What would be a good programming language to learn if you're a beginner to programming?

[Lucifer666]

I started with C++ its piss easy

 

[sarkwalvein]

I've actually been wanting to start a project in Unity for, well, a few months actually. Does Unity use it's own programming language?

From Wikipedia:

The game engine's scripting is built on Mono, the open-source implementation of the .NET Framework. Programmers can use UnityScript (a custom language with ECMAScript-inspired syntax, referred to as JavaScript by the software), C#, or Boo (which has a Python-inspired syntax).

So you should learn whatever suits you best:

• Javascript (alike)
• C#
• Python (alike)

Python is everywhere, and I prefer that over Javascript.
C# is actually a nice language, kind of similar to Java and C++.
As they would say, choose your destiny.

 

[gudenau]

I've actually been wanting to start a project in Unity for, well, a few months actually. Does Unity use it's own programming language?

I think it is mainly C#.

 

[sarkwalvein]

I started with C++ its piss easy

To be honest, I don't find C++ difficult, but I strongly believe it can make you a bad coder if used inappropriately which is quite common.

 

[VinsCool]

From Wikipedia:

So you should learn whatever suits you best:

• Javascript (alike)
• C#
• Python (alike)

Python is everywhere, and I prefer that over Javascript.

C# is actually a nice language, kind of similar to Java and C++.
As they would say, choose your destiny.

How python is similar to C? I'm curious.

 

[sarkwalvein]

How python is similar to C? I'm curious.

I don't find Python so similar to C actually.

 

[Deleted User]

From Wikipedia:

So you should learn whatever suits you best:

• Javascript (alike)
• C#
• Python (alike)

Python is everywhere, and I prefer that over Javascript.

C# is actually a nice language, kind of similar to Java and C++.
As they would say, choose your destiny.

I'm probably gonna stick to Python, then. Maybe learn a bit of JavaScript and C#, too.

 

[VinsCool]

I don't find Python so similar to C actually.

Sorry. My question was: Is there any similarities from C to Python?

 

[Deleted User]

Oh, also, does anyone know what Ruby is like?
I realized a couple days ago that it was installed on my computer already, even though I don't remember installing it.

 

[sarkwalvein]

Sorry. My question was: Is there any similarities from C to Python?

Yes, both are very structured and have very similar flow control commands.
You could, but shouldn't, program Python as a very procedural language emulating C.
But Python has many high level data types not available in C.
Mmm... And also Python has a huge standard library not available in C.

 

[VinsCool]

Yes, both are very structured and have very similar flow control commands.
You could, but shouldn't, program Python as a very procedural language emulating C.
But Python has many high level data types not available in C.
Mmm... And also Python has a huge standard library not available in C.

That's what I wanted to know. Thanks

 

[JoostinOnline]

It depends. If you want to learn something, learn a form of C. If you want to have a starter before that, I recommend Java (despite what zoogie said). It's a great way to learn, although not that useful in the end.

If you do go with Java, take a look at Robocode. It's a very fun way to learn, especially if you have friends to battle with.

 

[FAST6191]

To answer the question of the thread/OP I did write the sticky at the top of the forum section http://gbatemp.net/threads/so-you-want-to-learn-to-program.371255/

It says most of what I would say here, though as you have not expressed a desire to program emulators, video codecs, drivers and such like then yeah go for something simpler and scripting based (Python, Lua, Perl) for your first language.

I would recommend learning Javascript, HTML, and CSS. The browser is an absolutely amazing environment for learning to program.

Or python if you really want to avoid the browser. IMO, anyone recommending that you start out learning C++ or C is probably a sadist . And I say this as someone who regularly programs in C++ for his day job!

Granted javascript is Turing complete (unlike the other two mentioned*) and I suppose it is better than suffering php, though if you want to get paid in fairly short order and stuff going in even shorter order then php is a good language to learn.

