Easy Programming Language

[Prince21]

What is the easiest programming language to learn?

What is the quickest?

[Fagutish]

C#.

[~Matt~]

PHP is the easiest

[Skulltrail]

AJAX. :p

[Astra.Xtreme]

The first thing you want to ask yourself, is what branch of programming do you want to get into. Web applications, programmable logic, standalone applications...

Any flavor of C is a good choice. Not too difficult, and widely used. Assembly Language is deeper, but will make C make more sense on a binary roots standpoint.

I wouldn't recommend Java as a starter. It's not too bad for the basics, but the deeper you get, the more confusing it gets. It's nice that you can make a simple GUI fairly easily, but it's not as widely used as a flavor of C. Java is slightly "bloated" which makes app run-times slow, and thus why it's not used as much.

[nullie]

PHP is the best language I've used. I don't want to say it's simple, but rather the thing that makes it great is that you can do things with less code, yet it's as powerful as everything else. It has so many features built into it and not a lot of unneeded syntax/etc.

PHP is more than for web now as well, it works as scripting host, in a browser (like JavaScript), and can be used to build Windows applications now.

[kai0110]

Python takes alot from other languages. It is one of the most simple languages to learn as well as being extremely robust and powerful. It has matured well over the years. I would not learn Pascal because it is a language that has its own specific real-world applications especially in the mathematics/scientific community.

Python is a very high level language. It was created so that people can get started with it immediately.

I say Python!!

[Anatolie]

Python is easiest and most powerful. It suitable for beginners and experienced programmers. I developed GUI, 3D, scentific processing, real-time low-level and web applications with Python. My last hobby project is site generator :)

I think, Python is Basic today. But much better)))

P.S. It's wonderful for team development too

[Andre S. Veteran]

I think, Python is Basic today. But much better)))

Like BASIC, it's novice-friendly and very productive. Unlike BASIC, it's a beautiful and modern language.

Three thumbs up for Python.

[pezzonovante]

I am learning C# from Herbert Schildt's book. It's pretty fun. Yes I'm finding it a little difficult to learn topics like polymorphism, abstract classes, interfaces and generics- but the basic concepts are easy to grasp. Hopefully within a few months I will be able to start writing applications using C#.

[Xire]

i learn HTML & JAVA by myself when i was like 16, am 21 now, playing with VB atm, its fun when you know what you are doing. can anyone tell me the what the most complex application made by VB looks like ?

10 print "Hello World!"

[Action Hank]

PHP is easy. It comes with a lot of handy functions that in langs like C or C++ You have to write by yourself. File operations, in-string search and regular expressions - the easiest in PHP.

[still1]

Learn C# its easy to learn and the Visual studio makes it even easier

[fhpuqrgrpgvirzhpujbj]

Learn C# its easy to learn and the Visual studio makes it even easier

this++;

[Klethron]

Java for the win!

[devHead]

Anyone??????????????????

Visual Basic .NET. It's easy and you can get it for free.

[RuudJacobs.NET]

VB.NET, Java, HTML, PHP...?

[Jen Smith]

VB.NET's pretty easy to pick up. It's nowhere near the "kiddie language" that BASIC used to be; it's matured to a real object oriented programming language that rivals others. Plus you have the .NET framework at your fingertips, which is absurdly loaded with things that make your life a whole lot easier as a developer.. pretty much the whole Windows API is in there, and then some. C# is an excellent choice too, but a slightly steeper learning curve with it's syntax, which is more C like. (And lets face it, C is anything but friendly.) C# has an added advantage though if you want to learn other similar languages later.

Either way you go, the end result is going to be more or less identical as you're still dealing with .NET. You can mix and match between them as you like. The Visual Studio IDE is absolutely excellent for the most part, especially when you add CodeRush or similar. There's a ton of quality third party components out there too. The help system is excellent as well; plus tons more information on the web, books, etc.

Somewhat cross platform too with Mono; not perfect, but it's there.

Once you've mastered that, you can always hop into C++ down the road. That's in Visual Studio as well. Most definitely not a great starting point though; probably the most powerful system level language out there, but also the most unfriendly pain in the butt to work with too. I've gotten plenty of headaches trying to read other people's code while working on my BSD boxes. Fun stuff.

Plus if you're not sure, grab an Express edition. It's free, got nothing to lose. If you really get into it, you can always get the paid versions which are very good.

I used to advocate Pascal a lot too, but Embarcadero is doing more harm than good lately. The Pascal language is prettty easy to pick up, but Embarcadero's support is terrible. More often than not, if you want a bug fixed, it's "buy the next version". (Which usually is buggy too.) They even pulled the formerly free Turbo Explorer editions, now its either get the demo, or pay the high price tag for the full product. With Visual Studio Express being free, and the paid versions being significantly better than Delphi, there's really not much I can say that's nice anymore. On the other hand though, there is FreePascal. Runs on pretty much anything, and it has a pretty powerful compiler. (Even supports 64 bit platforms, which Delphi still has yet to do..) The Lazarus IDE is kind of rough though, similar to Delphi 7 if you've seen it. Plus there's not as much support for it, and 3rd party components are near non-existant. If anything, a possibly good choice for a hobbyist.