Muahahahahaha!

Maybe not a bad idea before they are brain damaged by Java or JavaScript.

@Lensflare I find Python to be a great place to play with algorithms though. Less setup and fuss and can concentrate on the problem.

@Demolishun maybe. As long as the beginners don’t stay with python… 😄

@Lensflare You could spend your entire career there though.

I started with C++, then switched to C#. I definitely could not have learned quite as much quite as quickly with C++ about how programmers think about problems, but getting a taste of value semantics early on helped my understanding of memory in a way that C# can't really provide.

I kinda feel like to really understand C++ you have to dedicate more time to it continually than to any other language.

@lorentz yeah. Many beginners that start with Java or C# struggle with value vs. reference semantics. And as a consequence, fail to utilize those tools to write better and more robust code.

@Lensflare I struggled with JS initializing arrays with a reference instead of individual values. Which is the opposite of what I was used to in C++.

Edit: I still don't get why that behavior is useful.

@Demolishun It's useful if you stick to immutable data and copy-on-write. Annoyingly, JS provides none of the other tools you would need to write efficient programs with immutable data.

I do feel it depends on the programmer at least a bit. Some people only want to do practical programming and might never even want to be professional programmers. In which case Python, JS or even Java and C# can be easily accessible, run pretty much everywhere and on everything and can get shit done quickly without being too verbose

Then there's hackers/programmers that just have a natural talent for it, and it doesn't even matter which language you give them, they will eventually dig their way to at least some ASM no matter what.

There's definitely also anti-talents that no matter which language you give them, they will eventually learn nothing at all

and I guess the average programmer who can learn whatever you give them, but will probably stick with that language or migrate to easier ones for practicality sake. For them C could be too low, but it could also be the best place to build intuition?

I started with visual basic then C then assembler than c++ then c# and stayed with C# since .net 1.1.

There are btw. years between the languages and we are talking 1998.

@KDSBest cool. Now migrate to python

Edit: vb(6) was a lot of fun. Amazing IDE

@retoor I learned how to write DLLs for VB6

@Demolishun ah cool. Is OCX still a thing?

@retoor no idea.

@retoor I absolutly dislike python. I also did alot of JavaScript (jQuery times tho)

@retoor no OCX and ActiveX should be dead IIRC

@KDSBest running visual basic in the browser. What a time

tough love, but i think it's necessary to learn the fundamentals. a friend (not a dev) learned to code through python and he didn't understand what parse error was