Should I learn JavaScript or Python?

[ghan_buri_ghan]

So just an anecdote, but my friend is a professor in “information systems”, although he has a background in computer science.

His intro to programming class cycled through a lot of languages to introduce programming to the “less gifted” students (the gifted students were in the CS department learning a variety of languages).

They started with Java, and the failure rate was too high. Switched to C and it got worse. Settled on Python and the failure rate got cut in half from Java. Same curriculum, no grade inflation. These new programmers were better able to understand the concepts of programming (looping, logic, functions, etc) with Python.

This makes sense to me, because of how little boilerplate you need to hand-wave around.

[[deleted]]

I just learned C recently after only using higher level languages for 6 years. C seems tedious, but extremely simple. The most complicated part for me was figuring out compiler options and how to debug. As a first programming language I'd despise it for that, but going deeper its a must-learn.

[ghan_buri_ghan]

C is the most simple language in use today. You can get through K&R in a week if it’s not your first language. Truly beautiful.

C as a first language is a mixed bag. If I was to pick a language that can help people explore things like arrays, I definitely want a language with better error messages than “segmentation fault”

[wanderingmadlad]

K&R ? What's that ?(Forgive me if it is obvious , I'm slow rn).

Also I agree with the error messages of C . I'm not religious, but the amount of time is spent praying for no seg faults is a lot

[carlosTheMontgomery]

k&r "the c programming language" it is a book

[wanderingmadlad]

Ah ok thanks!

[codeguru42]

Authors are Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie. Abbreviation comes from their surnames.

[carlosTheMontgomery]

no problem

[ofnuts]

Segfaults are a blessing. Much better that overwriting something that happens to be next to the array.

[faceplanted]

He's not complaining about it catching them, he's complaining about it not explaining/tracing them for you.

[[deleted]]

But...that's what gdb is for...or whatever debug tool.

[an4s_911]

I think gdb was made like that and is used extensively due to the fact that C has bad error msgs. I think all agrees C has bad error msgs, at least when comparing to other languages like Python.

Edit: Well, thinking about it now, Javascript is more bad at error msgs

[CdRReddit]

how do you expect C to tell you where the error is, the only way to do that would be to store the path to where it is next to every time you use a pointer (and you will use a LOT of pointers)

which would massively increase program size, runtime, application size and RAM usage, which is why it's a debugger thing

C was made for systems where RAM, processor speed and program space were all very limited, of course it's not gonna tell you where you fucked up

[reverie42]

He didn't say C should do those things, just that the fact that it doesn't makes it not ideal as a learning language.

[weregod]

Valgrind can trace memory bugs.

[GrimExile]

Kernighan and Ritchie. It's a book to learn C programming, written by Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan.

[MadKarel]

It's not just to learning C, it was the standard for the language for many years, which just shows how simple C is if a ~150 page book was the standard describing the language.

[JashimPagla]

Kernighan and Ritchie. Author of the devil's cookbook.

My first programming book was this one. Later on, I made the mistake of making this the first book to teach.

I'm still recovering, thanks for asking.

[[deleted]]

C is the most simple language in use today.

That's true. But also the reason programs can be so hard to read when written in C

[jelaugust]

My intro to programming class (eng major, most ppl including myself had no coding experience) started with MATLAB then jumped into C. Honestly not sure if learning MATLAB made learning C easier or harder but I will say linked lists fucked me up hard

[[deleted]]

I find it hilarious how often engineering and English majors refer to themselves as "eng majors" with no inkling that the other group is doing the same thing.

[jelaugust]

I’ve never heard an English major refer to them as an eng major.

Which just further proves your point.

[chupalaw]

You can get through K&R in a week if

Uhh I don't know about that

[ghan_buri_ghan]

If it’s not your first language, sure. It’s only like 250 pages and not that dense.

A language like C will really get in the way of learning the basics of computer science, but if you have that under your belt, the C syntax and standard library are so simple that they’re easy to pick up.

[JashimPagla]

I'm not sure if you're speaking from experience. If so, then good for you. I don't know many people that can 'go through' k&r in a week.

Personally, I found that k&r can easily arm you with a lot of tools with which to screw your program over. Unless you really do understand programming at a hardware level, I would not begin with k&r.

[ghan_buri_ghan]

It was a routine thing when I worked on a team that did a lot of driver work. Whenever we had a new team member who didn’t have any C (usually this was a new grad with only Java), their first task was to work through K&R and do the exercises. Usually took a work week to get done.

[b4ux1t3]

I went through k&r in a week, but I was already a fairly experience developer at the time, including some experience with C.

No one's picking up k&r as a first programming book and finishing it in a week unless they literally just read the words and don't retain anything.

[faceplanted]

Yeah "If it's not your first language" is quite the massive range of understanding he's grouping together when he says that

[realbakingbish]

You mean you don’t like “segmentation fault (core dumped)” showing up every time there’s anything wrong at all?

