Determine Best First Language for You
People have different criteria, here are mine (but they might change
over time).
Criteria
- I just wanna have fun.
- How well does it empower the learner?
- How much setup does it require use?
- How compatible and ubiquitous is it?
- What do you want to make most (eventually)?
- What impact on the world can I make with it?
- How quickly can I get a job with it?
- How dangerous is a language to your mindset?
- What type of careers require it?
- How easy is it to learn?
- Coding speed, competitive
- Does it require a network connection?
- Quality documentation
- Quality, helpful community and culture
- Availability, ubiquity
- Be able to hack it
- Easiest to find a coding job
- Strict so hard to make mistakes
- Gets high paying job
- Exposes learner to data structures and algorithms
- Exposes learner to specific paradigms
- Understand other languages later
- Understand how computer electronics work
Less common criteria (or not relevant for beginners):
- What is the average salary for coding in it?
- Learning, creating, and testing compilers
- Has an interactive interface (REPL)
- Concurrency
- Runtime Performance
- How complex are the applications you want make?