Beginner Developer Guide: What Language Should You Learn First

Should you start off with Java, C++, C, Python, Javascript, SQL, Swift, Objective-C or what!??

Feeling overwhelmed yet before you even began your journey as a software developer? If so, good! The point of this video is to discuss all of that in a simple way and clarify common misconceptions among beginning coders when they are about to start.

We discuss different programming languages and suggest which language you should perhaps start off with first. You can always switch over later! The important thing is to understand the concepts in a computer programming language especially as a beginner. Do not try to deal with both conceptual difficulty and syntactical difficulty at the same time. Imagine if you never knew any human language and you tried to start off by learning Japanese as an adult, that would be really tough. Start simple, learn the concepts, then transition to another language. We will talk about which languages to avoid as a beginner!

I worked on this project with my friend. Never knew ANY Javascript but picked it up within one day and built this whole thing together with my friend in about 1-2 days.

The idea behind the app is to be able to download commonly visited locations on an excel sheet and print them so when your GPS dies on you... You are still good to go.

I did a lot of private chess lessons and I depended on my GPS for the job. However, sometimes it died on me in very critical situations and that almost got me fired from my job.
This app was made for people who can use this in order to not have to rely on GPS solely to get to their destination.

Transcript

00:00- Hey guys, what is up?

00:02This is Qazi from CleverProgrammer.com.

00:05And today, I would like to answer the question

00:07of what programming language should I learn first.

00:14(static)

00:17Now, there are a ton of programming languages

00:21for you to choose from.

00:22You have Python, you have C,

00:24you have C++, you have SQL,

00:27you have C#, you have Java,

00:30Swift.

00:31And the list goes on forever.

00:35However, my point is not to sit here

00:36and overwhelm you with the number of languages that exist,

00:40but it's important for you to understand,

00:42first of all, why the languages might exist

00:45and, second of all,

00:47which language should you start off with first, right,

00:50which is actually the most important question for you,

00:52especially if you're watching this video

00:54and you wanna know which language to pick.

00:57Okay, so if today a human being walked up to me

01:01who did not know the concept of language, right?

01:03Let's say he walked up to me

01:05and he knew no languages whatsoever.

01:08What language would I like to get him started off with?

01:12And I'd be like hmm, definitely not Japanese.

01:17Right?

01:17That's one language I probably

01:19wouldn't want to start him off with,

01:21simply because it's a little complicated,

01:25a little bit more complicated than say Spanish or English,

01:29which are, you know, on the language difficulty spectrum,

01:32they're on level one.

01:35But at the same time,

01:36if you think about this human language,

01:38like English and Spanish,

01:41you can't say that just because they're simpler

01:44doesn't mean that they're very powerful.

01:46They're also spoken pretty worldwide

01:48and a lot of people understand them.

01:50So, even though they're simple,

01:52they're still pretty powerful.

01:54Now, let's transition that over to computer programming.

01:59What language should I start off with?02:01Well, to answer that question,

02:02I would say start off with the simplest language, right?

02:06Definitely do not get started off

02:08with a really complicated language

02:10because here's the fact, okay.

02:14If you do not know the concept of language at all, right,

02:19and I'm not saying you're a baby,

02:20where your neuroplasticity is so high

02:22that you just pick up anything,

02:24let's say you're an adult

02:24and you just don't know the concept of languages.

02:27You wanna definitely start off with the easiest language

02:30because once you learn the concept

02:32of language as a human being,

02:34it's a way to express your emotions

02:36and ideas to other people.

02:37Once you learn that at its very core,

02:39you can transfer over to another language,

02:41like say, Japanese,

02:42and go how do you say banana in Japanese,

02:44how do you say this in Japanese.

02:46At least you can look it up.

02:47You have the tools to actually look that up

02:49and learn something in reference to another thing.

02:52So, in terms of computer programming,

02:55if you know the simplest language,

02:57then when you go over to another complicated language,

02:59you can just go,

03:00how do I do this thing that I do03:02in this other language that I know

03:04in this language that I'm trying to learn.

03:07Okay?

03:08So, your research process becomes a lot simpler.

03:10And the ideas are all the same, you guys.

03:14For example, the emotions that American people

03:17or Italian people or Spanish people express,

03:20people in Japan or China express the same emotions, right?

03:24The tool that they use, the language syntax,

03:28the specificity of each language might differ,

03:31but at its very core,

03:33we're still trying to express emotions

03:35of sadness, happiness, cherish,

03:39hopefulness, whatever, right?

03:42Computer programming languages,

03:44you are trying to express ideas to a computer,

03:47so it can translate it for you, right?

03:49It's a really smart friend that is right there

03:52who's listening to you.

03:53You just need to speak to him.

03:55Okay, now I wanna talk about what languages

03:58maybe you should not start off with.

04:01I would recommend that you not start off

04:02with C or C++ or C#,04:06pretty much any of the C languages.

04:10And the reason is because their syntactical difficulty level

04:13is much, much higher.

04:16So, you have to worry about each little, tiny detail

04:20or what you're saying to a computer

04:22will make no sense whatsoever.

04:25So, not only are you bogged down

04:27by the conceptual difficulty

04:29when you're first learning computer programming,

04:31you're also bogged down by the syntactical difficulty,

04:36you know, which is literally how you're typing something.

04:38It needs a curly brace, it needs this,04:40it needs that, embellishments, right?

