Want to know what programming language to choose? Read inside...

[Raithlin]

Tips on choosing a programming language to learn

I’m often asked: How do you pick which programming language to use in your development work? It’s a fair question, particularly for people with little or no experience in the development field. The great temptation is for me to just say, “use XYZ language.” Instead, I think it is better to explain how to think about choosing the language with which to work.

When you’re thinking about which programming language to learn, you need to ask yourself the following five questions in order to come up with the right decision for your needs.

 

[Necuno]

English is also good to study

 

[Kaufies]

English is also good to study

I'm yet to find a good compiler for English, also, an IDE is non-existent and notepad isn't really my style.

 

[dequadin]

That article delivers large amounts of meh

Lisp or Smalltalk? Ruby I agree, but what about Python or Perl? Sure it's all argumentative, but then he goes on to say choose a well documented language with a good community? have you seen how unpopular those languages are? That's probably the main reason why I recomend C#, with that you should be able to get started on any "first time project" using just CodeProject, never mind the rest of the internets. I have this problem with some legacy VB 6.0 stuff I'm supporting, your Google-ing needs to be a bit more sharp to get decent info.

Lets not get into the debate of why you should bother with an IDE, yes I know real programmers use butterflies.

Pick a "project", pick a langue and just do it.

 

[guest2013-1]

I'm thinking of starting the Delphi route for some odd reason...

 

[greggpb]

I think is depends largely on the person's goals...

"Oh I wanna learn a programming language because it will be gun and make my job a bit easier" go learn VB.. its integrates into everything windows,office and command line. very simple and forgiving.

If you wanna do it as a career.. start with c++.. not that you will work to much in it but it will give you a huge understanding on how computers and memory work the use of the stack and heap.. and a real good basis to learn any of the other programming languages out there.

 

[greggpb]

I'm thinking of starting the Delphi route for some odd reason...

Delphi/pascal used to be the first port of call for most programmers . Its where I started . but it has fallen by the wayside and is not very main stream(any more) I still get calls from recruitment company's and the last time i used delphi(commercially) was pre--2000.

Since the head of borland development, who developed the original delphi IDE's moved to Ms to create build the VS products. it has become almost the benchmark for development..

 

[Raithlin]

Yes, the article delivers questions and not much else (that's the usual from the author), but it does raise some interesting questions. Why do I want to program? What do I want to do with it? Many seekers pop in here not knowing even the answers to those questions, and each time the question is asked (What should I learn), the answers (whatever we are using at the time) don't take the questor's circumstances into account. That's why I though this would be a good place for them to start looking. We can always answer the more detailed questions later on the forum.

 

[Nod]

Java will open a lot of doors job wise. Telecoms equipment also tend to use java a lot.