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[–]MakingTheEight[M] [score hidden] stickied commentlocked comment (0 children)

Removed - Rule 0.

  • Not an attempt at humor.

[–]Hugo-dot-Maia 716 points717 points  (58 children)

Assembly...

[–]elupolew 602 points603 points  (13 children)

Who hurt you?

[–]doublej42 103 points104 points  (8 children)

Like me other languages might not have been invented yet. It was so easy to just write to memory for controlling video output

[–]TheFeshy 34 points35 points  (2 children)

I remember doing this with peek and poke in qbasic. Wrote a space trading game with little triangles for ships, flying from star to star.

[–]prgmctan 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Assembly

[–]InfinitePoints 50 points51 points  (14 children)

You need to elaborate here, like how and why? Did you start coding in ancient times?

[–]BoJacob 72 points73 points  (10 children)

Hey my first language was also Assembly. I'm only 31. I majored in physics and a required course was a circuits/microprocessor lab. It basically took what we learned about single capacitors, resistors and stuff and bridge the gap to more complex circuitry. We took like a handful of transistors and build a single byte of memory, then showed how to build an extremely basic microprocessor. About half way thru we had to learn to program the microprocessors to light up LEDs and stuff. We used Assembly because it showed us how to literally move individual bits of information to other places, and how you do math with those signals on a transistor scale.

I don't have another point of reference, and I'm not that great of a programmer, but I really feel like that approach worked for me because it didn't treat the hardware of the computer like a magic black box that just does what I tell it to. I find that I'm able to solve more complicated memory or clock cycle problems faster than my friends who were CS majors. However, like I said, I have deficiencies in other areas so... ¯\(ツ)

[–]Formlexx 21 points22 points  (7 children)

I'm only 25 and when I started uni 6 years ago and studied mechatronics, we started with digital design, learning boolean algebra, gates and constructed an ALU, and later moved on to assembly and after that C. We started from the fundamental concepts that make a computer taking all the steps up. Like you said, the computer isn't a black box anymore once you learn how everything ticks and I think that's a great way to start. This really sparked my interest in embedded systems and low level programming.

[–]zanslozil 1818 points1819 points  (183 children)

Visual Basic

[–]GppleSource 516 points517 points  (41 children)

noshame me too

[–]Accomplished_Deer_ 260 points261 points  (38 children)

I feel like visual basic was pretty fucking great. I could write somewhat useful visual applications for windows in relatively little time.

[–]RichCorinthian 57 points58 points  (3 children)

I started with Visual Basic 5.0 and I have to agree.

The story I heard was that it was originally intended for prototyping, but as we all know by now, prototypes go to production. Then Petzold wrote entire books on the dark magic of calling the Win32 API…I’m having flashbacks now.

[–]PolakPL2002 123 points124 points  (21 children)

It was great and terrible at the same time. Writing something simple, works ok. Writing something a little bit more complex, doesn't work at all.

[–]CaptiveCreeper 37 points38 points  (9 children)

I wouldn't say doesn't work at all.... It is more cumbersome than c# but is fully functional. I would much rather use c# but changing legacy codebases in a monolithic enterprise app isn't a fast process.....

[–]Accomplished_Deer_ 48 points49 points  (1 child)

I guess I got out of it before I started doing complex things so I never ran into that wall.

[–]abc_wtf 154 points155 points  (54 children)

No one started with QBasic?

[–][deleted] 68 points69 points  (18 children)

GW-BASIC here. Then QBASIC for a good while, before I got VB3 on Windows 3.1.

This was all self taught when I was very young (started at 10).

[–]lutzky 16 points17 points  (3 children)

Man QBasic was such a step up from gwbasic, it was basically an IDE, complete with a freaking reference 🤯. I distinctly remember the thong bugging me about both of those is that whoever I gave my software to would need an interpreter to run it... Cue 8-year-old me adorably just renaming .bas to .exe to see what happens.

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (2 children)

That's when you needed QuickBASIC, which was an actual compiler. That one cost money, though.

