Top 5 Programming Languages For Beginning Programmers

Beginning programmers have a lot of language options to choose from. Here are the best 5 programming languages for those just starting out.

I recently got a request from a reader who asked for some advice about which programming language to learn for somebody who's never done any prior programming. As is the case with many seeming simple questions, it's a lot easier asked than answered. And as is also typical with such loaded questions, the answer begins with the familiar two word phrase: "it depends." So let's talk about what the choice of programming languages to learn first might depend on, after which we can chew on some of the top choices for beginning programmers.

Choosing A Programming Language

I took my first programming class at UT Austin in 1979, which I realize is probably well before the birth date of many of the readers of this blog post. Back then, the philosophy that guided learning to program was much like that practiced by some parents teaching their kids to ride a bike: "start 'em out on training wheels, and when they get comfortable tearing around with four points of stability, take the training wheels away and let 'em learn to ride all over again."

Back in they day, they tended to teach "training wheels" languages designed to illustrate certain features and functions that programmers should know and understand, or that combined features from lots of different languages so that programmers can get to know them all at the same time, rather than piecemeal. For me, the training wheels language for explicit typing and data declarations was Pascal, and the training wheels language for assembly was MIXAL ("mix all," get it?), a synthetic assembler created by a computer science genius still at Stanford today named Donald Knuth. By the time I found out that nobody used either of these languages in commercial environments, I'd already branched out to learn FORTRAN and C/C++, both of which I used quite extensively in the seven years I worked full-time as a software developer, along with a handful of other languages and scripting tools.

These days, the prevailing approach is to start programmers out on languages they're likely to encounter in the workplace, and provide enough introductory training and information so they can sink or swim on their own. This makes perfect sense to me, because most students will already have had some exposure to programming (sometimes, quite significant exposure) by the time they get to the point where they take an introductory, college-level programming class. For some kids, this can come as early as the 8th grade, and many such students will routinely take introductory, college level programming classes in high school through a local community college, one of the many vendor-sponsored IT academies (Microsoft, Cisco, and so forth), or online from a four-year college through some kind of partnership or affiliate program between the local school district and an institution of their choosing.

What then, does the choice of a starter programming language depend on? I made a quick visit to the course listings at my local community college (cis.austincc.edu) and learned that they offer C# and C++, Python, SQL, Java, and a variety of web programming (Ruby), scripting (JavaScript), and markup (HTML5, CSS) languages in their curriculum. Checking the Computer Science Department at the University of Texas, I see a primary focus on Java, with exposures to AI languages (LISP and variants thereof), concurrent languages (Smalltalk, Linda, and more), functional languages (Scheme, Haskell, and others), with something more of an ivory tower bent in the discussions and selections involved. In general, the consensus in the industry is that it's best to learn the language one will spend one's time programming in most, but perforce given the forward looking nature of education and the only-come-later nature of landing a programming job, that may seem a bit easier said than done.

LifeHacker has a very nice article that gives some useful clues to solving this dilemma. They put five languages out for a survey to their readership, and came back with an equally useful and interesting best of the best recommendation. 

1. Python

One of the older items in this collection, Python is the work of Guido van Rossum who has turned the reins for this language over to the Python Software Foundation, which is responsible for its development and standard documentation, and keeps it open source and free for any and all to use. Developed in the 1980s as a scripting language designed for quick and dirty but powerful programs, it enables developers to crank out large volumes of readable and usable code quickly and relatively easily. Python includes object-oriented, procedural, and functional elements, and supports all of those programming styles. Python also got the nod from the LifeHacker survey respondents as the best of the five for a first-time programmer to learn, because of its ease of learning and use, and its immediate utility for a wide variety of purposes and applications.

2. Ruby

A language from computer scientist Yukihiro Matsumoto, it was designed with a simple, readable syntax that makes sense to human programmers, but also translates well into computer instructions. The language includes object-oriented, procedural, functional, and imperative elements, which makes it flexible and incredibly all-purpose in nature. Ruby is known as easy to learn (reminds me of the tag lines from the gambling channels on cable about Texas Hold'‘Em: "Minutes to learn, and a lifetime to master"). It has also attracted a large and enthusiastic group of proponents (some would call them zealots) and is widely adopted and used for all kinds of applications.

3. Java

Originally the brainchild of a whizbang group of engineers at Sun Microsystems in the mid-1990s, Java is now part of the Oracle empire of IP. Java sits at the heart of many web-based applications across the entire panoply of platforms, OSes, and devices. It's a class-based, object-oriented language that's built for portability and usability, though it is a bit tricky to learn, and it's even trickier to learn how to write efficient and effective programs in Java. It is probably the most widely-taught programming language in academic programs of any kind, from high school up through graduate level education.

4. C And C++

C traces its origins back to Bell Laboratories in the late 1960s and early 1970s, where it was developed by Dennis Ritchie as a go-to tool to reimplement the UNIX operating system. It is uniquely well-suited to so-called "kernel programming" (basic, important, constantly run code elements that make up the heart and soul of operating systems, drivers, file systems, and other key runtime environment components). C++ is an object-oriented reimplementation of C built by Bjarne Stroustrup at Bell Labs in the late 1970s who sought to combine the efficient and flexible capabilities of the plain-vanilla C language with strong high-level features for program organization and structure. Either or both of these languages are arguably among the most important ones around, because more operating systems and basic, essential facilities (file systems, networking protocols, device drivers, and so forth) are built using them than any other languages. Many serious programmers see either or both of them as foundational and irreplaceable for these reasons. C was the first "real programming language" that I learned after Pascal and Mixal, and definitely proved more important to me as a software developer than any other language during my seven years of work as a developer (I also used FORTRAN, Pascal, SASL, Lisp and CLisp, various UNIX shells, and numerous command languages during those years as well).

5. JavaScript

A scripting language developed in the mid-1990s with the specific intention of enabling web pages to incorporate dynamic, interactive content, JavaScript has gone on to become a foundational language for the server and services side of networked computing, as well as a boon to web developers in search of dynamic, object-oriented access to web document models, user input and interaction, ongoing calculation and interpretation and a whole lot more. JavaScript is dynamic, but also lets programmers use object-oriented programming, along with functional and imperative capabilities. Somewhat loosely based on C, JavaScript is THE go-to language for anyone interested in web development. JavaScript is simple enough to be easy to learn, but offers a wide variety of add-ons and packages, as well as outright development environments, to make it a powerful, general programming tool in its own right. 99 percent of the programming I've done since I quit being a full-time developer has been in JavaScript, thanks in large part to digging into HTML and CSS in 1994, and writing 14 editions of HTML For Dummies from 1995 through 2013.

For those who have been thinking about learning to program, I hope this gives some useful input and guidance. Before making any serious decisions, dig into Wikipedia and other online resources to read about the history, utility, and best applications for those languages that catch your fancy. You could certainly learn all of them (I know something about all of them except Ruby on the basis of commercial programming experience, and have read and played enough with Ruby to believe that it is a worthwhile item in the list provided above).

When it comes to programming, there is no substitute for reading as much as you can, but also for rolling up your sleeves and writing code to understand -- and eventually master -- the capabilities that these languages can provide.