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Best programming language to learn starting from scratch?

No programming experience but want to learn to help myself with prototyping. Is there a clear winner or any pros/cons would be appreciated. Thanks. Will

CyberFonic 16y ago
Python! MIT are now using it as the language in their introductory CS course. There are a lot of resources out there, books, videos. You might come across the question of v2.x vs. v3.x. I've ported my code base over to v3 and I haven't regretted the move. A year ago, v2 might have been the safer choice. Have a look at the advocacy page on python.org to see the many noteworthy organizations and people have made that choice. I especially like the way CPython works equally well (at least for me, YMMV) on Linux, Mac OS/X and Windows. With virtually every other language I've had to work around platform specific gotchas.
- gwb 16y ago
  I second that. I have learnt quite a lot of programing languages this past two years (C++, Java, Haskell, Lisp, and Python), and Python has been the easiest to learn, by far. It is fast and easy to have your Python system up and running, and you'll soon get things done in Python. So for an absolute beginner, I sure recommend Python. Now the downside for Python, is that imho, it starts to be boring after a while. Don't get me wrong, it is a "powerful language" (meaning that being high level, you can do a lot of things easily) and there are many libraries, so it is still my "production" language. But I have found a lot more fun in Lisp and Haskell as they tend to stimulate my brain much harder. But I will not suggest it as a first experience (especially not Haskell).. Hope it helps,
spitfire 16y ago
Assembly.
- RP_Joe 16y ago
  Followed by C
dnautics 16y ago
Ruby! Because it balances freedom with not-messiness. Seriously, either Ruby or Python is a good choice. Reflect on yourself and ask: Are you the type of person who chafes under strict regimentation and would appreciate a language that has the philosophy of "there should be more than one way to do things?" (keeping in mind that it may be tough to figure out how something was done)? Or are you the type of person who works best when "there should be one obvious way to do anything"? If you are the former, pick Ruby. If you are latter, pick Python.
pavelludiq 16y ago
There is no such language. "Best" is pretty badly defined. But there are a few "Good enougth" languages. People already suggested Python and Ruby, im a python fan myself, at least for begginers. My suggestion is to find someone who already knows how to code, to help you out with whatever language he knows, if you have no such friend, python would be my choice.
williamldennis 16y ago
Thanks so much. From the consensus it definitely seems like python might be best to get my feet wet, although I've heard ruby is a bit cleaner. I'll dive into python and see how it goes. Thanks for all the help!

No programming experience but want to learn to help myself with prototyping. Is there a clear winner or any pros/cons would be appreciated. Thanks. Will

CyberFonic 16y ago

Python! MIT are now using it as the language in their introductory CS course. There are a lot of resources out there, books, videos. You might come across the question of v2.x vs. v3.x. I've ported my code base over to v3 and I haven't regretted the move. A year ago, v2 might have been the safer choice. Have a look at the advocacy page on python.org to see the many noteworthy organizations and people have made that choice. I especially like the way CPython works equally well (at least for me, YMMV) on Linux, Mac OS/X and Windows. With virtually every other language I've had to work around platform specific gotchas.

gwb 16y ago
I second that. I have learnt quite a lot of programing languages this past two years (C++, Java, Haskell, Lisp, and Python), and Python has been the easiest to learn, by far. It is fast and easy to have your Python system up and running, and you'll soon get things done in Python. So for an absolute beginner, I sure recommend Python. Now the downside for Python, is that imho, it starts to be boring after a while. Don't get me wrong, it is a "powerful language" (meaning that being high level, you can do a lot of things easily) and there are many libraries, so it is still my "production" language. But I have found a lot more fun in Lisp and Haskell as they tend to stimulate my brain much harder. But I will not suggest it as a first experience (especially not Haskell).. Hope it helps,

spitfire 16y ago

Assembly.

RP_Joe 16y ago
Followed by C

dnautics 16y ago

Ruby! Because it balances freedom with not-messiness. Seriously, either Ruby or Python is a good choice. Reflect on yourself and ask: Are you the type of person who chafes under strict regimentation and would appreciate a language that has the philosophy of "there should be more than one way to do things?" (keeping in mind that it may be tough to figure out how something was done)? Or are you the type of person who works best when "there should be one obvious way to do anything"? If you are the former, pick Ruby. If you are latter, pick Python.

pavelludiq 16y ago

There is no such language. "Best" is pretty badly defined. But there are a few "Good enougth" languages. People already suggested Python and Ruby, im a python fan myself, at least for begginers. My suggestion is to find someone who already knows how to code, to help you out with whatever language he knows, if you have no such friend, python would be my choice.

williamldennis 16y ago

Thanks so much. From the consensus it definitely seems like python might be best to get my feet wet, although I've heard ruby is a bit cleaner. I'll dive into python and see how it goes. Thanks for all the help!