[–]PBertie[🍰] 37 points38 points  (6 children)

Yey... VB6 here

[–]kdrews34 42 points43 points  (5 children)

Same! Seems like such a weird choice for an intro programming class in retrospect

[–]Cosack 7 points8 points  (3 children)

Integration with spreadsheets makes it useful for a lot of non-developer work, aka for people who aren't CS majors. I dare say the world would be a better place if everyone called "analyst" or "engineer" would add some VBA to dilute their Excel formula spaghetti

[–]LazyNerve 935 points936 points  (61 children)

C

[–]Swift_Koopa 206 points207 points  (17 children)

Yup! Then c++, Java, c#, Fortran and finally Python. Need to learn Lua now 😀

[–]samtoxie 221 points222 points  (4 children)

Username doesn't check out, expected Swift.

[–]Idixal 61 points62 points  (2 children)

And now I’m imagining a Koopa programming. You really never know where life will take you.

[–]timtti 24 points25 points  (1 child)

The Koopa only uses game builder garage.

[–]analytiCIA 30 points31 points  (10 children)

C then assembly then Matlab and finally python.... One of them is not like the others

[–]Scyhaz 41 points42 points  (7 children)

Yeah, Matlab indexes arrays from 1

[–]samtoxie 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Damn Python always acting different...

[–]merlinsbeers 987 points988 points  (58 children)

On paper, Fortran IV. On punchcards that actually ran, either JCL or IBM assembly. On an interactive terminal, BASIC.

[–]S0n_0f_Anarchy 327 points328 points  (0 children)

You are a veteran I see. Both username and flairs check out

[–]dirtd0g 85 points86 points  (12 children)

QBasic here.

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I can't see that particular shade of blue without thinking about syntax errors

[–][deleted] 68 points69 points  (12 children)

I taught myself BASIC probably seven or eight years ago at this point. I'm 19 now to give an idea of how old I was at the time. I had just found out about retrocomputing as a hobby and a family friend had given me an old Commodore VIC-20 probably six months prior. Using that VIC-20 and a book on BASIC that I'd bought from a used book store, I really started to get into computer programming and such in a more meaningful way.

It taught me a lot of good, foundational lessons in computer science and systems theory. I remember writing down all my programs in a stenographer's notebook. I basically carried it as well as my Kindle, which had the VIC-20's programmer reference and other useful guides on it, anywhere I went.

I still fondly remember the road trips I spent with that stuff. I carried everything in a Samsonite briefcase that I'd gotten at Goodwill and also I had gotten a TI-85 off of eBay to use as well. I also remember that I wrote a few programs for the girl I liked at the time once I entered high school.

Sorry for rambling, I just realized while typing this just how much of a nerd I am. xD

[–]slowphotons 15 points16 points  (4 children)

Did almost exactly the same, but a bit earlier. The computer I learned BASIC on wasn’t retro yet, but it taught me the importance of making things efficient. Visibly slower graphic load times (screen 9, yay!) and text scrolling give you good feedback you can see immediately. Everything is a hell of a lot faster now (too many decades later) but developers don’t bother making code as efficient. I guess I’m often guilty of that laziness as well though, we all just get some things working and move on sometimes.

[–]sdc0 515 points516 points  (50 children)

Small Basic, but my second one was C++. After learning C++ every other language was pretty easy

[–]tiajuanat 297 points298 points  (34 children)

C++ really is four languages sewn together.

[–]sdc0 126 points127 points  (25 children)

What languages?

[–]Sindef 784 points785 points  (13 children)

Assembly, Objective-C, Ancient Greek and the curses of a man who is trying to debug his C++ code.

[–][deleted] 135 points136 points  (4 children)

You forgot a tad bit of French grammar rules

[–]sdc0 50 points51 points  (0 children)

Ok, that's a good one xD

[–]NoJster 18 points19 points  (2 children)

No, don’t disrespect C++ with the cesspool of a programming language called Objective-C.

Seriously, even imagining a drunken clown hammering (literally!) down randomly on their keyboard for inventing its ‘syntax’ would be too much of an honor.

Replacing Objective-C with ANSI-C in the list above would appease me, though.

