Don't pick one, pick 2 or 3 (at least one c/c++) and learn them together. the days that you developed only on one language have long be one. Nowadays it is the ability to pick up a new language and master it in 1-2 months. You don't have to completely understand every part of it, just enough to develop your project and you learn as you go.
The key to learn all this is to make your mind plastic for new languages and technologies. When you can do that then you can last decades as a developer.
Valuable advice... but for those who have never programmed before, and don't currently understand basic principals, the advice of "pick 2 or 3" is not helpful. This infographic can help pick those 2 or 3 though.
Most advice is given from the assumption that someone wants to work as a developer, rather than for hobbyists and tinkerers, which is a far larger subset of people, and those less likely to have mentors to help them get started.
This is somewhat old isn't it? I think I've seen it before. Anyways, if any newbie is getting Objective-C here, you should know that this a bit deprecated and you should probably rather learn Swift.
I can't possibly emphasize enough how bad a recommendation Python is as a first programming language, especially for big tech companies. Even ignoring the horrible performance, the code becomes unmaintainable when it gets bigger than "Hello World".
You think this is intended for someone who will be working at a big tech company in the immediate future? Anyone learning how to program for the first time is no where near being hired by a big tech company, so your first sentence is illogical.
Python is about as close to english language as it gets whiles still having a large userbase, which makes it a good intro into the fundamental concepts of programming. Fewer hurdles with syntax and declarations and more focus on the logic and the concept of breaking things into pieces.
Everyone in this topic seems to think this is intended for someone looking for an immediate career in dev.. That's not the intent of this graphic.
This isn't "how to get a job as a developer in 6 months"... It's a response to the inevitable and ubiquitous question "which language should i pick as my first ever experience in programming*" - for people who AREN'T taking CS courses in school, where direction is given by a mentor/teacher.
Honestly I find the amount of criticism leveled at this hilarious.
Everyone thinks their way is the only correct way, and anything else has no value... Whereas this tries to act as a roadmap for people with no understanding to be able to decide for themselves.
The dynamic typing makes it terrible for that as well. Much better off starting with something like C#, which is much more debuggable, and the IDE makes the learning curve practically zero.
If you want to learn basic programming logic, go with QBasic or something akin. Pretty much the only language that has made any sense to me up until now.
Well, I'm having trouble figuring out how to how to make an input repeat rather than default to "Y" when I don't enter a character. I doubt that will be a problem for a good while.
I know every language on this list. Obviously I've worked with more than others, but can someone explain to my why PHP is so hated? Like an actual logical reason? I'm not defending it, for instance one thing I hate about php is that it implements OOP and it causes the newer libraries to be programmed by plebs which in makes it a bad language to work with. This could be the same reason to have C++ or Java however...
25 comments
9 u/roznak 08 Jan 2017 22:13
Don't pick one, pick 2 or 3 (at least one c/c++) and learn them together. the days that you developed only on one language have long be one. Nowadays it is the ability to pick up a new language and master it in 1-2 months. You don't have to completely understand every part of it, just enough to develop your project and you learn as you go.
The key to learn all this is to make your mind plastic for new languages and technologies. When you can do that then you can last decades as a developer.
4 u/anonnynonny [OP] 08 Jan 2017 22:17
Valuable advice... but for those who have never programmed before, and don't currently understand basic principals, the advice of "pick 2 or 3" is not helpful. This infographic can help pick those 2 or 3 though.
Most advice is given from the assumption that someone wants to work as a developer, rather than for hobbyists and tinkerers, which is a far larger subset of people, and those less likely to have mentors to help them get started.
4 u/varialus 08 Jan 2017 22:08
Needs more Go.
9 u/anonnynonny [OP] 08 Jan 2017 22:19
The lack of assembly makes this infographic entirely unusable.
4 u/saintPirelli 08 Jan 2017 23:42
This is somewhat old isn't it? I think I've seen it before. Anyways, if any newbie is getting Objective-C here, you should know that this a bit deprecated and you should probably rather learn Swift.