04:43Almost like if you were writing English04:46and you're first learning it,

04:47if you don't write comma or period or something,

04:49you're just not get understood at all by another person.

04:52That would be very frustrating to you

04:54if English was your first language

04:56because you'd be like, this is so...

04:59I don't know whether my problem lies in the fact

05:02that I'm speaking my ideas correct,

05:04the way I'm expressing it,

05:05or am I having some kind of grammatical error.

05:09So, start with something that's...

05:12Just focus on the conceptual stuff first, okay?

05:16So, start with something

05:17that has a syntactical difficulty that's lower.

05:21Understand the concepts, right?

05:22In computer programming,

05:24you have a concept of looping over things.

05:26So, if it's one task

05:27that you want to do over and over again,

05:29that's called a loop.

05:31Well, if you learn what a loop is in one language,

05:33you can very easily go to another language

05:36and apply the same loop.

05:38If you learn what a if condition is,

05:39if this, then that, right?

05:42If Johnny worked over 40 hours, Johnny gets paid overtime.

05:47That idea, if you can learn to express it in one language,

05:49you can very easily express it in another.

05:52So, my recommendation to you guys,

05:55there are a lot of languages to learn,

05:57but my recommendation to you guys would be to start off

06:00with the language Python, okay?

06:03And Python, there's a reason why it's the top growing,

06:07one of the top growing languages in the world.

06:11And if you look at most of the top universities,

06:13they're actually making that the introduction language.

06:16And the reason why they're doing that

06:17is because of how elegant and simple it is.

06:21Now, don't get its simplicity confused

06:25with maybe that it can't do more.

06:28Remember, Google, Dropbox, Pinterest,

06:32Reddit, Instagram, and I can go on,

06:35but those were all built off of Python, okay?

06:40Even BitTorrent.

06:42So, all of these things were actually built off of Python.

06:45Youtube was built off of Python.

06:47Sergey Brin, I think that's who actually said it,

06:51the person who founded Google pretty much.

06:55He said "Python where we can, C where we must,"

06:59which means, we want to use the C programming language

07:03where we have to

07:04and Python programming language where we can.

07:08Okay?

07:10Now, in terms of the languages and where they work...

07:13So, let's say you learn the language Python, right,

07:16and you start off with that language.

07:17Now, you can always branch out and go to other languages.

07:20Once you understand the conceptual difficulty

07:23and the conceptual stuff,

07:25you can translate that over to any other language.

07:28Now, Python is a powerful language

07:30that allows you to do pretty much anything that you want.

07:32It's also important to understand some of the differences

07:35between why you should pick another language.

07:37Okay, now let's talk

07:38about maybe once you're at a level of certain proficiency

07:42and you wanna transition over to another language,

07:44why would you wanna choose between different languages

07:47and work with one rather than the other?

07:49In reality, you're working

07:51with a lot of languages at the same time, okay?

07:54Now, the reason why you wanna pick one language

07:57and another is because of its benefits.

08:00For example,

08:01if you wanna do a lot of stuff related to web development,

08:04like front end, where nice graphics show

08:07and you click on something and things respond really fast,

08:11that is called JavaScript.

08:13That's the beauty and magic of JavaScript,

08:15where you click on things and they drag down

08:16and drop down menus and all this really fancy stuff

08:20that you see on the web.

08:22That's done by JavaScript.

08:23So, for that, you want to learn JavaScript.

08:26Should you start off with JavaScript?

08:28Maybe.

08:28I would still say you start off with Python,

08:31then transition over to JavaScript.

08:33Just to give you an example,

08:34I worked on a project that was 30 hours long.

08:36It's called Agile Directions.

08:38I might just even link it below,

08:40so you guys actually can click it and check it out.

08:42I did not know a single letter of JavaScript,

08:46but since I knew Python so well,08:48I just went on.

08:49I would go online and just look up how to do things

08:51that I would do in Python,

08:52how to do them in JavaScript,

08:54and I was able to bust out that entire giant project

08:58in two days.

09:00Okay?

09:01So, yeah.

09:03Now, web languages, you have JavaScript.

09:06For data science and a lot of data analytical stuff

09:09and scientific stuff,

09:10and even things like building responsive websites,

09:13Python can help you.

09:15Python brings you a tremendous amount of power

09:17and it makes it very easy to do really complicated things.

09:22Why you might wanna learn C or C++

09:25may be based on the speed that you need.

09:28C is really known for its efficiency.

09:31So, you might want to learn those languages

09:33if you're working in, say,

09:37you're doing algorithmic trading,

09:39where you have to make each trade within a nanosecond.

09:42You're making thousands of trades in nanoseconds, right?

09:45You need something that's really freaking fast.

09:48So, C might actually be a good idea or C++.

09:53Linus Torvalds hates C++.

09:56He loves C, so that's why I keep saying C first.

10:00So, that's why.

10:02Java, probably one of the same reasons.

10:04Video game design, very popular, powerful language.

10:07Android applications, Java is very powerful.

10:09Okay guys, hopefully that gives you a little bit

10:11of an overview about different languages

10:14and why you should pick one of them.

10:17I would say start off with a very simple language.

10:20Python would be my go-to choice for you.

10:24And, other than that, thank you guys for watching this.

10:26I love every single one of you.

10:28Do me a favor, subscribe,

10:30so you can get more information like this.

10:32I have a bunch of other videos on tutorials

10:34that you can watch to start learning Python today.

10:38Take care.

10:39I will see you guys in the next video.