. But it doesn't really explain all concepts in depth (at least I couldn't understand the concepts of it much).

Disclaimer: I am not discouraging anyone. Its up to you if you are able to understand the core concepts in any language. C was my first language so I mostly tell people to learn that first.

I would say a language is good for beginners if they can install it easily, so python is good for beginners, apart from python I would choose c#.

For beginners I think it's not just about the language. They need to understand core parts of programming.

1. basic stuff (function, loop, list.. Etc)
2. Package management
3. Platform you're targeting

If you get the basic fast enough the it's no problem what language you're using.

Coercion, this, and prototype inheritance are next step from beginners level. It's language feature.

So yes JavaScript, because it's already on a browser no pain to set up the env

Anything where you can be productive immediately. I think it's more important to have a positive first experience with programming than what the language is.

COBOL, provided your first language in English.

As a Ruby developer by trade I would second the recommendations for Python. It is readable, can do anything you want and it is an excellent scripting language for server administration and such as well. Not to mention all the machine learning stuff.

I would agree with that. On the other side, it is kind of sad that you need to pass this barrier before you can get to the programming-thing

Javascript

In a classroom-like setting where an instructor can provide ample support to a student, I'd go with C. Otherwise, for self-studying, it can't get any better than Python.

In my opinion, depending on the needs and the field or niche occupied. For me it might be PHP.

Go without hesitation. It's incredibly readable and very simple. There is a lot of good libraries and good documentations. The "almost one way to do one thing" is also very important for beginners. It's not a belief, I saw it around me. 5 years ago I would have recommended python.

I first started with python, then went to javascript. I have no idea why but js "clicked" for me very fast, while i didn't understand too much (intermediate / advanced) python after a few months of playing with it.

I know some begginers have problems with understanding concepts such as "closures", "prototypes" and "higer order functions", but in my experience, those came naturally. I was "expecting" it to work that way (except for prototypes, which i didn't understand that fast, but when i did it made sense).

The hardest question to understand the answer of while learning js was: why doesn't my game render if i put the logic inside a while true loop?

After using js for a while and then once in a while going back and playing with python, a lot of things made sense, and I can see why so many recommend it. It's definitly better for things like "courses" where someone explains someone else something. My route was more the "start a project you always wanted to do and then google all the problems you encounter" route:)

A year ago I switched to typescript (and i'm never going back:))

Also, for the last month or so i've been learning c++ and it's cool, but definitly not begginer-friendly...

Disclaimer: english is not my first lang, so please forgive the typos & grammar mistakes.