It may seem obvious that web development is the way to go if you want to learn coding. Certainly it is a hugely in-demand skill, but it is by no means the only path available. The safest course is to investigate the plethora of options in a bewildering array of industries before honing in on one as a career path. Ultimately it will have a significant impact on choosing your first programming language to learn.
First Steps
You may, of course already have an idea of a particular target industry to work in. If that is the case you should probably begin by:
- Researching the technologies and languages that are most common in that field.
- Check out the job sites to see what kind of positions are available at the moment. Cross-check the required skillsets with your list from the first step.
- Look up the available learning resources, online courses (paid-for or free), tutorial sites, classic text books, YouTube videos etc. You may think that only paid-for services will be worthwhile; but there is a wealth of excellent information available. And many programmers are very generous in sharing their expertise. Apparently some experts are even advocating the use of AI language models like ChatGPT as a learning resource for coding.
It may be the case that you don’t have an initial preference, or are just looking to pick up some coding skills as a first step. In that case, according to Indeed, in an article posted earlier this year (view it here), the ‘most popular’ programming languages at the moment are:
- C++
- C
- Python
- JavaScript
- Ruby
- Kotlin
- HTML.
They go on to explain that early career coders usually focus on two or three as a starting point, stating HTML, JavaScript and Python as the most popular combination.
I have to say I’m quite surprised that Java is missing from the above list. It may depend of course on the definition of popular in use in the first place. In this article on freecodecamp.org, they explore the differences between Kotlin and Java. Interestingly, they cite Google’s preference for Kotlin over Java as an Android app development language.
In Summary:
There is almost universal demand for coding skills across the many sectors of the job marketplace. Coupled with the high transferability of skills moving from one technology to another, this endows the coder with a very fluid professional landscape, full of options.
You might think then that you can’t make a mistake in choosing your first programming language. But that is not really the case. Not all languages are equal, especially from the point of view of learning them. You may just find that your are put off by reaching too far too soon. There is probably a reason why there are fairly well-trodden paths that newcomers tend to use over and over again. Be prepared to start at the beginning and work your way forward in small manageable steps. This way you will ensure you achieve your long-term goals. Just like most other trades and skills, there is no short-cut or ‘royal road’ to success.
If you have enjoyed reading this, and want to dig further into learning to code/getting your professional start, you may like to read my other posts on the subject, collected here.