nhamann comments on Open Thread: March 2010 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: AdeleneDawner 01 March 2010 09:25AM

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Comment author: XiXiDu 01 March 2010 06:52:02PM *  3 points [-]

What programming language should I learn?

As part of my long journey towards a decent education, I assume, it is mandatory to learn computer programming.

  • I'm not completely illiterate. I know the 'basics' of programming. Nevertheless, I want to start from the very beginning.
  • I have no particular goal in mind that demands a practical orientation. My aim is to acquire general knowledge of computer programming to be used as starting point that I can build upon.

I'm thinking about starting with Processing and Lua. What do you think?

Comment author: nhamann 02 March 2010 02:21:41AM 4 points [-]

As mentioned in another comment, the best introduction to programming is probably SICP. I recommend going with this route, as trying to learn programming from language-specific tutorials will almost certainly not give you an adequate understanding of fundamental programming concepts.

After that, you will probably want to start dabbling in a variety of programming styles. You could perhaps learn some C for imperative programming, Java for object-oriented, Python for a high-level hybrid approach, and Haskell for functional programming as starters. If you desire more programming knowledge you can branch out from there, but this seems to be a good start.

Just keep in mind that when starting out learning programming, it's probably more important to dabble in as many different languages as you can. Doing this successfully will enable you to quickly learn any language you may need to know. I admit I may be biased in this assessment, though, as I tend to get bored focusing on any one topic for long periods of time.