Have you ever tried to cut down a tree with a spoon?
I guess not, so why do we need to stick to only one programming language? Do you know Maslow’s hammer?
I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. — Abraham Maslow
Craftsmen need more than just a hammer in their tool belts. This is true for developers as well.
Recently, during a Q&A in a school, a lot of students were asking about the possibility to work in a company with a specific language. So I asked myself:
What should be the first language to learn?
So if you want to learn a structured language and understand how memory works, it’s probably better to start with the C language
But… If you want create a mobile application you will have to learn Kotlin
But… You will be limited to Android, so you will have to learn Swift as well
But… If you work on a legacy code, you will have to learn Java and Objective-C as well
Do you see where I’m going?
In fact, your first language is just a bridge to the next one. It’s not an end at all.
— I’m pretty sure that even if you learn to program in BrainFuck (yup, it’s a real language) as your first language, it will be super useful for you in the future. Ok, you won’t find any job if you only know how to code in BrainFuck but my purpose is somewhere else.
+[ →-[>>+> — — -<<]←←-]>-.>>>+.>>..+++[.>]<<<<.+++. — — — .<<-.>>>>+.
— The most complicated part (in my opinion) when you start learning a programming language is how to “talk” with your machine. How to create a condition, how to deal with loops and stuff…
When you have that, you have already done the most complicated part!
Once you have your algorithm in mind, the rest will be only a work of translation. You could actually be able to write your “code” in full English (pseudocode) and to give this code to a C# developer, a PHP developer or a JS developer. The most important is the result.
But in the company X they only work with PHP and I only worked with NodeJS.
It’s your lucky day, you have the goal (learn PHP) and you have already done half of the travel (with NodeJS). If you already know a language (or more), you can probably learn by yourself a new one and just imagine the plus on your resume. You will be with candidates who probably only worked with PHP, so you may be in the top list directly.
In summary
Don’t overthink your choice. Just start learning. You don’t want to end like Buridan’s donkey.
Once you have learned your first language (whatever it is) just wander a bit between different languages and find the language that fits you the most and fits your needs.
