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posted by martyb on Friday November 04 2016, @07:09PM   Printer-friendly
from the choose-logically dept.

We've had this question asked before I believe but it does no harm in asking it again and again. After all, opinions change as does the software ecosystem. Quincy Larson of FreeCodeCamp.com asked this question via Medium: What programming language should you learn first? He thinks JavaScript is the way to go and his arguments are cogent and well thought out. However, I am somewhat hesitant to suggest someone learn to code in JavaScript first. My first programming language (in 1981!) was Fortran on a Control Data mainframe. The interactive environment the OS provided was pretty simple and the language provided few opportunities to hang yourself. JavaScript, by comparison, while it may not have those evil pointers of C/C++, it offers functional features and plenty of rope to hang oneself.

So, opinions please.


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  • (Score: 2) by choose another one on Saturday November 05 2016, @02:11PM

    by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Saturday November 05 2016, @02:11PM (#422835)

    Holy fuck, check your privilege. In 1981, novice programmers were lucky enough to use Applesoft Basic on an Apple II, not Fortran on a goddamn mainframe.

    Check your timeframes - this is entirely plausible. In 1970s and earlier there were no training wheels for programming, and everyone was a novice until getting into workplace or university with a computer, and then you'd go straight on to the big iron because that was all there was.

    By mid 80's it's different: the home computer boom had almost been and gone, and most kids had access to computers in schools or at home, and most of those computers would have a BASIC interpreter, and kids were far more likely to actually use to them to learn some programming.

    So I didn't consider myself a novice programmer when I started my first trainee programming job in mid 80s - I knew BASIC and a bit of assembly after all. I was dropped straight into large scale Vax FORTRAN and DCL. Shortly after I was finding and fixing a suspected compiler problem on large scale CORAL66 and project because one else there knew assembly, or was daft enough to say they did, of course I knew nothing about the target processor architecture or assembler either...

    I also wasn't a novice when later I went to university and the first programming course was FORTRAN on a mainframe (ours was IBM though).

    However, even by the late 80s, there were _some_ people I started work or university with who _were_ complete computer novices, and they still got put straight on Vaxen or mainframes just the same.

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