I Want to Learn to Program
I want to learn to program. Should I begin with C, C++, Java, or Python?
And why?
Before embarking on a programming
language learning journey, the first thing to think of is your motivation.
Depending on the career track you want to choose, your choices
will vary. If you wish to pursue a career in traditional software engineering,
beginning with C, C++ or Java is probably your best bet, as they are often used
in industry and have tons of learning resources about them.
However, if you want to break into data science or data
analytics, your best bet would be to start with Python, as it's one of the defacto programming languages for working with data. The
added benefit here is that Python is simpler than C, C++, or Java and that the
barrier to entry is much lower in data science and Python. Python contains
various tools and packages for working with data, from data manipulation
packages like pandas to data visualization
packages such as Matplotlib and Seaborn,
finally to machine learning packages such as scikit-learn, and more.
R is also another alternative to learning data science. It is
the only popular alternative to Python in data science and most commonly used
in research and development, statistical analysis, data analysis, and dashboard
creation. One of its main killer apps is shiny, which lets you
easily create web-based dashboards to report and communicate data.
If you're interested
in pursuing a learning path for R and Python, we highly recommend you check out
these articles on how to learn R and Python, respectively.
Moreover, we encourage you to check out our Data Scientist in Python, and Data Scientist in R career
tracks, which contain up to 30 courses and projects each that allow you to
learn and apply your skills by coding right in the browser.
References