Veteran C++ developer says Python is best starter language
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C++ developer Phil Nash contends Python is the best starter language, or a great second language for frontend and web developers.
It's a BASIC choice edit: yet another typo
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C++ developer Phil Nash contends Python is the best starter language, or a great second language for frontend and web developers.
It's a BASIC choice edit: yet another typo
Quote:
But what’s wrong with JavaScript as a first language? Well, JavaScript is a good choice, but it was never really designed as a beginner-friendly language,
FTFH (fixed that for him)
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Quote:
But what’s wrong with JavaScript as a first language? Well, JavaScript is a good choice, but it was never really designed as a beginner-friendly language,
FTFH (fixed that for him)
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
Or he could have just left it at, "JavaScript was never really designed"
TTFN - Kent
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C++ developer Phil Nash contends Python is the best starter language, or a great second language for frontend and web developers.
It's a BASIC choice edit: yet another typo
And leave the real programming to the experts.
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Or he could have just left it at, "JavaScript was never really designed"
TTFN - Kent
Which "designed" languages ever made great success? Pascal was designed as a language for teaching programming. It had a few good years, not that many, until language(s) with not very much of a design took over. DoD had a language designed for military systems. Rumors say that for the first five years of Ada being the only accepted language for new defense software, every single project were granted an exemption from this requirement. CHILL, maybe one of the best designed algorithmic language that I ever met, was in use for its intended target usage - embedded software in digital switching systems - for a few dominant systems, for a few years. It never was marketed as a general purpose language; there is no good reason why except that the developers and users didn't care to. It never became any success. Now if you come and say "But K&R C was designed by K&R!" - then you could say that any language is "designed", including Javascript. There is of course a thick, fuzzy line between "designed" and "scrapped together", but honestly, I consider both Javascript and C (including its derivatives) to lie on the same side of that dividing line, without even touching its fuzzy edges.
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Which "designed" languages ever made great success? Pascal was designed as a language for teaching programming. It had a few good years, not that many, until language(s) with not very much of a design took over. DoD had a language designed for military systems. Rumors say that for the first five years of Ada being the only accepted language for new defense software, every single project were granted an exemption from this requirement. CHILL, maybe one of the best designed algorithmic language that I ever met, was in use for its intended target usage - embedded software in digital switching systems - for a few dominant systems, for a few years. It never was marketed as a general purpose language; there is no good reason why except that the developers and users didn't care to. It never became any success. Now if you come and say "But K&R C was designed by K&R!" - then you could say that any language is "designed", including Javascript. There is of course a thick, fuzzy line between "designed" and "scrapped together", but honestly, I consider both Javascript and C (including its derivatives) to lie on the same side of that dividing line, without even touching its fuzzy edges.
I agree for the most part. Languages designed by committee for wide use rather than designed on-the-fly by a small team for their own use. For the most part, only the first few languages (such as ALGOL, FORTRAN, COBOL, maybe BASIC, not so much Assembly) would have been created in a vacuum. All languages since then have learned from the strengths and weaknesses of earlier languages and evolved -- such as
CPL > BCPL > B > C. -
C++ developer Phil Nash contends Python is the best starter language, or a great second language for frontend and web developers.
It's a BASIC choice edit: yet another typo
C is the better choice to start with if you want to move to C++ eventually. If you want to be a frontend web developer then master JavaScript, TypeScript, Node and eventually a language that has a WASM compile target. Only a n00b who's lying about their experience would recommend Python for learning FE web work.
Jeremy Falcon
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C++ developer Phil Nash contends Python is the best starter language, or a great second language for frontend and web developers.
It's a BASIC choice edit: yet another typo
Also, even for backend work... everyone knows Python is slow. I would avoid it like the plague. If you want to get into AI or testing, that's a different story. But for web development, speed of execution still matters.
Jeremy Falcon
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C++ developer Phil Nash contends Python is the best starter language, or a great second language for frontend and web developers.
It's a BASIC choice edit: yet another typo
Any language where code formatting is significant is fundamentally flawed. That's especially true for a "starter language".
"Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed." - G.K. Chesterton