What language is good as a first language? Why? What was yours?

>drop out of high school
>worm myself into programming courses on a community college as a last measure of getting my shit straight
>they're teaching VB6 as the introduction language
>immediately drop out
>year of being a NEET later
>browse /r9k/
>huh, autismbux sounds kinda nice
>read up on autism, digest as much information and personal stories as possible
>"I can do this!"
>throw an absurd tantrum at a large mall
>spent three months in a locked down psych ward acting as autistic as possible
>get a full-blown diagnosis
>welfare up the rectum
>fast-forward 4 years
>shitpost my life story on /g/
Oh, and Python is pretty much the go-to language for beginners.

Pascal or Python, because they're the easiest to teach/learn.
I would go with C next.

PHP. Alright, I'm out of here. Have fun.

>>56984672
python

>>56984672
>What was yours?
PHP or Perl, I forget.

>>56984672
python syntax is weakly typed enough for someone who has never programmed before to learn basic programming syntax and concepts. I don't write a whole ton in python, but i could definitely see how it has its advantages in that regard. My first language was Java, and go ahead /g/ burn me at the stake, but to this day i still really like a lot about how java works. but now i mostly write in C

I think English is pretty good as a first language, or Mandarin if you want to think globally.
My first language was Albanian but I know English, Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin and Cantonese as well.

As for programming languages, I was taught Turing in highschool and it's decent for young kids to get a hold of programming fundamentals. My first actual language was C, which is great because it teaches you about memory management even if you don't end up using a language that needs it.

>>56984857
I've always thought weak typing would be more difficult for beginners. Bugs happen and weak typing can make it a pain for a newbie to understand what went wrong.

Not really relevant to Python since it has one of the best debuggers/VMs but still.

>>56984891
>I think English is pretty good as a first language
Lol no
It's an oversimplified language.

I thought I liked python. I can tell after two years that I do not enjoy programming on it. I would rather do VBA than python.

But for my job FORTRAN still the boss.

>>56984917
I definitely agree but most people end up speaking only one. If you're going to do one then might as well do English right.

Otherwise I would recommend a language with diverse sounds like Albanian or Arabic.

>>56984773
nice roleplay

>>56984917
>It's an oversimplified language.
Yeah that must be why ESL students always speak it so well

>>56984907
See that's just it, most novice programmers have so little idea whats actually going on "underneath the hood" if you will. If you actually want to learn about memory management and try yourself as a programmer, learn C

Mine was C, it was a degree requirement for ME.

Never used it after that.

Hi

I think C still. Don't spend a bunch of time with it but it'll open your mind to how computers work a little more.

Then I recommend learning scheme.

Then do whatever you want. You'll pretty much be able to understand and use any language

QBasic was my first language in HS.

Then I tried to learn Python with a friend and didn't do so well at it. Then I did PHP and a little JavaScript. Then I went back to Python and got a job doing Python, Javascript, etc (and some nasty VB.NET).

Java.

>>56985146
Elabowate

Get a copy of K&R, download BSD or some other *nix, and practice using gcc and gdb from the command line. There's always a steady demand for people who can write C for new hardware / utilities / whatever. C also was one of the first languages created so you''ll notice it's easier to be language agnostic and switch over to Java or C# or whatever if you end up as a dev or some shit

Python was the first language I studied on my own before going to college. C++ was what they taught extensively at my college, so I became pretty familiar with that one. I'd probably recommend Python the most for your first. Though the mandatory white space gets extremely annoying when you're pretty advanced and know a few languages, I think it encourages more readable code when you do go to those other ones. Having been a TA and grading work in the C++ courses can be frustrating when each of the 30 or so students has a different style and there are a few who simply doesn't bother after turning off the editor's auto indent (or they make things worse by badly indenting after writing it) and the smartass who does everything on one line or some other "creative" way.

>>56984929
What job requires FORTRAN?

I can't think of a better first language than C.

It depends on what context you want to learn.

Scripting languages are good for starting out.

You get something up and running very quickly and you can get into the semi complex tasks without dealing too much with the negative sides of programming.

Another way to get started is by learning the low level stuff first.
Get an embedded platform and program that with assembler.
Go into datasheets, look into of how the physics work, so you can manipulate more hardware.

I personally started the low level route.
While I played a bit with a bunch of things personally, my education went:
asm -> matlab -> C++ -> C -> C++
Then through work, I also had to do some JS and R for some obscene reasons.

C++ is a great language because you can describe problems in almost any way or paradigm that makes it the easiest.
That said, I don't think it is the best language to start with.
Writing C++ is rather easy, but there is so much hassle that comes with compiling stuff that you might be better off just focusing on the code.
Using an IDE will make it much easier, so you can in theory use whatever language that fits what you want to accomplish.

But learn how to program.
Don't learn language X.
Because languages and libraries evolve and you will not use the same language for everything forever.

>>56984917
>English
>oversimplified
We have more phonetics than every other language combined.

