New to prgramming - need help!

[pagh]

Hi everyone.

So I am quite new to linux and I figured that I would like to take up programming.
I have googled' far and wide and I cant seem to find a definite answer as to what the best starting language is! A friend of mine suggested C++ as a very good language to start off with. I am not quite sure about this however as it seems rather complicated to me (at least from what I have read on various random forums).

So my question is do you guys have any personal favorites when it comes to newbie programming languages, would C++ be a good idea - is there any real alternatives?

Any help would be appreciated as I would really like to get going on programming.

All the best, over and out.

[GregBrannon]

Python is the answer I see most often to your question. I don't know Python and can't agree or disagree, but it is included in every answer I've seen, so there must be something to it. If you Google "programming language to learn first," you'll get many hits and opinions to read.

Good luck. Pick one, get started, and keep us posted.

[JohnGraham]

This is only my personal opinion, but I would say that C++ is quite possibly one of the worst languages a new programmer can start out with. It's an absolute behemoth of a language. To get to C++ you start off with C (not a simple language, but not huge either) and add basically all aspects of object-orientated programming to it. Which is a lot - that in itself would make C++ huge, but the desire for backwards compatibility with C means that the object-orientated part of it is larger than in most languages, as it needs to provide you a means to do low-level stuff to high-level stuff. So you have all the low-level stuff, all the high-level stuff, and all the ways for them to interact. That's a lot of stuff for a beginning programmer to learn, let alone become competent at, and you'll get all manner of mysterious problems that could be anything to do with your OO design to misusing pointers or overstepping an array or the overloaded function you think's being called actually isn't or...

The first language you learn largely depends on what you want it for. I'd say:

• C if you want to do fairly low-level system programming. This also makes it much easer to transition to C++ when you're happy with everything in C (especially pointers).
• Python or Java if you want a general-purpose first language. Both are fairly clean and free of complications. I prefer Python for day-to-day use, but Java has an extensive class library behind it (i.e. you can do a lot more without having to install third-party libraries).

[gerard4143]

I always found C++ to be a bit much in size and complexity. I would start out with C.

If your looking for some goods titles then try:

The C programming Language by by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie

[Rubberman]

Favorite computer programming languages are a lot like religions, most people have one that they worship... and the rest are from the "other place"...

For learning how to program, I would recommend an interpreted language where you can run your code immediately without dealing with cruft such as compilers, makefiles, linkers, debuggers, etc. and that are well-structured languages with functions, proceedures, decent error handling, and possibly support for classes. The latter (classes) helps one to think about the structure of the data they are manipulating, and the functions/processes that they evoke or that manipulate them in a consistent manner. So, with that in mind, python might be a reasonable place to start.

[Freston]

It's always difficult to recommend something like this to someone. One might ask on a forum 'what car should I buy' and one person will recommend a truck and the other a sports car. Personally I like black cars, but they tend to get real hot in the summer...

Well, if you are drawn to programming and are new to Linux, I guess starting with Bash is mandatory

It's not Real Programming, as with C, C++ or Java, but incredibly useful. And it has many of the basic building blocks, like loops, conditional statements, arrays and the like. It wont make you a programmer, but it's useful in day to day operation of a Linux box so it's never waisted.

[elija]

Python does seem to be a popular starting language. More important however, is learning the concepts of programming and how to program. Learn to program and the language will become less relevant as they will usually just be syntactic differences.

A while loop is a while loop
A for loop is a for loop and
An if statement is an if statement.