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Ask HN: What prgramming language to learn?

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Re: Ask HN: What prgramming language to learn?

#4
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.

Re: Ask HN: What prgramming language to learn?

#5
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.

C is hardly object oriented.

Re: Ask HN: What prgramming language to learn?

#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.

Re: Ask HN: What prgramming language to learn?

#7
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.

You know it's low level? How is it different?

The main difference you will probably notice pertains to addressing the computer memory, through pointers and through manual memory allocation/deallocation.

In a broad sense, Java is pretty similar to C. I think if you wanted a perspective-altering experience, learn something like Lisp or Haskell. But I agree that there is value in learning C. You should probably learn both C, and Lisp or Haskell or Scheme or whatever functional-ish language looks interesting.

(This is with the assumed goal of getting an overview of programming language styles. If you have specific application-building demands, then language choice may be more dictated by that, e.g., Objective-C for iOS.)

Re: Ask HN: What prgramming language to learn?

#8
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?

Re: Ask HN: What prgramming language to learn?

#9
From a similar position I found scala was the best help professionally. It combines the best of both - lightweight syntax like python, but with strong typing and the java library ecosystem - better still, you can introduce it into a java project bit by bit.

Re: Ask HN: What prgramming language to learn?

#10
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.

I agree with octo_t and would also suggest learning C. If you have ZERO experience, start learning Programming with "Scratch" http://scratch.mit.edu/ (or "BASIC" when you like retro). Yes seriously, even if it looks childish, just do it. That's logic 101.

After at least 1-2years I would suggest that you start learning Lisp, then Elixir http://elixir-lang.org/

If you thought becoming a programmer is easy, everybody can do that, you're right, but becoming a good programmer is NOT. You have to learn the scientific background, if you want to understand things and not just use what get. For that matter I would recommend reading SICP.

Well, let's say you don't want to become a good programmer, but just make money, then go and learn ABAP, Cobol, ADA or JavaEE. (Just beware that some Pro C guy, could make you jobless one day, by writing a LLVM back-end that converts existing code to LLVM bytecode and then to C.

There are many people who have the same question, I would recommend @pg to propose a FAQ containing info about it.

That's the best advice I can give you currently, but if you know somebody who can give you better advice, then please let me know about it too. Because what doI know, nothing, everybody can benefit from your and other people's experiences.

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