Programming

I found it easier to start with something considered medium difficulty, because "easy" languages abstract away a lot of problems of programming. So when certain problems arise, its hard to understand what is happening behind the scenes.

If you want to build something, python is great. If you wanna learn programming, it might be confusing.

Where did you get the idea that Zig is an "easy" language?

I get paid a whole lot to work solely in Deluge. which is the most painfully simple language ever. you want a join() built in? fuck you. sleep()? not allowed. you want a "for i in range()"? nope, they don't do that here.

simple languages are often the most used in production unless you're doing something highly specific that warrants a specific language.

I think yes, simple languages are worthwhile as a starting place, because complicated subjects like programming are easier to learn in chunks. With a simple language you can focus on the analytical part of programming and not muddy it up with learning the details of a complex language. When people do it the opposite way they might end up knowing how to use C++ or whatever and think they're programmers, but they don't understand how to break down a problem into logical parts and organize an app - and those are the important skills that make good code.

Anything is better than nothing.

Go and Zig are serious languages. Go is especially established and has a big ecosystem and capabilities. You could stick with Go forever if you don't want to expand afterwards.

Starting 'simpler' is better because it gives you successes. It keeps you going.

Programming is a tool. Systems understanding is what has value. Pick a system you want to learn and actively build and fail consistently.

Repeated exposure to reality is the way to learn fast and gain confidence.

crazy to call zig, a low level systems language, an "easy" language

no. You must start with malboge

Zig or Go are serious programming languages. Zig is actually the language I would least recommend for complete beginners because in my opinion it is one the most serious languages currently. What lead you to your examples Zig and Go and how do you determine what a 'serious' programming language is?

I learned with python and switched to rust when that started to piss me off. It'll be awhile until you know enough about why you want a different language for a task. Until then, python and JavaScript are totally fine; you may never even need to leave those ecosystems depending on what you want to do.

Any language is good to start with. When you learn a language pick one that makes sense to you. The main thing you are learning is not the language it's how to change how you think about problems. From there the differences between languages are technical and any language can be conquered in time except JavaScript because fuck JavaScript.

Logic is common to all programming languages. Everything else is syntax and knowing what functions or utilities you can capitalize on. No matter how complex things seem under the hood it's only one instruction at a time that is being processed. Speed and memory make it seem like multitasking. It's as simple as "If this, then that". Once you get the foundations of logic down, you're good to go. Everything else is experience and time takes care of that. Good luck and have fun. As far as confidence goes my mantra throughout life, especially when faced with complex situations is a derisive "How hard can this be?", while plodding forward.

Zig and Go are serious. I think Python would be a language that isn't serious (despite it's widespread use in serious applications) but has a reputation for being easy. I don't know if that reputation is really deserved.

Anyway I would start with one of Python, Go or Typescript (via Deno). I would avoid Rust, Haskell, OCaml, C++ as your very first language, but they could be your second.

Whatever you do don't learn Python and stop there. That's the way to be a crap programmer. And if you do use Python learn to use type hints early on.

Go seems like a good option to begin with; you can do a lot with it, and it's not that complicated but does expose you to concepts like pointers.

There are plenty of very "serious" systems written in Go (e.g. Kubernetes), it's not a toy language.

Nothing is easy when learning programming from scratch and by yourself ; just choose whatever you feel is cool (at beginner level, it does not make a big difference).

Avoid the compilation process by using interpreted language

Go is as serious as it gets. Go is also pretty simple and gives you great foundation and understanding.

Either go with Go (!) or with a lisp like racket, following the book https://htdp.org/ These are different approaches but will give you a huge headstart and better understanding of how to actually design a system instead of getting lost in code. I personally recommend the second approach to people who ask me.

Python is one of the most-widely used languages in the world.

Go is easy??