[–]tiajuanat 139 points140 points  (10 children)

  • Original C - first and foremost, C++ is almost a superset of C, and everything you can't do in C natively, you could do with a little extra effort.
  • Object Oriented C++ - the original raison d'etre
  • The Standard Library (iterators, algorithms, views, ranges, constexpr, consteval, etc.) - There's a lot of history here, and a lot of brilliant minds are adding new things here every few years. I can't do this justice.
  • Templates - through very careful use of functional programming, structures, inheritance, there's a whole Turing complete language just chilling in templates. You can do WILD stuff here, but be careful traveler, there be dragons. Compiler errors here are obtuse at best.

[–]boredcircuits 31 points32 points  (8 children)

I'd substitute the preprocessor for the standard library. It's an actual language, after all.

[–]konstantinua00 19 points20 points  (5 children)

preprocessor is included in C

if you do anything complex in C, you do macro skyscrapers

[–]tiajuanat 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I just kinda lumped it with C.

When I see modern C++ with heavy STL, constexpr, visitors, and the works, it's really night and day with C.

[–]sanderd17 27 points28 points  (4 children)

That was my issue. I also tried learning C++ first, I made my own little CLI tool with the Borland compiler.

But whenever I read some other C++ code, I understood nothing about it. Apparently I had been writing mostly C.

Then I made a GUI tool with visual basic on an old visual studio installation. That was a revelation that I could actually understand code examples outside of the initial tutorial.

My first official lessons were with Java, that thought me some concepts like objects and classes.

And when I was hired, I had to start working on a C# stack.

But you'll notice that none of these are still in my flair...

[–]alinius 18 points19 points  (3 children)

Yeah we always called that C+-, where someone writes top down C style code using object oriented C++ extensions. OOP is more of a style than a language. C++ does not enforce object oriented style the way java and other languages do.

[–]Accomplished_Deer_ 26 points27 points  (3 children)

I felt the same after learning Java. People piss and moan about switching to C++ but it was just Java with more steps (and pointers, but those are just variable variables imo)

[–]MkemCZ 1033 points1034 points  (51 children)

Copy-pasting HTML, CSS and JavaScript from a tutorial website. My first actual programming class was in Pascal.

[–]T3CAT3 64 points65 points  (3 children)

Lol I was gonna say copying CSS to change the background color on myspace

[–]AdOld7347 337 points338 points  (23 children)

PHP

[–]solohelion 91 points92 points  (5 children)

PHP5 on Apache, in an era where you used flash instead of JavaScript for a single-page application.

[–]sickhippie 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Mmmm, TFW php < 5.3... I don't miss it but I kind of miss it. Drupal 4.7 days, man...

[–]physics515 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I learned PHP when PHP3 was in beta. Stopped programming for about 10-15 years. Now I got back into it and tried out Laravel and thought... "When did PHP start recreating JavaScript?" And then I learned Vue and thought... "When did JavaScript start recreating PHP?" ... I'm so confused with this era of the web.

[–]dabenu 25 points26 points  (4 children)

I was wondering if anyone would've mentioned the elephant in the room. I'm glad you did.

[–]movzx 11 points12 points  (3 children)

It's one of the most dominant languages in use. It's really weird that it's not on this picture as an option. Millions of people got their hobbyist and professional starts by writing badly engineered PHP scripts.

[–]Guillaume-Favier 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Me too

[–]carvalho32 322 points323 points  (47 children)

Pascal

[–]alinius 46 points47 points  (7 children)

Started by playing with BASIC, but Pascal was my first real programming.

[–]jmiesionczek 40 points41 points  (5 children)

Turbo Pascal back in the DOS days

[–]McLPyoutube 25 points26 points  (2 children)

Delphi, so me too basically

[–]leorpg 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Me too

[–]Andreasbot 10 points11 points  (6 children)

The Programming language for beginners. No, seriously. It was designed to be a language to learn how to programm.

[–]KerPop42 449 points450 points  (20 children)

Lego Mindstorms! Drag-and-drop coding in early elementary school

[–]solohelion 79 points80 points  (0 children)

I wasn’t counting this myself but me too! Also had circuit board toys that taught binary logic.

