Language for a maths concepts demonstrator?

I've been meaning to start learning a programming language for ages, but i need an objective to get myself motivated to do it.

I'm studying multivariable calc at the moment, and i thought it might be useful to write a program that visualy demonstrated some of the concepts. Something like a simple version of wolfram alpha's CDF player or something like that. I don't know if this is over-ambitious as a first project but anyway it's what i want to aim toward.

So what language would be best to code that in? Any suggestions for any warm-up projects that would be relevant to the overall goal?

 

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For my money, the best language to start with if you've never done any proper programming before is python. It's simple, easy to read and has lots of advanced features for when you know what you're doing.

With that said, your goal is quite optimistic if you've never coded in anger before. A better way to do that would probably be mathematica, maple or similar symbolic computing language. It's not quite proper programming, but there are elements of programming in those packages.

 

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So for eg with python what would be a good first project keeping my overall objective in mind?

...google google google...

Suggested beginner topics that look like they might be heading in the right direction: a units of measure converter; an equation solver.... what do you think?

Which part would be harder to code, the maths or the graphics and user interface?

I looked at a python tutorial on youtube and it does look pretty intuitive.

With the symbolic computing languages, would this be an efficient way to learn sort of general programming skills? How efficient, given my motivation for doing this is mostly career development. The math visualiser thing was just intended as an objective to get me going, I suppose my actual objective is just to learn a programming language although i didn't make that very clear. If it takes a year or so to get there is fine, but i needed a specific immediate goal.

 

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You have to write a "hello world" program first - it's compulsory!

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Seriously, they look like decent projects. Python has a load of good tutorials on the web. Try this one, for example. This one is also recommended by some guy on a blog.

The GUI. Always the GUI.

The symbolic languages are programming languages to a point - the emphasis is on the mathematics rather than the programming tools, although for the most part they are all there. If you want to learn to program then python is probably a better way to go. I'm sure there are other people with opinions on languages too.

 

If you ever want to be decent learn Lisp first.