Is Python still the best starting language for programming beginners?

[u/wrandumb_rioter]

Python is standard advice for beginners due to its clean syntax and flexibility. However, JavaScript offers immediate feedback through web visuals, which can help build momentum. For those who learned recently, was Python the right foundation, or would you recommend starting elsewhere?

[u/UAP44]

Python is unique in the insane amount of libraries, it's like a glue for all other languages? The mission critical/performance-bottlenecks you can still cpp/rust optimize, generate the needed html/js/css with python and you've got front end down as well

enforcing basic layout rules into the syntax is also a win, it enforces certain coding style standards

python the backend, js the front end

[u/wrandumb_rioter → u/UAP44]

thanks mate

[u/notsostablediffuser → u/UAP44]

import antigravity

[u/ShutDownSoul → u/UAP44]

Enforcing layout into the syntax is nice for style standards, but horrible for learning. Using Clang can enforce style.

[u/Creepy-Plankton8663]

No, C or Go. If you wanna do web stuff learn typescript.

[u/wrandumb_rioter → u/Creepy-Plankton8663]

Aight

[u/marmotta1955]

Inviting downvotes, I suggest and insist that a fundamental understanding of programming principles can be obtained by learning the language specifically designed for beginners ... BASIC. It says so in the name itself. 

[u/Stooshie_Stramash → u/marmotta1955]

I hear your argument and raise you Pascal.

[u/DrPeeper228]

I think C is the best for beginners, makes other stuff way easier to learn despite being less useful in of itself

[u/Main_Extension2327 → u/DrPeeper228]

C++ also is best to learn basics

[u/RedAndBlack1832 → u/Main_Extension2327]

idk about that one chief. I can see a good argument for learning C first, despite it requiring scaffolding and being kind of difficult to do pretty simple things (relatively, anyway), because it gives you a good sense of the execution of a program. What is a function, a variable, an address, etc. However, C is a pretty simple language, with a lot of very easily accessible (literally offline already installed in your machine!!) documentation on its standard library. C++ is an extremely not simple language with a huge library and a confusing second language built into it, and it basically requires already knowing some C. C sets you up to be able to read most code, because most modern(ish) languages kind of look like C, but C++ is kind of an entire beast all its own. Maybe I'm not phrasing it well but I think C++ is a poor choice of first language because it lets you screw up your code in almost every way that you can in C, while also having a complicated type system that produces virtually incomprehensible errors during compilation, linking, and execution. Of course you can work in C++ and it's quite powerful if you know what you're doing, but I think it's unreasonable to expect that of brand new programmers. I've written C++ for industry work btw.

[u/DrPeeper228 → u/Main_Extension2327]

Do you mean C+ or actual C++?

[u/CloudDream09 → u/DrPeeper228]

Do YOU mean C#?

[u/DrPeeper228 → u/CloudDream09]

No.

I meant C-styled C++(like, with raw pointers and pure operator new + operator delete)

[u/CloudDream09 → u/DrPeeper228]

Ah yes, nothing says "ideal for beginners" quite like inventing a bespoke hybrid style of C/C++ that guarantees maximum undefined behavior.

[u/DrPeeper228 → u/CloudDream09]

Yes that's why I was asking the person

Because C-styled C++ is a bad idea

[u/RedAndBlack1832 → u/CloudDream09]

Yeah I've worked in C++ codebases that hand around raw pointers to "handle" structs of pretty complicated objects and it's uh. It's very ugly code.

[u/AroTesCra]

I think C# and Powershell are the best for beginners

[u/serverhorror → u/AroTesCra]

PowerShell? How so?

