Some type of BASIC came first along with Batch (if it counts) and later Visual Basic. All sorts of easy things that I fully advocate for as first languages in education. The next step for me was C/C++ and various different languages that are more learning examples than anything now like COBOL and Pascal. And then for school, I picked up Python, Java, C#, Ruby, and a smattering of ARM Assembler.
I use a lot of languages for school, but outside of that, depending on the research I’m doing, projects I’m working on, and other things, it varies between C++ (which I use for analytics and research stuff) and Python (which is much nicer for automation and interacting with distributed computing). Bash finds itself very close behind them for automation when I’m being too lazy to write Python.
It funny how quick the number of languages balloons, I tell myself I don’t know that many, than I list everything I’ve programed at least one line in. Matlab, c/c++, c#, java, vhdl, verilog, tcl, python, whatever was built into excel, assembly (mips, arm, x86). If block diagram languages count, labview, sysml.
But above all, I’m sorry, but nothing is lazier than python.
I think I started with C#, went to C, then (pre-ES6) JS, Python, then Perl, then C++.
I didn’t get much interest or progress in most of them. C# was somewhat interesting because I could make actual windows, and Perl just has a lot of interesting text-geared concepts and was created by a linguist (my background is in language and literature, not in any IT field). Perl is still delightful to learn, though I’d go with Raku (Perl 6) now.
The only language I really learned properly and use the most is C++, especially with Qt, as my true interest is GUI programming. I was never into raw algorithms and CLI programs.
I worked with pyqt for a project once, I’d almost call Qt its own language. As for GUIs, I generally work with embedded systems or scripting, so not much human interaction needed. And it works is my baseline for completeness, no fancy algorithms here. I probably program like Matt Parker. I’m trying to make a website, so I either need to find someone who wants to do the visual bits, or learn some HTML/CSS myself. I’m enjoying learning the server bits.
Delphi (not necessarily a “language” but it did change things just enough to make it different)
Junior Year
C++
Java
Senior Year
C++
Microsoft Turbo Assembly (16-bit)
College
Freshman Year
Java
C++
Sophmore Year
C++
Assembly for TI microcontroller (EE/CE course)
Junior Year
Python (Networking courses)
C# (Algorithm Design course)
Racket (Computer Language/Interpreter course)
Julia (Computer Language/Interpreter course)
R (Bayesian Stats course)
Senior Year
Python (all courses allowed personal choice)
I mostly use Python personally and dabble in Rust for learning purposes. I was staunchly anti-Python in my freshman year of college because I was helping a friend figure out why his Python script for CS 100 wasn’t working and I had never used it before, and the idea of whitespace indentation used for scoping seemed ridiculous (amplified by the discovery that my friend had mixed both in his lines). However after starting an on-campus job as a network engineer between my sophomore and junior year I found Python to be ideal for rapid prototyping and automation. Funny how that immediate reversal of opinion occurred.
Don’t know about Julia, but your probably writing matlab “wrong” if you’re using indexes. (I’ve never used matlab correctly, but its not really my field). Its always confusing though.
Julia embraces it. It’s intended to be used as a general-purpose scripting language focused on data/numerical analysis with parallel computing baked in. So indexing is a core part of its syntax. And since it caters to mathematicians, they began with indexing to start from 1 for familiarity. (Eventually they added support to define if your code has indexing starting from 0 or 1.)
R for my stats class really threw me off. Syntax was kinda comparable to Python but the way in which you can assign data to an object (which I think was both possible via index or dot-operator) meant I had to “forget” some things to not be lost when reading a TA’s example.
In summary, I’ll stick with Python/C/C++/Rust and leave Matlab/R/Julia to the mathematicians.
Started with C#, was the first one I managed to write hello world in. Now I’m writing Java professionally, so I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. However in my freetime I’m weak for C++.
I’m still pretty new to programming in general but Swift was my first language. I’ve done some basic work in C++ for school but Swift is definitely still my most used language.
C then NASM assembly, enjoyed poking around in how programs worked using hex editors and disassemblers, chasing strings to be offensive. Then decided I wanted to learn how to actually make the programs, and I’d heard how fast C and Assembly were, so off I went.
I’ve dabbled with disassemblers. they are not my friend. Although looking at that low level stuff is probably a good way to learn how to write efficient programs.
Meh, even now with more background knowledge, I wouldn’t say they’re really good for understanding how programs flow. They’re pretty neat for finding out how a hand-optimized part of code works though.
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