Best first real language?

[a thing]

I already know HTML, XHTML, CSS and some Bash and I'm looking to learn a more powerful language. I just read ESR's guide to becoming a hacker and he suggests Python. Thoughts?

[bidi]

I started with Pascal. To tell you the truth I never went to anything else. I'm not extremely interested in programming, but it comes in handy some times. Pascal is a great first language because it's very structured and because of that the compiler will usually catch your errors. I've heard people bash Pascal just because it's an older language, but you know what, up till 2001 a lot of Universities used it as their "entry" language. If you're interested I have a great online book that was taken off-line, but not before I downloaded everything.

Like I said though, most people will call it old and out-dated, but in my opinion it's a great starting point because the syntax is very strict and the compiler will catch most errors. I use FreePascal as my compiler.

[SpaceSquad]

Pascal is a good base language.

But I have heard that Python is a good language to learn aswell. I am looking into this so that I can better program games in blender.

[anomie]

I'm with ESR. Python is clean, easy to get started with and powerful. (Ditto for Ruby, I hear.)

[jens]

I already know HTML, XHTML, CSS and some Bash and I'm looking to learn a more powerful language. I just read ESR's guide to becoming a hacker and he suggests Python. Thoughts?

I only like python for starters.
It's very easy and reasonably funcitonal. On the other hand, it's also very slow.
IMO one should never use python if speed will matter(the main reason why Yum is so annoying slow).
I also find it creates rather ugly(and huge) code(even compared to perl).

Why not just C ?

[dark_flame]

I am also curious about this question.

[genesus]

C [++] is the only programming language that I know, and I really like it...been trying to learn another, but I also have difficulty in choosing...I've heard really good things about ruby though.

[bryansmith]

I'd go with Python. It's easy and it teaches you proper programming style.

Bryan

[Cabhan]

I dunno Python, but I hear it's a good first language.

genesus, I went to Java after I learned very basic C++. The two are very similar in many ways, except that in Java, arrays and Strings are easy to use, and memory is handled automatically for you.

It's not as powerful, but it's a pretty nice language.


But for a first language, if you can't take a class (which I would say is the best way to learn to program), I hear good things about Python.

[jens]

it teaches you proper programming style.

Only if you like object oriented programming