9 replies to this topic

[Jelllio]

Hello. I am new to the forum, and know absolutely nothing about programming. However, I do want to learn. There are countless programming languages, but I don’t know which one I should begin with. I am great with Algebra (I have heard that is important), and am determined to learn anything, no matter the difficulty. What do you advise I should learn first, and why?

Thanks!

[Alexander]

Welcome to our forums! A lot of languages like C require a fair amount of knowledge of memory, how it works and how to manipulate it to get programs to work, therefor you may wish to start off with a scripting language like Python. Many schools would choose Python, and many math students utilize it because it is relatively simple to work with algorithms, and explore things such as arbitrary precision integers and working with files out of the box.

Some non-programmer guides for python can be found here (tutorials and/or books) if you're interested:
BeginnersGuide/NonProgrammers - PythonInfo Wiki

It fully supports features in other languages, and can even be run on the web with mod_python.

Java is also a great one if you want to get into a heavier (bytecode compiled) language, it has its own memory management system so you do not need to worry about memory leaks, and you can work with complex GUI applications/applets out of the box (Python has wxPython though too), Java would be the next best option in my opinion.

More can be found here:
What Is Java?

[Jelllio]

Thanks so much for the swift reply! I am purchasing a book on Java as we speak.

[WingedPanther]

Adding to that, a lot depends on what you want to do. Web programming has different standard languages from application languages. It also depends on whether you want to do cross-platform programming or not.

[Jelllio]

I am more interested in web programming.

[Alexander]

In that case there is ASP (A Windows server language), Coldfusion by Adobe, Ruby on Rails (a great framework) or PHP. I would certainly recommend PHP due to the easiness of the scripting language, it can be easily combined into HTML etc. There are just some security issues you need to understand and keep in mind while learning it.

[WingedPanther]

I would NOT recommend ASP (having coded in it, CF, and PHP). PHP is fairly easy and free. CF is free for development but publishing anything requires a licensed copy of Cf on the server.

[Jelllio]

I purchased two books; one about Java, and the other about PHP.

[xcislav]

For your mathematician-like mind ASSEMBLER is the best. Why on Earth nobody says about it. It is the beginning of all the beginnings. Traditionally is considered one of the most difficult programming languages. It is very naturally to begin with assembly. It is really cool. And when you .. in the future will write complex programs, it will be a great nostalgie. From the very top (web-designer or drawer level) it could be scarcely seen how many titanical work the processor does. BTW it is the one, the very first language that appeared in the history of all programming languages. It shows how the heart of computer work (the main microprocessor) .. as new processor arrive on scene - the newer and newer sets of commands are added to language itself. Yes .. it's extravagant.. but think again (to be simply a designer it is not very hard ;-)

[mr mike]

Java, Javascript(no relation to java), Ruby(as NullWorm suggested), PHP, and for your liking of math try Prolog(logic based language)