I think it depends on how you want to approach learning. If you want to learn in a systematic way and learn how to think about designing programs, and consider

I think it depends on how you want to approach learning. If you want to learn in a systematic way and learn how to think about designing programs, and consider coding to be a natural byproduct of that, I would recommend a book such as How To Design Programs[1] (there is also the SICP, but it's a bit more dense than HTDP). It helps you learn from the ground up how to design a program and think about programming and uses a custom language built for learning. If you want to learn coding in a less rigorous way or one where you make some stuff rather than learning various higher level concept or principles, you could start with Python using Learn Python The Hard Way[2]. Python is generally a good beginner language as it doesn't have that many gotchas compared to a language like JS and it's a language that prides itself on doing things the Python way and (more or less) in one specific way, which reduces the initial learning curve a bit. You could alternatively approach learning to code by learning something such as generative art in Processing[3] (which is in Java, JS, and Python). This is a cool approach as it helps you both learn to program but gives you something "tangible" and really visual, rather than just text. All in all there really isn't a best language (and anyone who says so is lying and/or deluding themselves) and there isn't a best way to learn, so it depends on your motivations, desires, and how you learn. 1: https://htdp.org https://htdp.org 2: https://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/ https://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/ 3: https://processing.org/tutorials https://processing.org/tutorials