Education Ecosystem Blog

Learning how to code programming languages takes time and dedication. With motivation and the right tools however, it shouldn’t be an acid test to learn the programming languages of today.

There are hordes of new technologies coming up every day that make programming languages easier and quicker to learn. The trick is in finding your ideal programming language and coupling it with the best learning technique available. You can enroll into a programming class, join a Live coding community  and interact with learners like yourself or use an online programming School like Code Academy.

It all starts with picking the right language to learn. This should be guided by a few factors.

• Your passion: What would you love to create. Are you into; web development, mobile development, desktop application development, etc. It’s easier to learn a language that you enjoy working with.
• Demand for the language: How popular is the language, what learning tools are available to support you.  Learning a popular language could also help you land many programming jobs.
• Learning curve: The time taken to learn and be proficient in programming differs from one language to another: How much time are you willing to invest in learning?
• Trends: Technology is ever changing. New languages are developed every year. Which new programming concepts/frameworks/tools/language updates have been released recently? How different or beneficial are they compared to the previous ones?

The choice really depends on one’s personal preferences and what they want to achieve by learning a particular language.

Top Programming Languages to Learn in 2016

Javascript.

Javascript is a scripting language used alongside HTML and CSS to create amazing front-end applications. It still one of the most popular languages and is part of the essential technologies for World Wide Web content production.It  couples up with several platforms/ tools like React JS and Node JS to create powerful applications.

C#

C# is a cool language for new programmers to learn. It teaches you a lot of  programming basics as you learn. It’s a multipurpose object oriented  language that builds powerful windows desktop and mobile applications and  runs on one of the best IDE’s that is visual studio. It’s syntax is concise, expressive and it promotes a  functional programming style.

Python

Python is a cross platform language with a huge community. It is used mostly for web development, server-side programming and in data analytics. Python is a great resource for building games and GUI’s. It can be used on its own or as part of another framework like Django.Python has been used to develop many popular websites like Quora and Pinterest.

Java

Java is still one of the most used programming languages.  It’s skillset is widely sought. It is a server side interpreted and compiled language, that forms the basis of android. It is platform independent and slow to change, which helps developers to keep up with it over time. Java has been around longer than most languages today, which explains its popularity and demand.

Ruby

Ruby is an open source integrated easy to extend high level programming language that has many resourceful libraries. It is object oriented and has a community that beginners will rely on for help when needed.

Learners will take an approximate 4-8 weeks to start delivering some functional projects out of ruby.

PHP

PHP is a server side scripting language that can be written within HTML. It is dedicated to web development and runs on several platforms that include Windows, Linux, Mac OS . It is compatible with almost all servers available today. PHP offers a multi database support and is relatively easy to learn.

As Bill Gates once said, “The best way to prepare [to be a programmer] is to write programs and to study great programs that other people have written.” To get the best idea of a language you can learn, look up for projects on Github and select a field of your interest. It should give a head start into the search for a programming language to learn this year.