Zig or go are not that unserious of languages. Zig is arguably quite hard due to being pretty low-level. Maybe think about what domain you want to do programming in.. Python might be a decent starting point tho (easy language, no memory management)

It takes a long time to learn how to code (5-10 years I would say), and learning multiple languages will only make you a better programmer. Besides, you're just starting out and have no idea how far you're going to get... I personally failed the first few times I tried and didn't really catch on until I was in university. Start with something easy, maybe learn something useful, then try a harder one. Starting with a harder language just increases the probability that you find it too hard and give up. And plenty of people start with easy languages and still fail anyway, so don't take success for granted, even with an "easy" language.

In any case, code is just a tool to get a job done, so I would say start with finding a job that you want to do and then learn the coding you need to accomplish it. I personally learned how to code by using Python instead of a calculator for my science and engineering assignments in university. Besides that, it's a great language for general purpose tasks on Linux/UNIX systems - you can use it for file sharing, task automation, writing chatbots, etc.

Writing games is another good source of motivation - you could use Pygame in Python, which has lots of tutorials that you could play around with. There's also Godot too - you could just start by following the tutorial and playing around with some of the scripts to see what they do.

Modern OOP is an antipattern.

I don't like complex languages. Why do i have to remember x100 for thing that a proper design from start would have accomplishedd? Some of the larger ones even have different keywords for basically the same task duplicated.

If you are learning because you are just interested in this, then I might say go with any language like C/Go where you have real datatypes you can work with.

C might be a good place to start for a little while where you can learn the fundamentals like data types, logic, etc.

Once armed with the fundamentals, you can really just go wherever you desire, look at and maybe try a few to see what you like.

Learing the bases of programming is language agnostic really. You can start even with pseudo code, then learn the language you will like to work with. Just choose any language that seems fun and enjoy the process.

Good luck!

so one thing about programming languages is at the end of the day, they can all generally accomplish the same things. they are all turing complete and generally capable of expressing programs that any of the others can.

as others in this thread have said, many patterns you learn within one programming language will transfer to others. some personal context, i attended and then taught at a coding bootcamp for a year about a decade ago, saw over 300 students and have been doing software engineering since. it was full time and the students would learn ruby basics over 4 weeks and then would be able to do the same things in javascript in a few days. that said, those languages are pretty similar but i hope it makes the point.

so my main suggestion is to start with a general purpose, syntactically simple language. the less syntax and overhead in the language, the more you will be able to focus on the fundamentals of programming and less on jumping through the hoops of the language you're working with. stay away from typed languages for at least the first few months unless you really really only want to do low level stuff.

some languages i think you should consider: ruby, python, javascript. they are relatively similar for a beginner. python has more usage in data heavy scenarios due to it's extensive data libraries. ruby's whole mantra is being a joy to write. javascript is simple but that also means you don't get much help from it out of the box. consider it as a first/second language mainly if you are interested in websites.

I question the suggestion that Zig and Go are not "serious" programming languages. They certainly weren't designed to be "easy" beginner languages.

I don't think it matters a whole lot which language you start with. Learning to program is largely separate from learning a particular language, and if you do programming for a while, you'll probably learn several. I do think someone who wants to understand programming deeply should learn each of:

• A lisp, probably Racket, but others will do. This teaches a lot about how computation works, and is at least a local maximum for abstractive power.
• C, an assembly language, or something similar where the developer must manage memory manually and has the ability to mismanage it. This teaches how computers work.
• A statically typed functional language, probably Haskell. This makes programming more math-like and probably represents a local maximum for what can be proven about a program's behavior without solving the halting problem.
• SQL. I wish there was something prettier with a modicum of popularity that does what it does (PRQL is my favorite recent attempt), but there isn't. This teaches thinking about data in sets and relations, and you will almost certainly use it in practice.

The trouble with “easy” languages is that they allow you to write incorrect code without much pushback.

The trouble with “serious” languages is that they push back even when you’re writing correct code.

There’s plenty to learn from either route. Just pick something that piques your interest and dive in.