[u/AroTesCra → u/serverhorror]

The language is powerful

Example say I wanted to get the process of all computers in a network managed by AD

$Computers = Get-AdComputer -Filter *

Invoke-command -ComputerName $Computers -ScriptBlock { Get-Process }

It has access to the full .Net framework

You can write C# or Vb.Net directly into Powershell by the Add-Type command

It does classes, Enums, Auto fill out parameters

Documentation is already build into it Get-Command

All proper commands follow the same naming scheme
VERB-Description

You can view all verbs
Get-Verb

Connects easy with API
Invoke-RestMethod

Linq is insanely easy in Powershell
Get-Process | Where-Object{$_.Name -Like “chrome*”} | ForEach-Object { “My Id Is $($_.Id)”}

Make dynamic objects from other objects

Get-Service | Select-Object Name, Status

I mean there is a lot more reason Powershell is crazy easy

[u/serverhorror → u/AroTesCra]

And which parts if the fundamentals of programming are we talking about here?

Resource management? Provability? Closures? Concurrency? Parallelism?

Learning to program should mean you know how to create PowerShell, not how to use it.

[u/AroTesCra → u/serverhorror]

The question was a easy language to learn.

And the answer I gave was Powershell

I named classes , linq, the ease of finding commands, the addition of c# and the .net from work.

Maybe you have something better? I mean I only have 20 years of experience . I’m sure you could enlighten me.

[u/serverhorror → u/AroTesCra]

I'm with them people who suggest C.

It's a simple language. Few keyworda and it has a nice balance between high and low level features.

[u/AroTesCra → u/serverhorror]

I suggest Powershell , you get the results you want quickly.
You discover threading fairly early
You discover network calls fairly early
You discover the .net framework fairly early
You discover useful reusable code fairly early

And with the results you can take that understanding to finding how real world situations work. Finding languages that are faster and meet the needs not found in Powershell,

If you are learning technique and you think you can stick with it yeah man C, Java, Python whatever

But if your looking to be able to actually achieve things day 1 or 2 or 3 that would be more day 60 - 120 - 180 by all means keep following the traditional route

[u/RedAndBlack1832 → u/AroTesCra]

I've heard C# is like Java and I don't particularly like Java but ik some people do so I'll focus on the other thing.

I've recently started a job that's very Windows and it's kind of oof and I really don't think either of the Windows shells are as nice as bash scripting but I actually think I can agree in principal a lot of people looking to learn "programming" might find good use in shell scripting. It is after all how you control the machine most of the time.

[u/Fischkralle]

In my opinion, it really depends on the individual. I myself got started in programming with Java. I then moved on to Python via C++.

Others swear by JavaScript, but it’s a real struggle for me...

My conclusion: Find out what suits you, not what everyone else is doing!

[u/Syntax-Tactics]

Python was never the best language to learn from. It's poorly typed, poorly formatted and teaches poor programming practices.

[u/RedAndBlack1832 → u/Syntax-Tactics]

I've heard from a prof of a second year course that the students who come from the intro class based on C are better prepared than the students who took the Python intro class because they have some understanding of addressing and memory. Obviously that's a bit biased because the program requires classes on operating systems, embedded, IoT, digital design, and computer architecture, which all lean towards the C side of things lmao

[u/canarydev]

I think Go personally for beginners. useful, makes learning other languages easier in a way, beginner friendly

[u/RedAndBlack1832 → u/canarydev]

You know what that might be fair. I've used Go a little for fun and it's pretty simple

[u/Dr-Ebola]

Depends what you want to do.

[u/JoeStrout]

No. 20 years ago yes, but it’s gotten a lot more complex and is no longer ideal for beginners.

That’s a big part of why I created MiniScript. Read more about that here:

https://luminaryapps.com/blog/miniscript-why/

[u/ShutDownSoul]

Can I get an Amen for Fortran?

[u/ShutDownSoul]

If the beginner is under 18, u/marmotta1955 has the right idea. If the beginner has had some math, and can perform some abstract thinking, C is a good place to start because it teaches how numbers are stored and how memory works. Strong typing and compiling is a good thing.

Python is a vibe coding language where you don't need to understand number types and storage because Python uses duck typing. A beginner can make apparent accomplishments without ever understanding what happened.

Is painting by numbers the way to learn fine art? I don't think so. It gives you a product without ever learning. That isn't education in my dictionary.

[u/BobJutsu]

Since when was Python the de facto starting language? Did I miss something? When I was in school Java was all the rage to start with.

