What programming languages should you learn?
Programming languages are the most important tools for a programmer. Being able to speak many of them is almost an industry standard, and it shows that you have a good grasp of the core principles, but as always with modern technologies, there is never one definitive answer as to which ones you should learn.
The answer to the question depends mostly on your experience, interests, and career objectives. If you’re just starting to learn a programming language, it’s best to start with something very simple, like HTML and CSS. Don’t worry! You can always dive into more complicated stuff after you’ve gotten some practice under your belt.
While HTML and CSS are not technically programming languages, they allow you to grasp some of the very basic concepts of how programming works. These two languages go hand-in-hand and are used for building websites and web applications. They’re based on the concept of tags, which assign content with tags that determine how that content is displayed. HTML and CSS together form the basic structure for web pages, so if you’re interested in web design or building your own website, these two languages are a must-learn.
Once you have mastered HTML and CSS, you should be able to hop onto JavaScript which is a bit more advanced than what you have been working on so far. Javascript is great to know as a beginner because it is simple to learn and also exposes you to the key concepts of programming. In addition to that, Javascript has a lot more utility beyond the web that would serve you well.
That notwithstanding, the best way to decide what language to learn is to first understand why you’re learning it. The software development industry is huge with a lot of career paths. You need to understand what you want to do in the end before picking a specific language. Maybe you want to become a game developer, a web developer, a mobile app developer, and so on. Having a goal would make your choice-making much easier.
A person looking to develop PC games could consider learning C++ because it gives much freedom to manipulate hardware and ensure a highly responsive gaming experience and performance.
If you need to build websites and web applications, you might consider learning PHP or using the Javascript knowledge you have acquired in combination with a runtime environment like NodeJs. Python is also great for web applications if used with frameworks like Django and Flask.
It is important to note, however, that some languages take a more generalist approach where learning one language could lead to an ability to do things across many different fields. An example is Python, which can be used in desktop application development, game development, web development, and almost any development you can imagine. There may be disadvantages to using it in some environments but in many cases, you should be fine. The same can be said for Javascript.
If you plan on building mobile applications, you need to have a goal in mind as well. Are you building for Android or iOS or both? What type of applications are you looking at building in the long run?
Java is a good language to learn for Android development though a bit more syntactically strict and harder to learn as a beginner. You can learn Swift or Objective C for iOS development. These two languages are almost exclusive to the various mobile operating systems.
There’s however a group of developers who find it daunting to learn two programming languages for two different mobile operating systems. You can consider Dart with Flutter or React Native if you fall into this category. They allow the developer to write once and deploy for both mobile platforms. The downside to this is, that you are limited in the number of things you can build with them due to performance limitations.
This list could go on and on and on. The factors that contribute to deciding what language to learn are uncountable. It could be about how the demand for that programming language is in the job market or how versatile the language is for all your targets. It is up to you to choose what your unique circumstances are and what you intend to achieve in your programming career at the end of the day.
Whether you want to land a dream job as a software engineer or simply experiment with new technologies, there are a lot of great reasons to learn a programming language.
