Introduction

If you are planning to start a career in programming you may be wondering what programming language to start learning, choosing the appropriate programming language is so important since you will be spending a lot of time and maybe money to learn it so you should make the right choice! Making this decision is based on several criteria like the difficulty and the usage of that language.
If you are new to the software development field, the toughest part is to choose where to start.
Whether you want to develop a new desktop application, android or IOS app, get a certificate to get a new job or just develop your skills, you need to spend time choosing the right language! In this tutorial, you will learn about the most used programming languages and their usage.

Before continuing reading this article ... If you don't know me, my name is Hamza, I am a C# and ML software engineer. If you want to start developing software and learn ML, as a software engineer, I will guide you in this adventure and give you tips every day, follow me and subscribe to my newsletter to receive my daily articles.

What is a programming language?

A programming language is a computer language that programmers use to communicate with computers and develop software for computers. Programming languages are a set of texts that are converted to machine code. In general, a programming language is used to create programs that perform a specific task.

What are the programming languages to learn :

1. Javascript

The first language that we'll talk about is Javascript, I choose to talk about it as Javascript is estimated to be the most used programming language. It is a high-level programming language that is widely used in web development, It is used as a client-side programming language by 97.8 per cent of all websites. Javascript was first used in front-end development, but now it is used both in front-end and back-end development. Javascript is the most used programming language in the world.

What can I use Javascript for?

Javascript is used for web development both in the front end and the backend development. Javascript can also be used in the game development industry.

Preferable Skills needed:	The basics of HTML and CSS to define the content and layout of web pages
Platform:	Cross-platform (desktop, mobile, web)
Benefits:	Javascript is easy to learn, it's used everywhere on the web, it can run immediately within the client-side browser, and it reduces the demand on the website server
Downsides:	Can sometimes be interpreted differently by different browsers which makes it difficult to write cross-browser code.
Degree of Use:	Widely used; highly applicable
Annual Salary Projection:	$112,000

As a beginner, you can start by learning some Javascript to familiarize yourself with the basics of object-oriented programming. Javascript is a very useful language if you want to get into web development.

2. Python

Python is a high-level, general-purpose programming language, that can be used for different tasks. Python is also one of the most used programming languages in the world, in my opinion, every developer should spend some time learning python because it's extremely easy for beginners, it can be used to develop basic algorithms quickly and without having to worry about the datatypes and other details. It's a popular language for data science, machine learning and deep learning. Python is also used for scientific and computational applications.

What can I use python for?

Python can be used to create general-purpose programs, data visualization, prototyping, automation and web development. But python is more suited for data science, machine learning and deep learning.

Skills Needed:	Problem-solving, abstract thinking
Platform:	Web, Desktop
Pros:	Open-source, there are a lot of tutorials and documentation available online, easy to learn.
Cons:	Doesn’t start with programming basics (known to abstract too many important basic concepts). Slower than other programming languages like C++ and Java. Memory consuming.
Popularity:	Becoming continuously more popular both in technical education and business uses
Degree of Use:	Coding skills widely used; popular in both technical education and business use
Annual Salary Projection:	$109,092

Python is becoming more and more popular among programmers due to its simplicity and its support modules and community development. For a beginner, Python is a very good programming language to master object-oriented programming and basic programming concepts such as functions, variables, and classes ...

If you are interested in learning python, check out my article on OOP OOP with python for absolute beginners

Csharp

Developed by Microsoft, C# rose to fame in the 2000s for supporting the concepts of object-oriented programming. It is one of the most used programming languages for the .NET framework. Anders Hejlsberg, the creator of C#, says the language is more like C++ than Java.

What can I use C# for?

C# can be used for developing desktop applications, android/IOS applications and also game development. C# is used in tasks where OOP or multithreading and asynchronous programming are highly demanded. It can also be used to develop web applications.

Skills Needed:	A basic understanding of how to write code
Platform:	Cross-platform, including mobile and enterprise software applications
Popularity Among Programmers:	Relatively popular, but not as popular as Java (its closest rival)
Benefits:	Fast Simple to useObject-orientedScalable and updateableInteroperable with other codesOpen sourceExtensive library
Downsides:	Less flexible, as it depends on Microsoft’s .Net framework; poor x-platform GUI
Degree of Use:	Used by roughly one-third of all software developers, particularly relevant for Microsoft developers
Annual Salary Projection:	$111,760

C# is best suited for desktop and android applications, C# can be used in the web development as well with the help of the ASP.NET framework. So C# is really good if you want to create desktop and android applications.

If you are interested in learning C#, check out my articles:

• learn C# from scratch for absolute beginners.

• Learn object-oriented programming in C# from scratch

C/C++

C language is one of the oldest programming languages, C is a low-level programming language, used most for embedded systems and applications where we need the program to be executed quickly. C and C++ are a good languages to master the essentials of programming such as pointers, references and also object-oriented programming in C++

What can I use C/C++ for?

C and C++ can be used to develop operating systems, embedded systems, software or any other algorithm that needs to run as fast as possible.

Skills Needed:	Problem-solving, and basic computer knowledge (Memory, processor...). As C and C++ deal with low-level management of computer resources,  knowledge of computer functions such as memory management is beneficial.
Platform:	Mobile, Desktop, Embedded systems, Operating systems.
Popularity Among Programmers:	One of the world’s most popular languages
Benefits:	Used to learn the fundamentals of programming at the lowest (hardware) level, C++ allows for a much higher “control” than other languages
Downsides:	Coding in C is stricter, not very beginner-friendly language
Annual Salary Projection:	$118,366

C and C++ are really good for developers that need to understand deep programming since these languages deal with memory through pointers, dynamic allocations and more.

Java

Java is also one of the most used programming languages, Java is a general-purpose programming language that can be used to develop applications that can run everywhere. Java and kotlin are known to be used to develop android applications in android studio. Java is a little bit hard to learn, but experienced developers with Java coding skills are in high demand.

Skills required:	Problem-solving, knowledge of the object-oriented structure
Platform:	Web, Mobile, Desktop
Popularity Among Programmers:	One of the world’s most popular;
Benefits:	Regarded as a good start for learning to think like a programmer and gain coding skills You’ll be able to access/manipulate the most important computer functions, like the file system, graphics, and sound for any fairly sophisticated and modern program that can run on any operating system.
Downsides:	Lots of new vocabulary to learn; a higher-level language
Degree of Use:	Widely used; highly applicable
Annual Salary Projection:	$109,225

What can I use C/C++ for?

Java is widely used to develop android applications, embedded systems, desktop applications, web applications, game development and machine learning and scientific computing.

Conclusion

Of course! This is not an exhaustive list of all important programming languages, It depends on what are you planning to learn and the field in which you want to start a career, if you want to learn machine learning, for instance, you will need to learn python while if you want to learn android development, you would rather learn java, kotlin and other technologies!

Finally ...

This is a very simple tutorial for absolute beginners and is intended to give you some insights about programming languages before you dive into this field, in the next tutorials we will try to cover more programming languages such as PHP, Swift, kotlin and more.
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