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What is a good first language?

Name: Anonymous 2009-03-06 16:45

My 20 year old brother wants to get into programming.  I want to set him up with a language that has these features:

1. Easy to learn, must have simple syntax
2. Immediate results, easy to make graphical and text outputs.
3. Fully featured language(I want him to be able to easily progress into more advanced stuff and not be limited by the language)
4. Fast(So he gets the idea of how powerful computers are)

Name: Anonymous 2009-03-07 22:24

I always recommend starting from the bottom and going up if you're going to learn to program. This includes learning all of the following before learning a single programming language:

- Digital Data
- Combinatorial and Sequential Logic
- Basic Computer Architecture

After that, start with writing asm for a simple CPU like the Z80, to get accustomed to how a computer actually works. Only then should you move onto high(er) level languages, preferably starting with C; understanding how a compiler just performs a translation from the high-level language to asm equivalents is particularly important. Then, OOP can be introduced to show how certain problems can be solved easily with it, and how e.g. C++ objects can translate to C.

Those who want more theoretical, mathematical stuff may want to try the...

SATORI ROUTE:

- 6.001 lectures and SICP
- Haskell
- Prolog
- Theory of Computation

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