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What was your first programming language?
What was your first programming language? I have started learning perl and batch, but find that it's hard to learn anything without having a project.
What project forced you to learn it? What would you suggest to a newbie?
BASIC was my first, as I'll guess it was for most. The old kind, Commodore BASIC, with line numbers. I wouldn't recommend it for the learner, though it's not as bad as most make out, these days.
I'd suggest Python to get started. Few hurdles, excellent language structure with modern features, and you'll get a ton of support out there.
Delphi 7. 'Twas quite neat, Pascal is a good teaching language. I've forgotten all the lessons I learned (such as variable definitions at the top), though.
Python is a good first language to learn Algorithmic thinking. From there you can jump to C++, Java, or C# to get into Object oriented concepts and application structure. (Not that you can't do this in Python.)
Exactly as you said, go find a worthwhile project and no matter what you use, stick with it until your project succeeds or fails.
Heh, I'm old. My first language was BASIC. I wouldn't recommend it.
From Perl you can easily jump to C. Search an open source project you like and start contributing to it. Reading other people's code is also a good way to learn.
My first programming language was BASIC, however I would suggest new users learn C/C++. It teaches you fundamentals, which gives you better prespective when moving to higher-level languages.