What should I learn as a first programming language?

I didnt read all the replies,Except the Antonk's first one with which i agree.I also wished i had learned Assembly first,so that i knew what was happening inside that little ceramic block of purified crystaline silicon,
coated with impurities that give it electronic swithing abilities, and etched with
poisonous gases. (

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)umm...anyways you must learn ASM first then C,(PERL)moving on to C++,Then JAVA(c# is the same )and then may be try your hand at VB(which is too simple to be called a programming language),then SQL and then a little of PHP etc...

at last you must try your hand at LISP,PROLOG and other interesting stuff...


bye!

 

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Maybe you could do that in an academic setting, but that sounds like a multiple year process before you can make anything worthwhile. In real life where you want to be able to make something in a reasonable amount of time you should start with something simpler. I honestly think that you could be a world class programmer and never know ASM.

 

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Define worth while. Imagine a doctor with the same ideals.

"8 years for a doctorate plus med school and residence before I get to do anything worth while? I think I'll just go right for trying surgery. I'm not really sure what the inner workings of the body are, but I know what all the different stuff does, I know the higher level stuff. I honestly think that I can be a world class doctor and never need to know basic microbiology."

No, I believe that programming for the short term, just to be able to do soemthing "worthwhile" in a short period of time has led to a lot of bad programmers and bad programming habits, include my own. I am now having to break myself of many of them now that I more fully understand the inner workings of a processor. In programming, there are almost infinite possibilities of solutions to a single problem. That doesn't mean they're all right. I have a feeling in the future, things will change and much programming will go back to the old ways. The basics. I have computer science books (read: computer science, not programming) that are from the 1960's and these are probably the most valuable to me. When memory and storage and processing time are at a premium, you do it right the first time. I think things like XP (eXtremem Programming as it now being called) and RAD (rapid application development) have their place, but I don't think we can forget that it's always good to go back and perfect, and even more so, its always good to know HOW to go back and perfect.

-AntonK

 

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Point taken. I guess I look at things from a web developer's perspective. I think you are right when it comes to many apps that are processor intensive. Scientific applications, games and that sort of thing require a good developer that if familiar with lower level processes to make them work effectively. I just believe that every day that goes by it is easier to develop quality products without it.

 

Visual Basic

Visual Basic seems to be the easiest to start with and it lays out the general terms and programming formats out nicely. I had to start with Turbo Pascal which was not the right thing for me. Once I got into VB I started liking programming so from there I went into other areas like, HTML, PHP, ACCESS *yes, I know*, and Visual C++, Java *not Java Script but real Java*, the I started learning subsets like VBA, VBS, JS, etc.
It will all depend on what your like or what you like to do or want to accomplish. C is by far the most versatile I have found.

 

BASIC Acronym for Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, a very simple programming language originally designed only for instructing students in rudimentary programming.

 

That's true, it was for learning, but that was way back. With new versions like Visual Basic.NET you have nearly identical features compared to the other languages available in Visual Studio. You have access to the same tools (.NET Framework), you can use true inheritance, and the language has become fully Object Oriented. Not to mention the ability to use identical code for applications as you do for the web.

10 ? "Suck it!"
20 goto 10

 

I fell in love with Visual Basic years ago at version 4.0. I fell OUT of love with it in .NET. It got very complicated...overly complicated in my opinion. It's called BASIC for a reason, it was very easy to do very simple things quickly. I'm sure for many it still is, so don't take this post as an argument of any kind, simply an opinion.

As for BASIC in general, it's always seemed a big out of place for me as a language. It has always been caught somewhere between assembly and higher level programming. Again, just an opinion. When we look at the language structure itself, as opposed to how it is implemented, how speedy it is, whether its interpretted or compiled, etc. When we look at JUST the grammar, I am hoping for something that is a cross between Java and Python. There are a lot of unique things in Python that few languages have such as being able to return more than one variable. You can say

Code:

a,b = abfunction(1,2)

And I think THAT is really handy. Lots of other stuff like that too.

-AntonK

 

hi everybody
so which language should Override learn first,
i my self am confused reading all your replies.

 

What do you want to do? Web, console, windows, linux, etc?

 

I think that is the million dollar question. What do you want to do? Do you want to be a web developer? Do you want to write game engines? Do you want to write mission critical government programs? Because you can take a different path to each one.

 

So where's my money? :bugeye:

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So the topic has started again, just I want to learn programming.
That's all, not in particular field, which one will be the best that I can learn fast and easy . Like in earlier post it was mentioned that it is better to learn c first. Can I get details of C, its exact name, where I can download it.
Waiting reply from you.
Thanks for your reply.

 

You can get a free c/c++ compiler here and a simple tutorial here.

But your still better off investigating python, IMHO.

 

thanx Redrover i will try.