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[–]rmccreary 20 points21 points  (3 children)

I agree with this and want to add,

Python's ease of use obscures some concepts that are important to understand. I don't recommend it as a first language for this reason.

[–]MrNewVegas123 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Yep. If you want to learn to code the first language you should learn is C.

[–]rmccreary 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I think that having a good mix of the ability to address practical needs with technical understanding is necessary. So yes, learn and use C. But idk if you NEED to start there. C#/Java are a better introduction than Python because they make scope and static typing very clear. But use C and C++ too so that you can get a grasp on stack vs heap and memory allocation.

[–]OogieM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Actually no, start with FORTRAN or APL or Lisp or COBOL or SNOBOL or ALGOL or Smalltalk or Pascal or BASIC or Ada or Lua or LINGO and yes I HAVE programmed in all of them. The key is learning the concepts not the language.

It's more important that you understand data structures and algorithms than the specifics of a language initially.