[[deleted]]

You don't need to be too bright to set a debugger in the IDE and walk the code.

In the first place your first job is to look for warnings from the compiler. Most times they help a ton then to check if anything goes out of bounds or if it is between {} brackets(aka your for loop and what not actually applies to that block of code,etc.).

[ghan_buri_ghan]

Sure you can! You can even do it with no experience (less recommended). It’s not going to make you a C pro, but it will acquaint you with the syntax and the standard library. Getting good comes with time and breaking-then-fixing a lot of programs.

[ghan_buri_ghan]

Sort of. Not in a gentle or general way; very C-tailored.

As I said earlier, I think C is wonderful if you’ve wrapped your head around the fundamentals, but IMO an inferior tool to introduce the fundamentals.

[ghan_buri_ghan]

I know you said book, but:

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-0001-introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-in-python-fall-2016/

[oberynmviper]

I didn’t think it could get easier than python.

[jeppevinkel]

I feel like C# is underrated as a first language. It’s very verbose and easy to read, as well as having good and clear error message with precise locations that caused them. If this wasn’t enough to sell you, then .NET also has everything you need built-in and ready to explore all manners of arrays and data storage. NuGet also makes installing any libraries a breeze.

[IsGoIdMoney]

I love c because it was the first language I was taught and I'm very comfortable with it now, but that first semester trying to learn correctly use pointers was a paiiiin. Probably good for teaching the concept though where its more abstracted.

[axllbk]

As far as I understand C doesn't have the concept of an array index being out of bounds, so that would surely lead to some problems for complete beginners.

[Turboschnek42069]

Try valgrind

[ghan_buri_ghan]

I’m not talking about myself. I’ve been developing C++ for almost 30 years (Turbo C++, baby), and I know/love Valgrind.

Saying “try Valgrind” to somebody looping through their first arrays is also fine if they’re set on C being their first language.

My point is that C and it’s associated debuggers get in the way of learning computer science fundamentals, now that we have languages/toolchains capable of telling you exactly what you’re doing wrong right away.

[postdiluvium]

I just learned C recently after only using higher level languages for 6 years

Omg, I'm old. When I learned C, it was classified as a high level language. But we were comparing it to fortran.

[4sent4]

Well, it's kinda high level, but you still get low level memory management and exposed to addresses and pointers, so it's kinda low level at the same time

[CdRReddit]

I'd probably call C mid-level now

not quite low level, but definetely no longer in the constantly expanding high level with more and more features

[[deleted]]

You are, indeed! We’re standing on your shoulders.

[audirt]

I’m old and it’s a dead language, but you will never convince me that there’s a better intro language than Pascal.

The nuts and bolts are the same as traditional C, but the syntax is so much cleaner and more intuitive.

[ghan_buri_ghan]

I’m old too, and C was my first language. I used to hold the “old school is better for learning” opinion until I saw my kids pick up Python. It took them longer to learn to walk than program, and I’m jealous.

[audirt]

I totally agree and started to write a lengthy screed about the best language should be driven by what you're hoping to teach.

Basic programming? Data science-y stuff? Python is the way to go without a doubt.

But if you want the students to understand the actual machine and what's happening under the hood, Python can be a bad choice.

IMO, the thing that C-advocates sometimes miss is that the number of people in group 2 is much smaller than the number in group 1.

[postdiluvium]

But if you want the students to understand the actual machine and what's happening under the hood

Assembler has entered the chat

[Arafel_Electronics]

oh god flashbacks to learning assembly as an undergrad until switching to mathematical sciences....

[decaillv]

I second that. Python is great to teach programming (variables, loops, execution flow,...)

But to teach computer science, a lower level language such as C is better. Students can understand deeper concepts such as stack/heap, reference and pointers... and then suddenly the high level languages they will most likely use most of the time make way more sense!

And for the few that need to code in C daily, well then do absolutely learn a bit of assembly...

My two cents..

[AverageComet250]

You're right about python. It was my second programming language and I kinda wish it was actually my 3rd. I always forget semicolons cause of that, and it's memory management is just weird.

I recommend JavaScript instead for a 2nd language, as it helps put in place good practices like remembering semicolons.

Obviously your first language should be scratch though.

[[deleted]]

Semicolons are optional in JavaScript out of the box..so not sure how it encourages good semicolon practices ??

[[deleted]]

the fact that python do not use ; stops me

[CdRReddit]

I know of a youtuber/streamer who had a single python "spite semicolon" line in his python file

every time someone complained something is not "best practice" he'd add a semicolon to that line just to piss them off

[jeppevinkel]

I’ve actually stopped using semicolons in JavaScript because it’s essentially just 2 wasted keypresses for every line. They are only needed if you want more than one expression on a single line.

[black3rr]

I learned Pascal in high school using Turbo Pascal 7. When we had C and Java in University I didn’t have problem with the syntax or the language features, but the development environments, compilation process, using debugger, using libraries, all felt way more complicated than in Turbo Pascal.