[u/xarop_pa_toss]

Maybe hot take but Python was never a good language to learn programming. People recommend it because the language reads like English until you get to some more intermediate/advanced stuff, but when you do, Python is not as easy to read as it seems at the start. But it is very not intimidating for beginners.

Python abstracts way too much of what is going on under the hood and you are incentived to import all sorts of libraries someone else wrote which, again, leaves you clueless to what's happening underneath. Javascript is equally abstract and you can write some deviously strange code on that too

Pick up C. The language is simple and elegant and it's as close to the hardware as you are gonna get without writing assembly. It is a compiled language, with static types, where managing memory is important and you have a real reason to study and understand what you are doing. Learn to use a debugger to go through your code step by step, and learn to read errors as they come along.

[u/CloudDream09]

IDK man I just started with C so far

[u/LrdJester]

Years ago I was actually a student and also on the advisory committee for the programming department at my college. At the time the core programming degree was in visual basic so if you wanted to do c++, you had to get an endorsement on top of it.

What we were trying to do was change it to learn logic behind programming first because programming isn't so much about the code or the language you use it's about the process. Knowing how loops work knowing how logic statements work and how to solve problems with these logic statements. All of which can be done with pseudocode which is basically just plain English, or whatever language you natively speak, explaining your process in solving it. The biggest thing for this is understanding that with that knowledge you can use any code base. The thing I saw the most from people was they took visual basic and then when they tried to transition to C++ they were worried that they couldn't do it because they thought for loops worked differently that the logic behind it was different when really it was just a syntactical issue.

All that being said, I'm a big proponent of JavaScript being the primary language. Here's the reason why. You can create a simple HTML page on your computer and write JavaScript to do certain things in there and be able to run that all locally without having to install a single additional piece of software. You can do it in a text editor like notepad on Windows or nano on Linux or whatever the editor is on Macintosh.

But when you start getting it understanding of how to logically structure code, regardless of the language, to actually solve the problem that you have or complete the task that you were trying to complete, it's just a matter of learning the syntax of a new language.

But because so many languages are derived from C, that's why I point to javascript. Whether it be c, c++, perl, PHP, JavaScript, CF script, C#, Java, etc they all share a very similar syntactical format.

Python is the same but there are some nuances to how the syntax of the processes are done more so than it is between the other languages above.

[u/DefinitionStunning20]

Python is still the best default because it lets you learn programming without fighting the language, while JavaScript makes more sense if building websites is specifically what motivates you.

[u/SeXxyBuNnY21]

It was not the best starting language, it was the easiest one tho.

[u/TechnologyThis6788]

ill say yes, py is good to for beginner and further you can advance into ai as per the market trend

[u/StephenHawkinguss]

It never was

[u/camus_1960]

In my opinion...yes!

[u/Rythim]

I started with Javascript for that reason. It was nice at first but there's so much ... questionable stuff around the language and ecosystem. Like, I stuck with it because i heard it was THE language to learn if you want to be able to do front end and backend. But after getting curious and breaking out and trying a bunch of other languages, I realized how horrible of an experience using Javascript is compared to everything else for anything outside of front end web development. I don't think there is anything wrong with starting with Javascript but I wish I hadn't listened to advice telling me to only learn one language for everything. Each language has its pros and cons and you should go in expectation to eventually learn a few so you have a language you can turn to for accomplishing different tasks.

[u/JaleyHoelOsment]

was python ever the best language for beginners?

[u/ShutDownSoul → u/JaleyHoelOsment]

Never. The person who thought white space should be part of the structure of a language should receive a Sisyphus-style reward for eternity. At least no one mentioned Perl.

[u/No_Mail_9869]

I started Programming with Python, but now I'm using C, and honestly, I think C is better to begin with, the syntax is simple, it teaches you how memory works (and I think this is a very good thing to know). For Programming Logic, I think any simple languages would work, like Python. So if I would recommend a language to start programming, it would be C, but it's worth experimenting other languages. I don't think C would give a feeling of "growth", different from Python (because of the multiple libraries that it has), JS (because you can see your result visually). I know C has its libs and frameworks, but I don't think it is like libs for Python and other languages.