On 12/17/2010 5:10 AM, Parshwa Murdia wrote:
You say correctly, 'The "best" programming language, is the one you feel most comfortable with, obviously.' As I am new and starting just, so I guess (with all the suggestions I get and from searching too) that either Python or C language would be a good start. Pascal is now less used.

The thing to keep in mind here is what is the purpose of the language you're choosing for this step in your journey.  You are clearly not going to be writing production software for some time.  You are choosing a language that will serve as a canvas for early-stages learning.  At this point, you probably want to evaluate your tools in terms of their pedagogic advantages, rather than practical advantages for implementing working production software.

Keep in mind that many first year programming / computing science classes use toy languages - purposely kept small to illustrate a few programming concepts without distracting you with other concepts.

IMHO, a first learning language should introduce concepts including:
A first programming language should avoid concepts like:
That in mind, my suggestion for a first language would generally be more similar to Pascal or Modula-2 than C, Python, C++, Java,...

However, I agree with you that programing principles remain the same for any language, indeed.

Principles remain the same for particular collections of languages.  The principles at play in functional languages (LISP, Prolog,...) are different than those of procedural languages (Pascal, Modula-2, C) which are different still from OO languages (C++, Java, SmallTalk, Python) - though OO shares more with procedural than functional languages.



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Regards,
Parshwa Murdia