Heyy, I’m learning programming and trying to choose a focus, I saw you can make web/backend w node, desktop (bloatware but discord uses it so if it works it works), games (not AAA and not optimized for performance but it shouldn’t matter for indie too much) Is there anything that compares? I wanna focus on one thing instead of spreading myself over a ton of languages, I do feel js is interesting for this, but I’m just starting out, so looking to hear some thoughts of people more familiar with programming.
I’ve been making my living as a developer for more than 40 years. My take is that languages come and go. All of them are compromises that do some things better, and more easily, than other things. It doesn’t really matter what language you learn first, as long as you understand that what you really need to learn are the underlying concepts, not the syntax or the libraries. If you do that successfully, you will be able to pick up new languages relatively quickly.
Learn what looks like it makes sense to how you think. I’d argue Python is still #1 with js at #2. There’s still a ton of crusty Perl and Java holding more than you want to know together as well, so you have choices.
Once you learn and master one language, the main concepts will usually transfer across, and with minimal effort youll be able to pick up any other language.
So starting with JS is fine, but don’t be afraid of switching later down the line. Choose the right tool for the job.
Wide varety of things is something, but maybe ask yourself what would you like to build? What interests or excites you? And then make a choice based on options that are suited for that thing. I wouldn’t be motivated unless I was building things I like and find fun.
I think so. If you want to target as many platforms as possible it isn’t a bad choice. JS is unmatched, imo, for prototyping applications as well as being capable of turning them into something worthy of shipping to production. Lots of resources, isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Server languages all compete for dominance in usage. JS doesn’t compete with anything and probably never will unless WASM really gets popular, which it isn’t close at all yet.
No, binary is
gatekeeping the queer community off of tech, i see how it is… only cis people allowed to code /s
There is only one gerund, ing.
I would Start with rust today. The compiler always tells you what is wrong and there is a clear way of doing things. It is a bit harder to pick up but you will get a better understanding of why things work.
The learning material is also good.
For me the JS ecosystem is a nightmare. It changes so frequently and it seems not to be the place where thoughtful engineers build stuff. Just the wild west. To exhausting for me.
My current favorite language is Rust. But I would never advice beginners to start with. Rust requires a deep understanding how memory works. Without the knowledge it is just fighting the borrow checker, which can be fustrating for beginners. For the same reason I would never advocate for Java: it is pretty hard to write java without understanding the oop paradigm.
I would not recommend to choose JS as your first language. Yes, it is versatile, but it has many varieties, good and bad ones, and it can easily cause bad habits in your coding.
So you better choose one of the more strict languages. Maybe Kotlin. Or python, or rust.
Or good old C, as some others have suggested. C is a great teacher for good habits, because it’s outright dangerous to make certain mistakes there. But it is not so much used anymore.
seems python is super popular too, can you build nice UI’s with it? I mostly see python on AI stuff and cli
Yes, there are some to choose from. Though if you want to make games you probably want to use Godot instead. It’s language, gdscript, is like python
Python is a general suppose language, you can do almost anything with it, including nice UIs. But I would say it’s definitely not the first thing I would chose for heavy UI. It is generally strong in data stuff and it’s a very good language to learn programming in general. It’s not a bad choice.
Learning more programming languages isn’t the hard part of becoming a decent programmer. You’re optimizing for the wrong thing here.
You should choose a language that works well for the specific projects you think you’re going to do in the near term. Depending on exactly what sort of projects you want to do, Python, Typescript, C++, and Rust are all languages I might recommend. I wouldn’t recommend raw Javascript for anything other than doing some tutorials before learning Typescript.
Without more information, I’d recommend Python.
While it might not be the hardest part, I do feel it is a factor, so all things being equal i think it can help to choose a good first programming language that will help out the on-boarding process.
What I’m trying to say is that you should choose the programming language that will make your learning and early projects easiest.
Learning a new language later is not hard. Trying to use the wrong tool for the task when you’re just learning is hard, and will teach you the wrong lessons.
I appreciate the tip, I might end up on python, seems interesting and fast (to write not run lol)
I’d imagine it’s Python. I have limited programming knowledge but like to experiment. During covid I messed with C, Javascript, Python, and even Commodore BASIC just to mess around with stuff. Python is by far the most user friendly modern language, I feel. The hardest part of Python for first time users is getting the IDE and PATH all set up.
There is no “most versatile programming language”. That is a myth.
The choice of a programming language for a project depends on the projects requirements. It could be a script language like Python, PHP, JS, or even Perl or Bash. Or something compiled like C, C++, Rust, or even Pascal or Prolog. It always depends on the project.
Heck, if you have to build something sticking to a COBOL or FORTRAN system, using anything else would probably a stupid idea in the first place.
So if anyone tells you “Programming language X is the one and only solution for everything”, it is more an admission of a severe lack of knowledge and experience.
While this is true, I will say there are some languages built for very specific problems that make poor tools for general use.
Trying to build a distributed web app in Matlab or Mathematica would either be a flex or a complete waste of time, for instance.
rust is now the most versatile language. however it is not yet the most popular or easiest language
it’s pretty great tho
Powershell? Is that a language? I used that to propel a lot of my projects in the past. I could do almost anything with it.
I think that’s used on windows like a command line, but I never looked into it (wasn’t using the terminal when I was on windows)
PowerShell is the Micro$lop Windows shell language. You can do a lot with just about any shell language, although if you’re (wisely) using Linux, I recommend Bash as a shell.
Javascript is a language full of weird quirks. A language with fewer footguns would probably be smoother for learning fundamentals. Python is pretty good in terms of letting you do the thing, instead of making you find a third party library (not that one, that’s deprecated) or having unexpected default behavior ( in JS
[1,2] + [3,4]is the string1,23,4, for example)TypeScript adds more guard rails, but is a little more complex to get going.
The best language for starting is the language you find easiest to learn.
But Rosetta Code lists a lot of programming tasks solved in a lot of different languages. Just browse a bit and if you’re lucky you just fall in love with one of the languages. Then, difficulty doesn’t matter.