2 u/anonnynonny [OP] 09 Jan 2017 00:08
Honestly I have no idea how old it is. I just found it useful when I was very first starting out earlier this year.
Very good info regarding Obj-C deprecation. Thanks for that.
3 u/saintPirelli 09 Jan 2017 07:56
So that's like a week ago? :P
3 u/WhiteRonin 08 Jan 2017 23:45
Location, location, location ....
In my area Java/.Net has a huge opportunity base then PHP.
Python or ruby ... Never see any opportunities.
Apps ... Well, if the company makes them then what ever you choose works.
I disagree that PHP is just for small websites. But I do agree that if you know Java you can make the in salary easily even where I live.
3 u/glugglug 09 Jan 2017 01:24
I can't possibly emphasize enough how bad a recommendation Python is as a first programming language, especially for big tech companies. Even ignoring the horrible performance, the code becomes unmaintainable when it gets bigger than "Hello World".
4 u/anonnynonny [OP] 09 Jan 2017 01:55
You think this is intended for someone who will be working at a big tech company in the immediate future? Anyone learning how to program for the first time is no where near being hired by a big tech company, so your first sentence is illogical.
Python is about as close to english language as it gets whiles still having a large userbase, which makes it a good intro into the fundamental concepts of programming. Fewer hurdles with syntax and declarations and more focus on the logic and the concept of breaking things into pieces.
Everyone in this topic seems to think this is intended for someone looking for an immediate career in dev.. That's not the intent of this graphic.
This isn't "how to get a job as a developer in 6 months"... It's a response to the inevitable and ubiquitous question "which language should i pick as my first ever experience in programming*" - for people who AREN'T taking CS courses in school, where direction is given by a mentor/teacher.
Honestly I find the amount of criticism leveled at this hilarious.
Everyone thinks their way is the only correct way, and anything else has no value... Whereas this tries to act as a roadmap for people with no understanding to be able to decide for themselves.
2 u/glugglug 09 Jan 2017 02:33
The dynamic typing makes it terrible for that as well. Much better off starting with something like C#, which is much more debuggable, and the IDE makes the learning curve practically zero.
2 u/GoodGodKirk 09 Jan 2017 15:09
nice infographic
1 u/Galvanized_Dreamer 09 Jan 2017 00:30
If you want to learn basic programming logic, go with QBasic or something akin. Pretty much the only language that has made any sense to me up until now.
1 u/theoldguy 09 Jan 2017 15:45
Let's see you fill in a string array with of the current directory listing with that and let me know how that goes.
1 u/Galvanized_Dreamer 09 Jan 2017 15:47
Well, I'm having trouble figuring out how to how to make an input repeat rather than default to "Y" when I don't enter a character. I doubt that will be a problem for a good while.
1 u/scared_yung_father 09 Jan 2017 00:49
What about Elixir?
1 u/lemonobrien 09 Jan 2017 01:57
i do c and java; html, css, and javascript sometimes; sometimes win32ish; database; i've been programing since 92 professionally; before innernett'n
1 u/lmkevin 09 Jan 2017 03:58
I know every language on this list. Obviously I've worked with more than others, but can someone explain to my why PHP is so hated? Like an actual logical reason? I'm not defending it, for instance one thing I hate about php is that it implements OOP and it causes the newer libraries to be programmed by plebs which in makes it a bad language to work with. This could be the same reason to have C++ or Java however...
1 u/eqi397 09 Jan 2017 04:58
easy choice - PHP
1 u/TAThatBoomerang 09 Jan 2017 15:50
I have a few in my family who are programmers and they also said that Python is a good place to start if you're not interested in HTML.
0 u/wesofx 14 Jan 2017 03:32
LALALALA I'M NOT LISTENING LALALALALA
0 u/cruelecole 17 Jan 2017 03:23
An argument could be made for including
R, for those aiming to focus on data analysis.