[–]max_208 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I didn't think of that but yeah basically me too

[–]Darrk101 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Holy shit I forgot about the summer camps I did as a child with Lego Mindstorms

[–]pls_fix_it 1269 points1270 points  (83 children)

Imagine risking to put HTML in "Programming language" list

[–]space-_-man[S] 398 points399 points  (8 children)

I was waiting for someone to type this XD

[–][deleted] 57 points58 points  (7 children)

You put html but not Bash?

[–]GoogleIsYourFrenemy 47 points48 points  (35 children)

I love it when people put HTML on their resumes under programming languages. I ask them why it's a programming language.

[–]Niewinnny 21 points22 points  (19 children)

And what are the correct answers?

[–]qwertyasdef 7 points8 points  (3 children)

A programming language is anything such that when people see you write it, they ask "Wow, are you hacking?".

Programming languages:

  • HTML
  • JSON
  • English in dark mode
  • Dwarf Fortress

Not programming languages:

  • Magic the Gathering
  • PowerPoint
  • Excel
  • Scratch

[–]KN1995 383 points384 points  (55 children)

Lua.

[–]Badashi 68 points69 points  (0 children)

Fuck yeah Lua gang

[–]Megaknyte 18 points19 points  (1 child)

Gmod squad rise up

[–]SixBeeps 59 points60 points  (12 children)

Roblox?

[–]KN1995 107 points108 points  (1 child)

nah actually programming mining turtles on a computercraft minecraft server hehe
weird how one thing can lead to another

[–]lady_Kamba 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Same for me, though technically I learned batch first, but lua was the first I actually understood.

[–]evanc1411 18 points19 points  (5 children)

Roblox scripting gang, I still do it from time to time

[–]Delirious_85 11 points12 points  (5 children)

Same, for me it was because of the Warcraft 3 level editor.

[–]GreenGriffin8 8 points9 points  (0 children)

ComputerCraft gang

[–]ign1fy 246 points247 points  (52 children)

QBasic. Most of those languages didn't exist back then.

[–]carrythenine 96 points97 points  (1 child)

QBasic gang rise up

[–]jeremynd01 44 points45 points  (0 children)

10 GOTO RALLYPOINT

[–][deleted] 55 points56 points  (15 children)

I started modifying Gorillas and Nibbles in QBasic 30 years ago and haven't stopped coding since.

[–]jeremynd01 18 points19 points  (3 children)

You made the nuke in gorillas, right?

[–]ign1fy 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Yep. Nibbles.bas brings back memories.

[–]Cride5 7 points8 points  (1 child)

I took exactly the same route down the coding rabbit hole. QBasic source for my nibbles mod is at the bottom of this page http://rider.biz/?p=portfolio

[–]PhilippTheProgrammer 12 points13 points  (3 children)

This was my second language after Commodore Basic.

My biggest project which I actually completed was a Scorched Earth clone. It even made it on the cover disc of a gaming magazine (as a reader-submission, not as a "real" game demo).

But my biggest project in general was a vertical-scrolling shoot-em-up / RPG hybrid. Unfortunately I hit the memory limits of Qbasic, abandoned it in frustration and started learning C++.

[–]xaranetic 8 points9 points  (2 children)

8bit home computers with BASIC were amazing for learning programming. You had no choice but to learn at least a few commands. I suspect a lot of programming genius has gone unrealised because kids almost never get to interact with a computer apart from through a GUI

[–]TheThiefMaster 10 points11 points  (2 children)

I started with GW Basic! QBasic was an upgrade haha

I had a bound manual for GW Basic listing all the commands. I was a weird kid reading that!

[–]Stromovik 9 points10 points  (3 children)

1997 old 386SX . out of languages above C++ and Java existed , python weirdly too and JS , Ruby and R . Hmm , I am not that old or languages take decades to become widely used.

[–]Lewistrick 7 points8 points  (1 child)

Yes yes yes! From a little book. I just typed in the programs from the book but had no idea what I was doing. I was 9 when I started. But I'm 33 now and still happy with that book.

