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Ask HN: What prgramming language to learn?

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Re: Ask HN: What prgramming language to learn?

#11

Post by vittore »

Dirty-flow wrote: post #4
octo_t wrote: post #2

If you don't know C, learn it. Its very different from python and java, but will give you a feel for whats going on "under the hood" so to speak in both those languages.

java and c are both object oriented programming languages so they are not so much different.

С++ is object oriented, Objective C is. C is not.

Re: Ask HN: What prgramming language to learn?

#12

Post by X4 »

redxblood wrote: post #8
wusatiuk wrote: post #6

this is a questions asked quite often and i guess there is only one answer: what do you want to achieve? Do you want to make Web Apps, Mobile Apps, Desktop Apps, Games,... there are so many different directions you can go, that you should first answer the questions WHAT and then answer the question HOW and not the other way around.

I guess desktop apps would be the answer. What do you recommend?

@wusatiuk is soo right, we should never give an answer to thise before OP tells us what he wants to achieve.

C++/C# looks like the thing you want. The other answers are STILL valid though. Depends on what platform you want to develop for. C# is windows only (don't argue with mono).

People reading this having the same question should give us this info next time:

    Age: Kid,Jr,Senior
    Experience:
    What you want to achieve: Desktop,Mobile,Web
    Platform support: iOS, Android, Windows, Linux, OSX, HP-UX, ...

Re: Ask HN: What prgramming language to learn?

#13

Post by zachlatta »

I recommend doubling-down and focusing on Java. It'll help you get fundamental programming concepts down and will give you a strong foundation in object-oriented programming.

I recommend learning C after Java. It's much more difficult to learn, but your prior Java experience will help you pull through.

Note: this all depends on what you mean by "some" programming experience.

Re: Ask HN: What prgramming language to learn?

#14

Post by dradtke »

Depends on what you want out of learning a new language. If you want to become more familiar with the fundamentals of computers and how they work, C is the best option; if you want to learn a new paradigm and way of thinking, I recommend Haskell; if you plan on doing any web stuff, JavaScript is pretty much a must; and if you want to be at the forefront of new language developments, go for one of the shiny new languages like Go or Rust (I'm currently taking this route).

Re: Ask HN: What prgramming language to learn?

#17

Post by joeldidit »

C was trivial to learn, don't listen to them. I learnt that first, and it made learning other languages easy (most popular languages are modeled after C). Mobile is a hot market, so it'd be good to learn Objective C. Also, Javascript is another popular one. Then I hear talk of learning Haskell and Lisp "just because," but I don't do anything "just because."

Re: Ask HN: What prgramming language to learn?

#18

Post by digipaper »

octo_t wrote: post #2

If you don't know C, learn it. Its very different from python and java, but will give you a feel for whats going on "under the hood" so to speak in both those languages.

What projects can be done in C (and only C). I used C while learning programming but never built anything useful or any system in it.

Re: Ask HN: What prgramming language to learn?

#19

Post by S4M »

octo_t wrote: post #2

If you don't know C, learn it. Its very different from python and java, but will give you a feel for whats going on "under the hood" so to speak in both those languages.

Zed Shaw has published a good (IMHO) resource to learn C, in the "learn python the hard way" style: http://c.learncodethehardway.org/

Re: Ask HN: What prgramming language to learn?

#20

Post by AsmMAn »

C or C++ (or both) and C#. This new languages like, Rust,Go etc you may learn after C or C++ (IMHO). It's because by using C programming language you learn much more how the computer/software works in background than using high-level ones. But don't give much of your time on it, if you aren't focusing system applications.
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