Readit NewsFalconNine commented on Ask HN: What should I learn as my first programming language? · Posted by u/FalconNine
* Want to make webpages ? Learn JavaScript, HTML and CSS.
* Android apps ? Learn Java.
* iOS apps ? Learn Swift.
* No idea what you want to do, but strong desire to learn to code ? Learn Python. You could use Python for general purpose programming, small games and so on ...
How much easier will new languages be after I've learned Python, assuming that's what I go with?
FalconNine commented on Ask HN: What should I learn as my first programming language? · Posted by u/FalconNine
What do you think you will enjoy doing? Web pages? Android apps? iOS apps? Pick something fun then choose the right language.
I'm not doing this for work or school or anything, just for fun. I want to make small games as little pet projects, not aiming to make money or anything, just to have a hobby.
Learn Ruby.
Its a beautiful language well worth the effort and it has a HUGE ecosystem behind it. You'll never lack for resources. It is powerful and I found it doable to learn it all on my own.
It will aid in the transition to making dynamic websites because it is used in Rails.
In the early part of my learning I found that the break in compatibility between python 2 and 3 was irritating and confusing to me. Some of the good books were on python 2 and I had been informed the world was moving on to 3. Ruby has major versions (1.9 vs 2) but no break.(I started out by trying to learn python but switched midway to ruby)
The only caveat is if you want to do math heavy stuff or machine learning - python excels at that.
Python is frequently recommended by people with a CS / computational background. I did not have that.
Some people do not approve and I understand. But this was my experience. YMMV.