First programming language

[beyondsociety]

Interesting enough my first language wasn't basic like most of everyone else, but instead msdos batch programming. I spent quite a bit learning how to write a custom boot disk of dos and its utiities. I then later went onto learn qbasic and assembly language for the Motorola 68k. I then branched out to other languages as I became interested in certain things.

[Muazzam]

I wrote a hello world-like program in GW-BASIC. Then I quickly moved on to Visual Basic (VB.net to be exact, with Visual Studio Express 2010 as the IDE) that I consider to be my first language.

I don't care about the language, that I can learn in a weekend or so, by the way. I just care about the platform (Windows 8, web, iOS, system-level, etc.). x86 assembly is the easiest. (From my limited programming experience.)

The best way to learn programming is just take the source code, try to edit, and then compile it. Run it with different values. Tweak with it and keep doing that. A book or online reference to the syntax of the language and/or the API would be helpful.

I can assure you that it's not programming that is hard but the problem that we're trying to solve.

[dseller]

Turbo Pascal when I was 9. Then C, Java, various scripting languages, x86 assembly, and ARM assembly. After that I learned C++ and C#. Javascript for commercial web development. Tinkered around with Erlang and F#. Probably some more less significant languages I forgot to mention.

Currently planning my own programming language .

[Ycep]

My first programming language was HTML. Started studying it when I was 7. Partially learned from internet tutorials.
My first back-end language was, Visual Basic. Started studying it when I was 8. Learned from internet and practicing.
My second back-end language was, C (and later C++). Started studying it when I was 9.
My first script language was, was Batch. Started studying with 7. Learned mostly from practicing.
Started creating my own programming language called D when I was 10. Discountined it.
Maybe too young for programming, .

[onlyonemac]

My first programming language was HTML. Started studying it when I was 7. Partially learned from internet tutorials.
My first back-end language was, Visual Basic. Started studying it when I was 8. Learned from internet and practicing.
My second back-end language was, C (and later C++). Started studying it when I was 9.
My first script language was, was Batch. Started studying with 7. Learned mostly from practicing.
Started creating my own programming language called D when I was 10. Discountined it.
Maybe too young for programming, .

Nah, you're not too young. I learned BASIC when I was around 8 and Visual Basic not long after (although I didn't really understand the whole object-oriented thing). I also learned HTML around a similar time but didn't (and still don't) regard it as a programming language; it's a markup language, hence the name. I learned C when I was around 14 and have been using it ever since. I've also learnt C# and Java recently - these are both very powerful high-level languages great for application development but not for system development.

Like many young programmers, I'm sure, I also tried to devise my own language. Luckily for me, I didn't name it after an existing language and I soon realised, with a growing awareness of the diverse range of programming languages that already existed, that it was a mostly pointless exercise. I was content with the languages that I knew, and when I needed something that those languages didn't offer I'd mess around with a new language and see how easily I could pick it up. What I've realised is that language syntax falls into two or three broad categories, and picking up a new language in the same category as one that I already know is fairly trivial (although the more complex features of a new language take longer to sink in). That's how, for example, I was able to pick up Java in a day or two with a solid knowledge of C and a brief tutorial on OOP in Java (the principles of OOP come naturally to me, once it's explained how to use them in a particular language). C# was furthermore an easy transition from Java. There's really no need for a new language unless you're designing an innovative new kind of computing platform (and by that I mean really innovative, built from conceptions so far unheardof).

Sorry, I think I drifted a bit off-topic there, I'm tired.

[Roman]

I guess, many programmers start as very young people. At least, many famous ones did.

[jeaye]

I started at ~16 years old with JustBASIC/LibertyBASIC and I can't, for the life of me, remember why I chose it. After a couple of months, it was into C++ and I stayed there through high school, college, into the C++ game industry.

These days, imperative programming makes my gut wrench and I primarily work with Clojure; ideally, I'll be able to work with http://jank-lang.org/ on serious projects this year.

