What Programming Language should I learn?

Part 2 in “How to Become a Computer Programmer”

If you search the web for “what programming language should I learn first?” you will find all kinds of resources pointing in different directions. Everyone will say “this language is the best” or “everyone should know this.”

The truth is, there is no right or wrong answer for what language you should learn or need to know. That is because the languages you need to know will completely depend on what it is you want to be doing.

Each programming language is designed to accomplish a specific goal. Some of them depend on the platform you want to develop on (apps for the phone, websites, etc). Others depend on what kind of task you are trying to accomplish (like analyzing and computing large amounts of data). The list goes on, but the important thing is that there is no certain language that you should specifically start with.

But before we dive too deep into the different languages, we should first ask ourselves:

What is a Programming Language?

Just like with humans, a computer can only understand you if you speak to it in a language that it knows. Unfortunately for us, computers aren’t too good with English so we have to talk to them in their native…