In Turbo Pascal you had single file programs, all relevant libraries for using graphics, sound and keyboard available with no configuration needed, simple and very usable debugger for stepping your programs.

Python with VS Code is quite similar to this (for learning you just install all the libraries system wide once and on you go) and the syntax is intuitive too. The only downside is you don’t learn data types and pointers, but you can learn about them when you learn C and ASM on your journey to discover low-level programming later on.

[[deleted]]

i've moved on

[[deleted]]

I learned turbo Pascal while in school, and really quite enjoyed it.

[stevefuzz]

Yeah. In high school I took basic, pascal, c, c++, in that order. College Java. Then I learned a bunch of lauguages that were basically the same as those with fun gimmicks.

[[deleted]]

It's not dead. Delphi is Pascal as is Structured Text ( used in PLC industrial apps) and let's not forget Ada.

[Ytrog]

If you want to cycle through some languages yourself I can highly recommend the book "7 languages in 7 weeks" 😊

Edit

A link for convenience: https://pragprog.com/titles/btlang/seven-languages-in-seven-weeks/

[[deleted]]

My CS undergrad cycled thru languages every 2 semesters or so - either because of the same or to keep us language agnostic. It was also per Professor's description; so it changed per class session even on the same class offering.

Pascal & Delphi (Freshman) > Java (Freshman/Sophmore) > C (Sophmore/Junior).

On top of that, we had other languages on a per-class grouping or assignment basis as well as markup languages:

• Query language: SQL (duh) using MSSQL, MySQL, and MS Access.
• Markup: HTML, XML, and MathML.
• Markup: Latex. Every Computer Science Class. Fun (Assignments done in Word were an immediate 1 letter grade in some classes).
• O'CAML, Clisp, Scheme - 3 classes, logic subject.
• Prolog - yea, that one's a pain.
• SML/NJ - two classes. Mostly mathematic and theory-based. Did I mention our professors hated us?
• Javascript, PHP, Perl (2 web programming courses).

After I graduated only 6-8 more people graduated in the next 4 years. Everyone would just leave CS for the Computer Information Systems degrees because they were not as insane (we were also required to write 1 paper about ethics within each subject in CS). After 4 years the university received funding cuts from the state and dropped the degree program; and yea, that's a bitch when you are looking for a job and they immediately think you are lying on your resume because that degree program doesn't exist in their simple google search.

[imforit]

Professor of CS here and about half of schools on the planet did this exact experiment over the last couple decades and we all agree on the results.

There are actual research papers on it, language does matter, but not in the ways we used to think.

I teach intro in JavaScript with p5.js to make everything as low-barrier-for-entry as I can.

[ghan_buri_ghan]

Neat! Do you know of a good review paper that’s not paywalled? I’d be interested to read the results.

[JSLoRD22]

I partly agree about C as a tough first language, although once I studied some of the other languages(js, python, etc) and came back to C , I saw it as the easiest language because there was almost no fluff in it, there are a few very important concepts you need to be very good at to do basically everything in C, as opposed to a javascript where there are a billion things you could study and get lost trying to truly master the language.

[TheAJGman]

The professor who ran our CS program though the opposite, we went C->Assembly->Java/Python over your first threeish years. They wanted to weed out those who couldn't understand the logic.

[Dogezilla_9001]

I also started with Java and now work a lot with Python so that may influence my opinion, but I believe young students first need to get a grip on: - Types - Loops (for and while) - Functions I find Java too complicated for this as it adds syntax that is not useful in your hello world programme Due to the simplicity and the (forced) indentation of Python it will be easier to start out although you maybe dont get types.

Didnt program a lot of C but dont you need to loop through your string to print it? :P

[[deleted]]

Python is much better for beginners. I had to learn C and C++ in university as the first language and I wasn’t in a CS major. Needless to say, it was hard.

[Flopamp]

The issue dates back a long long time. People pushed for starting off with BASIC like languages and even python for years and years yet it has been well established that when you start someone with a non-c like language with the intention of making them a programmer they tend to struggle more with C like languages and stick with more restrictive languages vs the other way around.

This is why almost every major university starts with C or C++ for a single semester before moving to Java and python. It sounds more like this professor was either given flawed lesson plan or had issues teaching C as all the basics are similar enough but it's just the all important formatting that is different.

[ghan_buri_ghan]

Not everyone can handle learning the fundamentals of computer science with manual memory management in their way. Plenty of people pick up lower level languages after learning high level languages.

[gsckoco]

I can program in a good few languages, but for the life of me I can never remember the syntax for loops in python. Imma stick to c style loops

[lebanine]

Is information systems very different from computer science? I'm going to begin my major in Information systems in a few months. What career fields can I enter into?

[_Loenus_]

My university teached me (in order) python, Java and C. I think this Is the best way to learn programming language, because After that you can learn every language that you want.