I have been thinking of learning some programming recently, but I don’t feel confident enough. Is there any point in beginning with something like Zig or Go, and switching to something more serious later?
My personal 2 bits: start with JavaScript.
You can run it in your browser console and get at least a little but of benefit from it no matter how far you go, scripting on web pages you use regularly.
Thanks to Node, you can reasonably build full stack systems with it. Fair warning, it’s really best for I/O, so it’s not really ideal for genuinely logically complex stuff.
You’ll more quickly get to bigger tangible benefits connecting things that have already been built anyway.
Python as a starter otherwise, which is suitable for that genuinely logically complex stuff.
Is this bait? Zig and Go are very much serious, especially Zig.
Generally python/Javascript is good for learning the basics. To know how types work learn c#/java/go. To learn how the memory works Zig/C are good. To learn about what a fully defined behavior means in a program you learn Rust. To learn what actually happens on the processor you learn assembly.
Honestly, if you’re hyped about Zig go for it, although I’d suggest “warming up” by doing a tic tac toe in python.
Yes 99% of programming is the higher level thought process behind making a program, and that skill transfers between programming languages. The specific syntax doesn’t matter that much.
If Zig is easy than that means C is easy (as Zig is pretty much nicer written C) and if C is easy than, oh wait everything is written in C. I guess the only thing left to do is learn an unnecessary overcomplicated abstraction of C like java or C++.
As for the question, pick a task than pick a language, servers? Go seems to be replacing Java for the next generation, Games? Zig C# Odin C C++ Lua, Rewrites? Rust. Random small scripts? Python. Bare metal? C C++ Zig.
Also Zig Odin and Go are all C like languages if you learn one you learn about them all (with the exception of manual memory management for Go). My biased self recommend Zig as I think its the nicest, you almost certainly won’t get a job in it but the skills will transfer directly to C or Go where you can get jobs.
I don’t know about zig, but go is absolutely serious.
Learing the bases of programming is language agnostic really. You can start even with pseudo code, then learn the language you will like to work with. Just choose any language that seems fun and enjoy the process.
Good luck!
The big parts are philosophy and libraries, learning a language is relatively easy.
Avoid BASIC though, never had much use of the hours I spent on it as a preteen.
I did learn alot of useful stuff when I was playind around with arduinos, and since then the market of fun microcontrollers have expandes quite a bit. Its great to see your code immediatly change stuff in the real world even if its just a basic display connected to a thermometer
Arduino programming is basically C++ with helpers so yeah you learn a lot!!
BASIC, Perl, Delphi… there are many languages you don’t want to start with.
Yep the thing is to learn at least one, then its VERY easy to jump into another (usually). The simple things such as loops, functions, classes, etc…etc… are all about the same nowadays. Its more about what you are trying to do rather than the language you find yourself using.
If I had to do it again, I would try out either python (for a on computer solution), javascript for web stuff, or C/C++ if you want to go crazy and learn low level stuff. Go/Rust is fine too. Any language is ok really. Just try it out and see what you like!
I question the suggestion that Zig and Go are not “serious” programming languages. They certainly weren’t designed to be “easy” beginner languages.
I don’t think it matters a whole lot which language you start with. Learning to program is largely separate from learning a particular language, and if you do programming for a while, you’ll probably learn several. I do think someone who wants to understand programming deeply should learn each of:
- A lisp, probably Racket, but others will do. This teaches a lot about how computation works, and is at least a local maximum for abstractive power.
- C, an assembly language, or something similar where the developer must manage memory manually and has the ability to mismanage it. This teaches how computers work.
- A statically typed functional language, probably Haskell. This makes programming more math-like and probably represents a local maximum for what can be proven about a program’s behavior without solving the halting problem.
- SQL. I wish there was something prettier with a modicum of popularity that does what it does (PRQL is my favorite recent attempt), but there isn’t. This teaches thinking about data in sets and relations, and you will almost certainly use it in practice.
The creator of Go has an infamous quote on the language.
The key point here is our programmers are Googlers, they’re not researchers. They’re typically, fairly young, fresh out of school, probably learned Java, maybe learned C or C++, probably learned Python. They’re not capable of understanding a brilliant language but we want to use them to build good software. So, the language that we give them has to be easy for them to understand and easy to adopt. – Rob Pike
That’s one of the dumbest articles I‘ve ever read. Glad the author realized it themselves.
So Go was meant to be something similar to Java 4. A language where it is very difficult to shoot to your feet.
I really hate SQL it often feels like you have to work backwards instead of procedurally when you get anything complex going. Thank goodness I mostly work in pyspark.
Edit: Also thanks for the shout to prql looks cool might try it in a personal project or something
My entire career is mostly 90% SQL and CRUD. To each their own!
CRUD
When I was growing up the most advanced console to which I had access was the Genesis (or Master System, if you prefer). On it, by far the game I played the most was Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. (I liked Tobias Boon - sorry - Noob Saibot).
For that game, you could unlock debug mode by pressing b, a, down, left, a, down, c, right, up, down. BADLADCRUD. I don’t know what CRUD is in the context in which you were commenting, but it reminded me of this.
It stands for Create, Read, Update, Delete. Those are the primary operations on a database and a crud app refers to one which is little more than a front end to a database.
That sounds like a RESTful API.
Regardless, TIL. Thanks!
Same! The more I learn the more astounded I am. You mean I can retrieve 5m records in .01 seconds?