You want to know how to pronounce something in English? Fuck you.

>>56984672
C. It's easy to grasp the basics and teaches you some important shit to make your code better. It has a syntax similar to C++ and makes an easy jump to C++ or C# if you want. Although C++ is easier than C imo, but has much more to it such as classes which wouldn't even be used by beginners. Any C variant will most likely land you a job and is easy to learn.

Mine was LOGO in elementary school, we learned Basic (done in QBasic) and html after it. High school was Pascal and pseudocode, and college was C > C# > Java and C++.

Worst languages to start with would probably be any objective oriented only ones and python. OOP is too advanced for beginners, and python is a toy language which won't teach you anything useful.

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My first language was BlitzBasic when I was about 11, but I didn't get very far. The first language I learned properly was Java with eclipse. Java is kind of rubbish if you care at all about having control over your machine, but at least it is easy to learn. From there you can either make the jump to C++ or C if you really want to.

>>56985333
>he doesn't know Portuguese

>>56985333
It may have tons of phonetics, but this is due to it's simplicity, lack of letters and words. It also doesn't have grammatical cases such as nominative, accusative and others. Comparing English to other languages is like comparing python to java.

>>56984773
>merely pretending
>for a quick buck
>instead of making money doing shit you like
well, you are definately on the spectrum

>>56985333
This is very wrong. English is just about average in all regards, particularly its phonemic inventory.

If you're looking for an "easy" language that many people speak, Spanish is a good place to start. It's still pretty hard, though. There's not really such a thing as an easy language that people use every day. As soon as children grow up speaking a language, they'll just invent ways for it to be complicated, because they need to be able to say complicated things.

PS. "Phonetics?" I think the word you want is "phonemes."

>>56985537
>It also doesn't have grammatical cases such as nominative, accusative and others
English has three cases. Two of them are identical for everything except pronouns. That doesn't mean they don't exist. It just means they're frequently invisible.

>It may have tons of phonetics
For fuck's sake, you too?

t. linguist

>>56985537
>it's simplicity
>doesn't understand what "nominative case" means
well memed miguel

>>56985630
I understand what all of them mean. I had Latin :^)

Just pick up anything with an established resource pool to draw on. BASIC used to be the spot but today there are a million and one resources for Java, C, Python, PHP, JS, Ruby, and a hundred other languages for every one modern VB page.

Starting low at C then moving up to Java is good if you're intending to go system or desktop level. PHP and SQL if you want to into to being a webdev that does something other than HTML and CSS monkey spunk.

Can't taking OOP principles early confuse a novice and distract them from understanding how computer works?

>>56986159
Yes. This is why you see CS graduates who know all about GoF design patterns, but can't actually program their way out of a paper bag.

>>56986159
That's kinda the point of university, isn't it? You go there to learn abstractions, data structures and algorithms. You don't go to university to actually learn to do something. Thus, no CS graduates know how to program but everybody can invert a binary tree on a whiteboard.

>What language is good as a first language?
Any of them.
>Why?
If you're really set on learning to program, you're going to learn other languages and learn the idiosyncrasies of each one regardless, and will learn core principles no matter what.
>What was yours
Ruby

I learned a little bit of Basic years ago on my ZX Spectrum. I lost interest in it after a while though. I did a very small amount of HTML years ago. Just very simple stuff for my own amusement.

>>56986592
>>56986554
I'm going through uni right now (Went back to school after doing a shitload of .NET factory programming at a job I'm still not sure how I got) and this is pretty much what I'm finding out, it's really disappointing.
My last homework assignment was to "write test scenarios for these test cases" and I thought "Oh cool something practical to know"
Nope, we literally just wrote the starting scenario, the change, then the expected result as pseudocode in a text file. [A] -> add(B) -> [A,B]

Are there any good books I could read so I learn actually useful information and not just Java codemonkey training?

>>56986159
Some memes are memes, but some memes have a kernel of truth to them. The /g/ "just learn C" meme exists partly because of what you mentioned. Starting too high can give you a really warped understanding of languages and how they actually effect their instructions. It's much easier to go from the bottom upwards.

>>56986592
>That's kinda the point of university, isn't it?
I need to teach something a man with history degree, man.

Anything other than malbolge and you're normie retard tier.

>>56984672
Python.
It's honestly still one of my favorites even though I don't feel like a real programmer when I code it

TI Basic.

Bored in math class after finishing work early, so I was fucking with my calculator and found the programming feature. Taught myself the basics through trial and error, then moved on to Java.

>>56986159
Yeah, it's true, but unless you're a bubbling retard, you can always figure you were wrong in your ways and learn the other core concepts later on.

It's not like you're locked to any one way of thinking, unless, again, you're a bubbling retard.

>>56985015
Exactly. It should be C, then python. It's so much better to teach someone C and have them struggle through the basics then show them Python or PHP to show the differences in having the minutiae abstracted away.

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>>56984773
you are like little baby