You’re ready to make a career change and become a programmer. Software developers work on fascinating projects and command handsome salaries, and they are increasingly in demand as the years pass. Becoming a coder will set you up for a fulfilling and rewarding life, but is coding hard to learn? How difficult is it for a beginner to sit down and start studying to be a programmer?
I’m so glad you asked that question because, if you hadn’t, I’d have written this article for no reason. In this guide, we look at learning to code. We show you the easiest languages to learn so you can start on the right foot, and you’ll get to know which languages are the hardest to learn, as well; you can tackle these after getting a few of the easier ones down. It’ll be a madcap adventure, I’m sure, so let’s get started.
The Easiest Coding Languages to Pick Up
When you’re beginning your studies, it’s best not to bite off more than you can chew. Trying to learn a complex and difficult language before you’ve mastered the easier guys can be a frustrating experience and can result in you giving up in disgust rather than just pounding your head against a wall. To give yourself the best chance to succeed, be kind to yourself, and start with an easier language.
If you want a relatively painless entry into Programmerland, you can always start with HTML, which is invaluable for web design. Python has simple, human-friendly syntax, which makes it a great first language as well. Don’t forget to study JavaScript—it’s the Swiss army knife of coding languages, and it’s easy to pick up. PHP is a great starter language: it’s robust enough to keep running, even if the code contains errors. And, you shouldn’t pass by Java without learning it, too, considering how simple it is to start using and how widely used it is for mobile application development.
The Toughest Coding Languages to Learn
When you dig into the more difficult languages, you’ll begin to see some similarities between them. All of the languages in this section are toughies for new coders to read, comprehend, debug, and service. Several of them are higher-level languages and allow for computer abstraction so that you don’t have to worry about making sure that memory gets utilized correctly and other housekeeping tasks, but they are all complex and difficult to learn.
Assembly language is about as low-level as you can go without having to chat in binary. Assembly is a very old language and is far from intuitive. Some varieties of C, namely C, C#, and C Objective, are also tough to grasp and have lots of moving parts and steep learning curves. All of the harder languages we’ve listed are valuable and useful, so once you have the skills to handle them, you should study them.
Learning developer skills is a fantastic way to kickstart your career, but you need to make sure not to take on too difficult of a language the first time you pick up a textbook. Our guide shows you how coding doesn’t have to be hard to learn when you select the right study material, and it also lets you know which languages to avoid until your brain gets a bit plumper. You won’t believe you waited so long to get started.
What’s your opinion of whether coding is hard to learn? Let us know your thoughts in our comments section below.
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