Whats the best first language for a programmer? [Video]

For young developers learning programming for the first time, curiosity and enthusiasm are more important than rigor and discipline

Credit: Zhuravlev Andrey / Shutterstock

The other day, my friend Ned’s cousin asked Ned what he thought was the best first language for new programmers. The cousin didn’t have much computing experience, but at 15 years old the future was looming fast, and he thought programming seemed interesting and that it might be something he could get into.

“So naturally,” Ned explained, “I told him to learn Scheme.”

[ Also on InfoWorld: “My kid could code that.” ]

Huh?! Scheme? When Ned first opened up the can o’ worms of “which programming language is the best,” it seemed like a fine opportunity for an argument, Monty Python style. He’d say Perl, someone else would say C++, a third would counter with Visual Basic, and from there we’d move right on to throwing rolls and upending furniture. But Scheme?This was a bait-and-switch I hadn’t …