“Which programming language should I learn as a beginner?”

“Which programming language is suitable for beginners?”

“Which language is beginner-friendly, Python or C?”

If you are in your first year of college or trying to start your journey as a programmer, you have most likely googled these questions or some variations of these. You may have read numerous articles or watched several videos on this topic. However, you are still worried that you might waste your time learning the “wrong language” or learning the “outdated language” (see me air quoting these words).

This is what I would like to call a beginner’s dilemma. You want to learn something and start your developer journey but the ocean-like tech industry with its shark-like programming languages and libraries is confusing.

As someone who went through this, let me give you some tips to help you make better decisions.

1. It’s okay if you don’t know why you are learning this language

When I started googling the “best programming language for beginners”, the most common advice was to determine your area of interest. For example, learn Java if you want to be an Android developer. If you are interested in Machine learning, go for Python. But, there’s a problem with this advice.

In most cases, a beginner doesn’t know what field they are interested in and even if they know, fear of commitment lingers now and then.

As a result, you either, procrastinate learning or keep searching for more and more articles.

The bottom line is that it’s okay if you don’t know what field you are interested in, and this shouldn’t hinder your journey. You can learn multiple things and explore different fields without making the final decision right away.

2. There’s nothing like the outdated or wrong language

My theory is every language is useful and no, your knowledge will not be wasted. You might say that languages like COBOL and FORTRAN are outdated and nobody learns them. You’ll be surprised if you google, “Are COBOL and Fortran outdated” I recommend you to Google and find out more about these immortals.

Any language you learn will help in one or the other way. How? Read the next point.
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1. You’ll figure it out trust me**

Your freshman soul might worry that if you learn C++ and then Java, you might fall behind your genius classmates who learned Java first. Here is something you should know. If you learn one language, you will most likely learn another language easily and in less time.

In short, the concepts remain the same from one language to another, but syntax changes. If you know how for loop works, you can learn to write it in different languages. Some added concepts will be there in the new language but you will figure it out.

4. Take the first step

You might have heard the quote, “The hardest step is the first step”.

This is absolutely true for learning programming. You have to take the first step. Pick a programming language C, C++, Python, or Java, search for a video or course, and start learning. Make notes, execute basics, leave the course halfway if you aren’t comfortable with the teaching style, and find another. After all, the Internet is filled with free courses. Anything but procrastinating learning is fine.

These are some things I wish I would go back and tell my freshman self so that I would stop procrastinating and start learning. Feel free to add more in the comments.