There are quite a few things you need to learn to be able to program well. One of the easy ones is syntax, which is what you have to learn to go from one langu

There are quite a few things you need to learn to be able to program well. One of the easy ones is syntax, which is what you have to learn to go from one language to another, in addition to the names of variables/functions. What is much harder to learn, and is largely language independent is: 1) Problem solving - the ability to break problems down into simple task that then can be trivially solved. 2) Data structures - programs are unless unless they have data to work with. Knowing how to best represent it is vital, do you use an array, linked list, tree etc. 3) Algorithms - known ways of operating on data to produce some out come. Everything from using a loop to add numbers, to sorting lists, or adding a node to a red-black tree. 4) Design Patterns - know ways to structure code, in a tried and tested fashion. 5) Architecture and Interface design - how to structure your project as a whole (what goes where) and how to set how one portion interacts with all the others. Along with many other things. Point being the first language you learn matters little, if you learn to program that cross any language barrier. I have not touched the first language I learned for almost a year, but have learned 2 others in that time. Having said all that, I am most at home in Python because there I know many of the language specific features.