What Languages Should I Learn?
There are hundreds of coding languages and their variants to choose from. When you ask "What language should I learn?" you should be really asking one of two different questions depending on where you are at and what you want to accomplish:
Just Getting Started
To Learn the basic concepts of coding, the key focus should be on learning how to break problems down into simple sequential steps and not be overly worried about the syntax of the language. For that reason, we suggest learning to code using languages such as Scratch, Snap and Blockly. If you tried the Angry Birds tutorial above then you were coding in Blockly.
Down The Road
Looking at a graph of the top ten most commonly used coding languages in industry (as reported in September 2014 by TIOBE.com), we see that four of the top five languages are variants of C and include C, C++, C# (pronounced 'C Sharp') and Objective-C. Note: C# is Microsoft's version of C and Objective C is the native coding language for Apple's OS X and iOS devices.
To Learn the basic concepts of coding, the key focus should be on learning how to break problems down into simple sequential steps and not be overly worried about the syntax of the language. For that reason, we suggest learning to code using languages such as Scratch, Snap and Blockly. If you tried the Angry Birds tutorial above then you were coding in Blockly.
Down The Road
Looking at a graph of the top ten most commonly used coding languages in industry (as reported in September 2014 by TIOBE.com), we see that four of the top five languages are variants of C and include C, C++, C# (pronounced 'C Sharp') and Objective-C. Note: C# is Microsoft's version of C and Objective C is the native coding language for Apple's OS X and iOS devices.
University and College
Checking with local post-secondary schools, we find that NAIT focuses on C# used in the Microsoft environment while the University of Alberta starts with Python at the introductory level and then transitions to C for second year and higher computing science courses. It's pretty clear that Python and variants of C are the languages of the future.
In Short
Learn the basics on Scratch, Snap, Blockly,..., then move on to Python and the any variant of C when you're ready!