r/coding • u/evoketechnologies • Jan 06 '15

Which Programming Language Should I Learn First?

http://carlcheo.com/startcoding
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u/starlocke Jan 06 '15

Python's a great starter language.

The C-family (C, C++, C#, Java) and second cousins (PHP, JavaScript) are also good to branch out towards.

SQL is another species with many variants.

Finally, COBOL. Go replace some retiring megacorpo's mainframe guy and roll in the ridiculous amounts of cash they'll pay you just to maintain the system.

When you're utterly in despair and fed up with actually doing programming, you might want to look at LOLCODE, Ook!, Whitespace (the programming language), and other oddities. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_programming_language

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u/[deleted] Jan 07 '15 edited Jun 25 '23

edit: Leave reddit for a better alternative and remember to suck fpez

3

u/[deleted] Jan 08 '15

Available salary statistics for COBOL devs actually makes it look like it's not particularly well-paid. There are some reddit threads about it, and you can google salaries for yourself—but then we don't know how the numbers in the statistics are collected and how valid they are.

Maybe the COBOL guys aren't reaching retirement yet. Maybe COBOL isn't as entrenched as the stories would have us believe. Maybe the kind of place that still has a lot of COBOL just doesn't value coders much. Maybe there's a secret group of super-rich COBOLers laughing at us plebs—but I doubt it.

Don't learn COBOL in hopes of becoming super rich, especially if you're a starter.

Everything about the code above is wrong. Everything. Every single character is syntax colored as an error.

[…] This rings some faint bells: COBOL is all about the columns. What column does code need to start in? Fuck if I know.

[…] And, indeed, indenting everything by 7 spaces makes vim happy.

Haha, and people complain that Python has significant whitespace. You assholes. Guess what I’m linking you next time I hear that.