[moondeck]

I've started with HTML, i dont really remember how young i was, could have been around 7-8, learned from tutorials on the web.
Then i've found Scratch, which i think is really GREAT because it shows all the programming language concepts (OOP, variables all that stuff) in a really easy way, and then when you learn a real programming language it just makes you think "oh yeah, i used to do something similar in Scratch!" (at least it did for me). I used Scratch to make my own OSes, i think i had around 5 different ones, but that was back when i thought that all an operating system was a nice looking GUI

... and then i discovered Linux and the magic CLI, and everything changed.
i did a small "system" in Scratch that was inspired by Tiny Core, and it had a shell with 3 commands! "help","exit" and "reboot" which was pretty awesome to me at that time.
Then when i was about 12, i started seeing how limited Scratch is, and that while being awesome fun, its useless. And i've stopped programming. Then later, i found out that i like electronics, and got into MCU programming, so i had to learn some programming, and i've chosen C, as its the most popular language for MCUs. Then, i started wondering if i could make an operating system for a microcontroller , so i did a bit of research, and found out that they are pretty weak compared to the modern PCs, so i got an absolutely brilliant idea to make my own PC. Aaaand then i found out that i dont have the resources and 4-digit sums to do that, so i went for x86 because it is readily available. And so here i am, trying to learn C and x86 ASM and at the same time trying to do my first OS that (IMO) has pretty messed up code and its probably gonna die in a few months (has about 7 now, wow right?) and i love doing it. It also helped stopping my gaming addiction which i am really happy about. I am taking a break from OSdev for a while, and learning C++ at the moment.

[TightCoderEx]

My first exposure to any kind of programming was on an HP 25C 50 step programmable calculator. Don't know if it could have been called a language, but it must have had an underlying instruction set of some kind. Then a couple of years later, the IMSAI 8080 caught my eye, but it wasn't until 1979, when I could afford a Vector MZ that I cut my teeth on CPM, but can't remember what version of BASIC shipped with the OS. A year later, the clones start surfacing with MSDOS 1.0 with GW-BASIC and then a compiled version, can't remember the name though.

By 1981, it was obvious, to get any sort of throughput, especially in sorting algorithms, "C" was the way to go and that is all I used for the next 9 yrs. The impetus to this was also supported by the fact that Apple II was coming into its own and there was a version of "C" available for it too.

[onlyonemac]

... and then i discovered Linux and the magic CLI, and everything changed.

Oh yeah, the Linux shell is awesome! But it isn't a programming language to me, it's just a super-awesome super-powerful way of interacting with a computer. I mean, just imagine being able to use conditional statements to process a bunch of files at the same time, directly from your computer's interface. It's like, a way of using a computer that blurs the lines between "now I'm carrying out a task on the computer" and "now I'm telling the computer how to carry out a task".

[moondeck]

... and then i discovered Linux and the magic CLI, and everything changed.

Oh yeah, the Linux shell is awesome! But it isn't a programming language to me

I didnt know about scripting at that time

[Combuster]

Logo gets the honour of being my official first language.

[BrightLight]

I started with HTML when I was something like 9 or 10 years old, and so naturally I learned JavaScript to some degree and CSS. Then I moved on to Visual Basic .NET and I tried C# but never made anything much of it. I had basic experience with C, but never cared too much about it. I was developing an interest in OS development, and I started teaching myself x86 assembly when I was 12. Recently, since last month, I have been teaching myself C. And now, I can consider myself sharpest in C and x86 assembly.

[max]

I got a BLITZ BASIC package for christmas when I was about 12. I was really interested in writing computer games and created my first little games with it. It was amazing.

Later I got into C/C++ because I wanted to write Windows applications. But I couldn't really figure out how to make UIs, so I started with VisualBasic. Built some stuff with that for quite some time. Then switched to Java (for work) and C/C++ for private stuff, doing that since about 2010

[glauxosdever]

Hi,


I started with python in April 2013. In September of the same year, I tried to do some C, but I was mostly failing. In parallel, I was considering doing OS development, but it was not until August 2014 when I started it with x86 assembly. In July 2015 I retried C and now I use it for almost every task.


Regards,
glauxosdever