*HTML5 fans are invited to fight me.

where have you been? it's been cute to hate Java since minecraft.


when people ask this question I always try to think what the asker wants to do with programming.
since you said you want easy, start with BASIC, a dead but influential language. it's super easy to do something fun in and not get discouraged.

Since minecraft? Please; Java has been the stuff of security nightmares, installation nightmares, maintenance nightmares, web browsing nightmares, more security nightmares and more besides since before minecraft was an incomplete twinkle in the eye of its creator. Java's taint was mainly limited to the business software world since everybody dropped it from websites though so not everybody felt it.

As for Basic please no. It has awful concepts underpinning it and is often considered one of the worst things to happen to early computing.

 

[grossaffe]

It depends. If you want to learn something, learn a form of C. If you want to have a starter before that, I recommend Java (despite what zoogie said). It's a great way to learn, although not that useful in the end.

If you do go with Java, take a look at Robocode. It's a very fun way to learn, especially if you have friends to battle with.

Ah, Robocode, that takes me back to my first semester of college.

 

[JoostinOnline]

Ah, Robocode, that takes me back to my first semester of college.

That's where I learned it. Our class had tournaments for extra credit. I spent so long on my bot, and out of terrible luck the moment the match started every robot turned and fired at mine. It exploded in a few seconds, and I screamed "NO!!!!!!!!!" I still laugh remembering that devastation.

 

[sarkwalvein]

To answer the question of the thread/OP I did write the sticky at the top of the forum section http://gbatemp.net/threads/so-you-want-to-learn-to-program.371255/

-snip-

Very good article.
But I would suggest, even if it is anecdotal, to name some commonplace programming languages used in academics/research:

• MATLAB and its FOSS look-alikes Octave and SciLAB (very used in research related to engineering)
• R (very used in research that uses lot of statistics)
• FORTRAN (very used by the old professor still giving classes that doesn't want to leave the past behind)
• LaTeX (if CSS and HTML were there, why not the defacto standard for scientific paper typesetting)

 

[grossaffe]

That's where I learned it. Our class had tournaments for extra credit. I spent so long on my bot, and out of terrible luck the moment the match started every robot turned and fired at mine. It exploded in a few seconds, and I screamed "NO!!!!!!!!!" I still laugh remembering that devastation.

haha! I didn't have time to make my robot awesome. One thing I had wished I learned about was reflection, though, as that allows you to access private fields of a parent class, so I believe it would be possible to cheat and make your robot invincible.

 

[RodrigoDavy]

I would recommend C,C++, Python or Java

Python, this is a great language. The most user friendly one, very well documented... I love it! It's a scripting language, very useful to automate some task in Linux environments and it also has usage on the web.

C is not as hard as people make it out to be. It's actually very simple to use, I think what most people complain about C is that you actually have to understand the language to use it, but to be fair the language is simple enough that understanding is not hard unless you're really lazy. Use C or C++ if you want to program for consoles/handhelds.

C++ is C with object oriented programming. I would recommend learning it after you grasp the basics of C, since it's basically the same language as C but with more resources.

Java is good because it is widely used. If you want to make Android applications this is the way to go. But I find Java to be a really complicated language, to this day I don't understand how it works. It basically has methods for doing everything you can imagine but most of the time I don't really know what I'm doing. Nevertheless it's very widely used so there's a great advantage in dominating Java

 

[4ur0r]

Python or C/C++.

If anybody recommends Java to you, club them over the head with a blunt heavy object.

^ This

C++ is definitely the better to start with since it's not interptreted

 

[sarkwalvein]

^ This

C++ is definitely the better to start with since it's not interptreted

The other way around.
For learning programming interpreted is best as you can easily go through your code, run, modify, run, and get used to how things works by experience FAST without having to deal with the compile-link-execute process.
When you already have some feeling for programming logic and algorithms I think it is a good moment to move from interpreted.
(Of course, you could always start from scratch with a compiled language but I think it is not the most effective approach)