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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Nah; make them start by hard-wiring the "program" on a breadboard! 
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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I would recommend learning assembly. But it is hard for a beginner to learn. To develop a program it is not necessary to understand how computer works as long as you can use the APIs properly that your favorite framework provides. But it is always good and a plus to know exactly how computer works. If you learn C you can quickly move down to assembly to understand what actually happens when your program is executed. Or you can move up to any high level language like C++, C# or Java. I will not recommend learning OOP for beginners, because OOP is programming methodology that you may or may not use. Learning logic is important for beginners and implementing them in terms of computer instruction is what makes them programmer.
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It depends on why they want to program.
Steve
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Come on folks, these are two completely different things. You can't just lump them together like you can VB / mental retardation.
Marc
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The same could be set VB/VB.NET.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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You've been here long enough to realise that programming languages fall into two distict categories:
- Understood, therefore liked
- Not Understood, therefore disliked
How do you know so much about swallows? Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
modified 31-Aug-21 21:01pm.
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Brent Jenkins wrote: Understood, therefore liked
I understand but do not like VB, Ruby nor Javascript.
Marc
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VB wasn't that bad, VBScript was (is?) worse. I've never used Ruby, but I do like JavaScript
How do you know so much about swallows? Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
modified 31-Aug-21 21:01pm.
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Nothing is as bad as Perl IMO.
Kevin
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Nothing's really bad, just so many things got better
How do you know so much about swallows? Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
modified 31-Aug-21 21:01pm.
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Shame on you for omitting F# from the list.
And yes, I would pick an FP language because it is actually so much saner to work in.
Marc
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I beleive Scheme is still quite popular in some Universities (probably largely due to SICP[^])
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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Not easy to learn IMO. Though may be easier for a beginner than experienced procedural or OO devs.
Kevin
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Web? Javascript and probably node on the backend. Yes JS sucks; but it's also unavoidable in the web world and only having to learn a single language would probably make it easier.
Android Apps? Java. The native language is a much better choice than any of the various polyglot tools because 99.9% of the documentation is in it.
iOS Apps? Swift. Again go with the native form; and Objective C is both eye searingly ugly and too complicated to be a good first language.
General programming on a PC? C#. Both for the quality of the tooling available (VS > all); and because it's what I know best and would be able to teach easiest.
General Penguinland programming? Probably Python. I've expressed my distaste for syntactic whitespace quite vocally before; but it's supposed to be easy to learn and ubiquitous; for a starter both are important.
Game mod programming? Whatever the game of interest uses for it's mod language. I hope I don't need to explain this in any more detail.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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because I wanted to be on the winning team.
Really though, it would highly depend on why that person wanted to learn programming in the first place. You wouldn't recommend javascript for someone who wants to get into desktop applications. Likewise you wouldn't recommend VB for someone who doesn't have a learning disability.
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musefan wrote: Really though, it would highly depend on why that person wanted to learn programming in the first place. You wouldn't recommend javascript for someone who wants to get into desktop applications.
I agree with that. But I would start with something high-level in any case, so as to get them productive as soon as possible. Then, as a second language, go for C, C++ or whatever depending on their goals.
Looking at the results of this survey so far it seems the answers reflect what most CP-ers happen to be using right now, rather than what should be a first language.
Kevin
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Lisp or Forth
just because
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Forth?
Many people don't know the power of Forth. They are so indoctrinated into the C, C++, Java, HTML type of crap!
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Forth is a great first language
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Processing or Euphoria could do. But the development environment is more important. IDE's have become very complex. Interpreters would also be better than compilers. It's about looking for simplicity in the right places so that the focus can be placed on learning the basics.
Granted, I'm thinking of preadolescents. Once they hit puberty, they can hit the ground running if sufficiently motivated.
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Once they hit puberty, they will start chasing girls! 
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...because it makes it easy to do it properly, and teaches all the basic concepts. It forces you to think about what you are doing - if you don't learn about var and dynamic too early anyway - without penalising you by assuming it knows what you want.
And let's be honest, you can learn the whole of C# in a week, even if you are a slow student on your first language. It's the framework behind it that takes the time!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Well said.
OriginalGriff wrote: you can learn the whole of C# in a week
Don't know if I agree with you completely here, but I see the point you are trying to make.
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An experienced developer with OOPs experience can pick up the whole of C# in an afternoon! (It's a very simple language - the only complications are lambdas and so forth.)
Becoming competent in using C# means learning the framework behind it in order to do anything substantial, and that takes time. Lots of time.
But I'd expect a developer with good .NET experience (for VB or C++ etc) to be fully operational in well under a day.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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