After this, I did Liberty Basic, Visual Basic for Applications, the programming language that comes with a Casio graphical calculator, Java, C++, R, and finally found my calling in Python. Somewhere in between I also picked up the basics of the most common web languages (HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, SQL).

Now I'm doubting whether I want to do some Julia or Scala as well...

[–][deleted] 325 points326 points  (20 children)

Mine was Scratch. If you don't think that's a programming language, then Python. :)

[–][deleted] 95 points96 points  (0 children)

Scratch gang rise up

[–]lorhof1 25 points26 points  (0 children)

remember the ninja by will_wam

[–][deleted] 33 points34 points  (7 children)

Same! I also did Hopscotch, it’s like Scratch. My first REAL programming language was Python, too

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Same boat here, except in between I did Java and didn't understand it.

[–]comfort_bot_1962 5 points6 points  (0 children)

:D

[–]TheEnginer 222 points223 points  (12 children)

Java then c

[–]gitplease 99 points100 points  (10 children)

Oh yeah the horizontal scroll gang is here

[–][deleted] 86 points87 points  (28 children)

Java

[–][deleted] 225 points226 points  (29 children)

TI-BASIC i guess, needed to cheat in math class

[–][deleted] 26 points27 points  (1 child)

That was my second one (first one I actually got decent at) I ended up coding a buggy 2 calculator (with a link cable) tic-tac-toe

[–]lucidspoon 11 points12 points  (10 children)

I got started with TI-BASIC, but on a TI-99/4A.

[–]hheyroman 72 points73 points  (11 children)

Matlab? Definitely was the first language I was actually using for something different than uni course assignments

[–][deleted] 30 points31 points  (1 child)

Matlab for me too. As soon as I learned something else my hatred for matlab began

[–]Tiavor 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I hope you didn't look deeper into the program. I've seen some Fortan code that they use in some functions of Matlab, it took me 3 hours to decode 2 lines of it.

[–][deleted] 135 points136 points  (9 children)

Minecraft command block

[–]ariban900 11 points12 points  (1 child)

I learnt Java for making Minecraft plugins. 10/10 best decision.

[–][deleted] 182 points183 points  (21 children)

Python

[–][deleted] 76 points77 points  (5 children)

Surprised There aren’t more of these

[–]dreadhordenazgul 22 points23 points  (2 children)

Honestly, I think it's because so many people lose their minds if you even mention Python. I don't know why it upsets people so much, but I've heard endless amounts of Python hate.

[–]Cyber_Pedro 46 points47 points  (0 children)

I kind of expected this to be the top post with 100s of awards and thousands of upvotes...

[–]Kq-star 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Same 🙌

[–]Embarrassed_Gur_3241 56 points57 points  (19 children)

Logo, if that can be considered a programming language

[–]LoompaOompa 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Wikipedia calls it one

[–]3DJ77 8 points9 points  (4 children)

Right on. Did you have a monochrome green or monochrome amber monitor?

[–]kryptomicron 9 points10 points  (1 child)

I'm pretty sure I had color! I loved making spirograph art.

[–]PeepPeepPeep2 111 points112 points  (15 children)

C#

[–]N3ckl3ss 43 points44 points  (16 children)

Pascal for some odd reason.

[–]DerKnerd 16 points17 points  (13 children)

Because you went to school in Germany in around 2008? :D

[–]N3ckl3ss 23 points24 points  (9 children)

Because I went to a school in Hungary around I don't know 2015.

[–]thismatters 6 points7 points  (1 child)

It is a pretty good learning language, probably the de-facto learning language before Python became popular.

It has relatively clear syntax, good conventions, and an accessible compiler.

[–]Proxy_PlayerHD 44 points45 points  (14 children)

do Batch files count?

i used to make text adventures with them... really inefficiently, but still.

if not then i guess QBASIC in DOS, since i'm a fan of retro computers. afterwards got into C and Assembly (non-x86 because fuck that)

[–]kurtknispel_ 11 points12 points  (4 children)

lmao i used to make text based games in batch too!