Why in your opinion do you think any person who wants to understand programming “deeply” (I’m not exactly sure what you mean with that) should learn lisp and haskell? It seems way way unnecessary.
And then you throw in SQL. Sure why not, but then why not javascript, Lua, c++, rust, PHP and a whole load of others who will teach you something unique most probably.
Not OP but I was a pretty competent C/C++/C# programmer first. Lisp and Haskell both totally changed how I thing about programming. I’ve used all the other languages you listed and I don’t think any of them have a unique philosophy to offer, except maybe rust for the memory model.
Lisp teaches you how flexible programming languages should be. Haskell teaches you about things like higher kinded types, and exposes you to loads of cool category theory stuff. Other languages can probably accomplish these goals, but I don’t think any of the alternatives you listed could.
Flexibility? Have you tried c++ 😁, check out template meta programming, and voilà rusts static memory management and compile time error checking in c++.
What I want to say is you don’t need this or that language to grasp functionality, and IMO heskel and lisp probably have more interesting and modern counterparts, if you feel the need.
Edit, forgot you’re not OP so my answer is potentially a bit wonky, sorry about that.
Some people want to learn programming to get a job, though perhaps not as many in 2026. Some people want to do a project that happens to requiring programming. Some actually want to understand programming and get good at it. The last group will benefit from learning Lisp and Haskell even if they don’t end up using those languages much. I thought my first comment explained why and I think Corngood elaborated on it, but I’ll add more.
The reason to use programming languages instead of machine/assembly languages is that they add abstractions, and allow the programmer to add more abstractions. An abstraction is a name and implementation for a repeated pattern in code, which documents the programmer’s intent when it is used, allows all invocations to be modified in one place, and substantially shortens programs. In most languages, there’s a distinction between abstractions the language designer can add and those the programmer can; in Lisp, there is not.
If most languages didn’t have
iforclass, you couldn’t add them in a library; you’d have to modify the interpreter or compiler. Here’sifdefined in a Lisp-like language I’m working on:(defmacro if (test then else) `(cond ~test ~then true ~else))This is possible because Lisp code is made of Lisp data structures which it can easily manipulate, and because it has the ability to control when evaluation occurs. Here, we need to splice three blocks of code into a
condexpression, which is a more generalized form of conditional evaluation that takes an unlimited number of test/then pairs. We must also prevent the premature evaluation of the branch not chosen, which is whyifandcondcan’t be regular functions. In Common Lisp, the entire object system can be implemented as a library.Haskell and similar languages also offer significant power for abstraction with its sophisticated type system and lazy evaluation, but the more important lesson they can teach is the gurantees they can make at compile time. Once a Haskell program compiles, it has a much greater chance to work as expected than any other language I’ve used.
SQL teaches thinking in data. Most programs exist to store and manipulate data, so that’s pretty relevant.
Sure, but many languages do that, see my answer below. I just personally wouldn’t recommend either lisp or haskell to someone learning how to program. There are more modern and better ways, IMO.
Sure, but many languages do that,
I wrote several paragraphs and talked about three languages, so I’m going to have to guess about what “that” refers to. I’m guessing it’s Lisp macros. Your other comment offers template metaprogramming in C++ as an alternative.
Template metaprogramming Gets maybe a third of the way to what Lisp macros offer. It can do compile-time syntax transformations, but it doesn’t provide the full C++ language with which to do so, doesn’t operate on the actual parse tree, and isn’t Turing-complete in practice because of fixed limits on recursion depth in real compilers. Rust macros get much closer, providing the full power of Rust and the option to get at a real AST by parsing the token stream they operate on.
If you mean something else, please elaborate. It’s an interesting topic.
There are more modern and better ways, IMO.
I’m not sure what “more modern” means in this context. If it just means young, I can probably find a Lisp family language with its first release this year, though that wouldn’t be the one I would recommend to a beginner. If it means recently-updated, Racket, the Lisp I recommended learning had its latest stable release nine days ago. If it means something else, please say so.
“Better” probably can’t be measured objectively, but by all means, make the case for something else.
crazy to call zig, a low level systems language, an “easy” language
Anything is better than nothing.
Go and Zig are serious languages. Go is especially established and has a big ecosystem and capabilities. You could stick with Go forever if you don’t want to expand afterwards.
Starting ‘simpler’ is better because it gives you successes. It keeps you going.
no. You must start with malboge
True evil
Python is one of the most-widely used languages in the world.
I don’t think most languages you’ll encounter in the wild are too “easy”.
Universities here start you off with Python in the first semester because it’s easy for beginners to grasp. That doesn’t mean it’s not “serious” though, the whole AI/ML/Big Data ecosystem is ALL Python, largely because there are excellent data processing libraries for Python and stuff like PyTorch for offloading work to the GPU.
Just don’t try to use Powerpoint for programming, it’s possible but you’ll go mad.
It’s…sort of not a question of easy vs hard. Why would anyone make a hard programming language?
It’s more about picking a language that is suitable for what you want to do with it.
Why would anyone make a hard programming language?
INTERCAL has entered the chat:
INTERCAL’s main advantage over other programming languages is its strict simplicity. It has few capabilities, and thus there are few restrictions to be kept in mind. […]
Any relation to Brainfuck?
I found it easier to start with something considered medium difficulty, because “easy” languages abstract away a lot of problems of programming. So when certain problems arise, its hard to understand what is happening behind the scenes.
If you want to build something, python is great. If you wanna learn programming, it might be confusing.
Exactly don’t start with easy languages you should start with the best programming language HolyC, the divine language.
