What is the best programming language when learning to code?

The most typical answer to this question falls somewhere along the lines of:

"The one that you are learning now..."

Or even worse...

'They're all pretty good..."

As mystical bells sound off in the background leaving you more confused than before you asked. But because you are here for answers, I want to leave you with something more tangible and something less cryptic.

Because those two statements above might be valid points, but so are their counter arguments.

My answer as of right now (might change one day), is JavaScript is the language to start with. You heard me right. The once front-end only language that was mainly used to change background colors on hover has evolved tremendously during this past decade. New API's have been introduced and insanely fast frameworks have been created by hobby programmers.

Here are a few reasons why I think this should be your go to language if you are just starting:

- Requires no complex configuration or setup
- C-based syntax similar to many high level languages
- Runs on any browser
- Plenty of free and paid documentation online
- You pretty much just need notepad.exe and a browser

Overall, it's just a simpler language to get into right away without GB's of IDE's to install and configure. Those have their time and place, sure, but not so much early on.

Another benefit that isn't immediately noticeable, is the recent exponential growth in popularity that the language has received. It's getting more wide adoption, browsers are getting faster and more efficient and new API's are constantly getting added to the specification.

Which means, that eventually as your skillset increases you will be able to work on these many features of the language.

Other languages...

Having said that. Yes, the above mystical quotes are also true. Every programming language has a massive learning curve, and life is finite (probably), so no, you can't master them all like in some weird alternate version of Pokemon.

So if you are knee deep in learning PHP currently, and have your Apache server up and running and managed to connect to your first MySql instance of a database, then keep at it. Don't drop everything to learn JavaScript at this point.

You will more than likely encounter JavaScript in passing and learn it through osmosis in your web development career. There really is no way to avoid it these days.

But if you are a blank canvas to a language and want the least amount of resistance in picking it up, then for sure, JavaScript would be my go to choice.