Programming | Technology | Coding

Why You Don’t Have to Worry About Which Language to Learn First

I don’t think there was much point in worrying about it then.

I have experienced this problem myself, so I know how you feel. However, it has been so many years since I started working as a web engineer, and I don’t think there was much point in worrying about it at the time.

So this time, I would like to summarize the three reasons why you don’t have to worry about which programming language to learn first.

1. If you can do one thing, you can do the others.

Haven’t you heard this often? I was often told this when I started studying, but I didn’t believe it.

“Because it’s a “language,” there’s no such thing as that! You have to think carefully about which subject to study.’’ But I can assure you, this is true.

Learning any language is difficult at first. Since I’m not used to programming itself, it’s natural that there are many things I don’t understand. This is not to say that learning Ruby or PHP will make things easier. Arrays, hashes, strings, numbers, classes.

Of course not all of them, but there are quite a lot of concepts that are common to each language. It gives the impression that the “dialects” are different.

Recently, I started learning JavaScript systematically again. If the difficulty of learning Ruby for the first time is 10, then the problem of learning JS is about 1. No one language can handle all the challenges. You will learn multiple languages. So why not try learning one language first?

2. I don’t know what’s going on (it feels fun)

I think it’s a little different that if you take the time to think about it, you can find the language that’s perfect for you. In the first place, it is common in many things, not just programming, that you won’t understand anything unless you try it.

And people just starting to learn programming don’t have any “judgment material’’ in the first place. This can’t be helped. I don’t know what’s right or what’s left, and if there’s any information I can rely on, it’s all from sources that are full of position talk and cause anxiety.

If you worry about things even though you don’t have the materials to decide, you may waste a lot of time. Rather than getting lost, it’s better to try it first. Studying doesn’t cost anything, and it’s not a significant risk. If it’s not fun, stop.

3. The more you worry, the more you get swayed by position talk.

As I wrote above, this position talk is something that beginners who are having trouble should be careful about. This is a common phenomenon, but since I started working in this industry, I have noticed a lot of position talk. The more you worry about it, the more you will be swayed by various position talks. As a result, you may feel tired before you even begin studying.

What’s even more frightening is that people don’t realize it’s position talk before they start learning. It’s just that your mental state gets thrown around, and you get exhausted.

When I was first learning Ruby, I heard many comments on the internet saying, "Ruby is old, so there’s no point in learning it,’’ which made me unnecessarily anxious. But now I’m like, “What was I doing?” The trick to not being swayed by position talk is to “act quickly on your own.” This is the only way you can make your own decisions.

That said, what should I do?

I’m sure many people, myself included, think that they don’t want to lose money. I would hate it if all the time I spent studying were wasted.

But if you change the language midway through, is that a “waste”? At the very least, you should be able to “discover” that the language you first learned didn’t suit you. This is a precious discovery that is not listed on any site because it is what you felt.

The first step is to take the first step. If you are still confused, please refer to the Royal Road for beginners.

• Ruby
• PHP
• JavaScript

Why not start from there?

The best thing to do is to do what you like, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a wide range of difficulty. I’ve never learned it, but I often hear that it’s easy to get discouraged when learning C language for the first time, so it might be a good idea to refer to that!

I would be happy if this article could be of some help to future engineers who are taking the first step to take on the challenge.

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