Which prgramming language to learn first?

[Script47]

Hi, I'm new here and I made this account to ask for some help and this is my first post (of which many more will come hopefully:)). Which programming language should I learn first to give me an overall feel for programming, so where the syntax is easy and where you can do a lot with that language. It would be really helpfull if you could put links so I can visit tutorials and please try and make it for a beginers level!;)

Thanks for all your help!

Script47

[Spudinski]

Depends... what are your intentions for learning to program?

[Script47]

First of all can I thank you for replying, secondly could you name one or two for the following:

Game development?

Website development?

Windows application deveopment (Windows 7 programs)?

[a_bertrand]

Well, if you want to do all with one language then C# / .NET

Now, if you want more specific languages for each:

Game development: C++ should be the main choice

Website: could be Java, C#, PHP

Windows applications: C#, C++

As you can see, C# could do nearly all... on windows. Yet will not run all that well outside the Windows world even if there is options there too.

[Joel]

First of all can I thank you for replying, secondly could you name one or two for the following:

Game development?

Common Languages:

C++ (3D, 2D, text)

C# (3D, 2D, text)

JavaScript (3D, 2D, text) - web

Java (3D, 2D, text)

PHP (text) - web

ActionScript (2D, text)

 

Website development?

PHP, Java, JavaScript, ActionScript

 

Windows application deveopment (Windows 7 programs)?

C++, C#, VB.NET

 

Tools: Visual Studio, Notepad++, Netbeans, Eclipse, Adobe Flash

 

I'm not going to list every language to date but obviously you get the picture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages_by_type

[Spudinski]

Game dev:

Depends on platform(i.e. web, console, desktop).

A good bet here would be to learn C first, and move on to C++.

I get what Alain is saying about C#, but I really wouldn't commit to that for a vague entry like you want to do. It will severely limit you to what/where/how you can program on different platforms.

Website:

It depends what you want to really do again.

Mainly, there are two aspects of this: client-side(browser) and server-side(server).

Client-side: JavaScript, can't go wrong. But you would need a combination of HTML(5), CSS(2/3) and JavaScript to be able to create anything complete.

Server-side: Python would be my first choice, and then quickly behind PHP. The first will give you a more generic entry into the field.

Windows:

Again, I'll recommend C, but if you "only" want to do that for the following five to ten years, learn C#.

-

Background:

C is one of the oldest languages mentioned in this thread: Many Unix tools was originally created with it.

It's also one of the most generic languages out there, and the platform possibilities are endless. It's a good starting point for the simple idea that most other programming languages all have features that they've inherited from C in one way or another.

C++ is made up of the same stuff, but more advanced to allow bigger and more complex applications to be created.

C# is a vendor language, Microsoft's to be exact. There's a few things that make it awesome, such as OOP, but being a beginner you won't touch it in the near future.

Using C# also limits you to Windows development. It can be used on Web and Desktop, but that's not really something to boast about: People were creating websites in C long before C# was even a twinkle in MS's eyes.

Fun fact: The most popular web-server, Apache, is written in C/C++.

All other languages - that will likely still be -mentioned here are high-level languages, meaning that they descended from a lower-level language like C, C++ or Insanity(assembler/FORTRAN/BASIC/*name ancient subset here*).

[Script47]

Than you all of you for your replies, I will try and take a look in all of them, learn about them and pick a subject, thanks again!:)