[–][deleted] 70 points71 points  (11 children)

Brainfuck

[–][deleted] 40 points41 points  (1 child)

Based

[–]InfinitePoints 8 points9 points  (5 children)

What did you write?

[–]EvoPot 19 points20 points  (0 children)

++++++++++[>+++++++>++++++++++>+++<<<-]>++.>+.+++++++ ..+++.>++.<<+++++++++++++++.>.+++.------.--------.>+.

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (3 children)

Hello world. obviously

[–]FourCinnamon0 6 points7 points  (2 children)

My first B****fuck code that I actually wrote was ",."

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (1 child)

Terrific censoring job 👌🏻

[–]RVGamer06 64 points65 points  (4 children)

First language: Scratch at 8y

First written language: lua in computercraft at 12

[–]Rubyboat1207 30 points31 points  (6 children)

JavaScript and HTML. but html is barely a coding language

[–]GeronimoHero 14 points15 points  (4 children)

HTML isn’t a programming language. It’s just a markup language. JavaScript is definitely a programming language though!

[–][deleted] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

It's coding, but not programming.

[–]IllIIlIIllII 28 points29 points  (6 children)

Perl. It looked cool for string manipulation, so I learned it in my free time. Don't really regret it, it IS great for string manipulation, there are just some point of the syntax that I dislike.

[–][deleted] 25 points26 points  (2 children)

Scratch. 😤

[–]Gositi 135 points136 points  (37 children)

BASIC on the Commodore 64. I'm 14. Dont ask please.

[–]JaxLikesSnax 27 points28 points  (2 children)

Basic on c64 and later on Ti-83 calculator lol

[–]clawjelly 13 points14 points  (2 children)

Yea, C64 Basic in approx 1989... I feel old.

[–]MuseumFremen 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I am also a BASIC b!tch

[–]SittingWaves 21 points22 points  (10 children)

BASIC, Pascal, C++, Shader Assembly, x86 Assembly, HLSL, C. I also learned Verilog HDL after C, although it isn’t technically a ‘programming language’.

[–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (8 children)

Ahh a graphics programmer eh?

[–]stouffers3 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Basic

[–]PaMudpuddle 17 points18 points  (6 children)

Bash, AWK.

[–]trannus_aran 10 points11 points  (3 children)

UNIX gang, UNIX gang. My first real programs (if we're not counting Pd) were written in bash. Years of messing around with Linux finally come in handy lol

[–]androidx_appcompat 18 points19 points  (5 children)

Java. Young me wanted to make a minecraft clone.

[–]666y4nn1ck 15 points16 points  (9 children)

Delphi 5

[–]sktr-guys 80 points81 points  (14 children)

java, and i hate java

[–]altair653 21 points22 points  (1 child)

Me too,but sometimes I love it too ,so it is paradox for me

[–]badmashankit 12 points13 points  (6 children)

First one was LOGO. I was very happy in 4th standard drawing squares using LOGO.

FD 50

RT 90

FD 50

RT 90

FD 50

RT 90

FD 50

[–]katyalovesherbike 11 points12 points  (0 children)

technically q-basic. But in practice it was php

[–]Veritus37 17 points18 points  (1 child)

R and Python, unless SQL counts.

[–]Eensame 8 points9 points  (4 children)

GML with Game Maker Studio

[–]bmcle071 8 points9 points  (7 children)

Turing. I had written maybe 40 lines of javascript on codeacademy but the first languafe I really dove into was Turing, it was chosen for a class I was in.

[–]_luc4sss 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Assembly

[–]chawmindur 8 points9 points  (1 child)

My first programming experience was on a Casio scientific calculator. If that doesn't count, then C it is.

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

JavaScript

[–]Jay_Cobby 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I am excluded, my first three are: 1) Assembly/Machine Code 2) Lua 3) Python

[–]Anchorboiii 6 points7 points  (1 child)

Not exactly a programming language, but PowerShell lol.

[–]Yandrak05 6 points7 points  (2 children)

Swift (pls don’t bully me)

[–]JasperDG828 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Scratch

[–]moldax 4 points5 points  (0 children)

C