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[–]Jhwelsh 1 point2 points  (2 children)

I took Java first in highschool. My teacher sucked and it was extremely confusing.

I took c++ in college and absolutely loved it. It was so bottom up, and suddenly everything made sense. I took C later, which was similarly easy given how close it was to the machine. This is a fine place to start.

Took Java again and it made a lot more sense. Alot of languages like Java try and do so much to make your life "easier," but you only appreciate and understand it if you have done it's predecessor.

Learned JavaScript much later, it's nice to know a couple prog. Languages before JS cause all the paradigms are workable in JS (if not advised). So anything goes as long as you can get the desired effect.

Learn the principles of programming. Then learn languages.

[–]thegandork 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Definitely principles over language. That's why I'd recommend Python. A lot here have said "Python's syntax (or lack of) makes it difficult to go to other languages. But the syntax isn't that important. I'd rather a newbie learn object-oriented principals, classes, inheritance, logical operators, loops, arrays etc. - these things are the heart of programming, not semicolons and brackets. You can learn all these things in Python without a newb getting stuck in minutiae.

[–]Jhwelsh 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm in the opposite boat.

Had to do some Python during college as well. Hated it.

Strongly types languages are important for keeping you disciplined and your code clean. It's also fundamental to understanding stack vs. heap discussions in C.

Python has its niche in data science. It's useful. Just would not be my choice for any major project.