Here is my situation, I'm a part time blogger and a chartered accounting student.
At the moment I just want to learn a programming language that can help me with the above fields, mostly for automation purposes.
Later on, I may want to develop some saas programs(but not now)
So which programming language should I learn first in my case? Python or javascript?
And should I learn some basic html, css, and bootstrap before even learning these two languages or learn it later when I want to build Saas?
completely different realms
If you want to learn web dev (as opposed to Mobile app dev), first learn HTML, JS, and CSS. Browsers only know how to interpret these three things (embedding media types too but that's not code).
then learn about Python, C#, PHP, or Ruby, and explore advanced JS topics like React or Vue, and then SASS or whatever CSS generator you like - all of which are tools to help dynamically create and manipulate HTML, JS, and CSS.
Developers are lazy, and over the years have built all sorts of fancy ways to 'simplify' creating dynamic websites but no matter how complicated and overwrought the tools are, in the end they are all just generating HTML, JS, and CSS.
Edit: for those downvoting, please go back to school, you're unqualified.
Javascript is weird and sloppy, learning it first will cement questionable habits in your mind that you will later need to unlearn.
If you're not doing web development specifically, there's no reason to bother with Javascript.
JavaScript allows you to make games, desktop applications, and websites quickly with incredibly simple things like HTML and CSS. Python can also do the same things but is more complex (Tkinter for GUI). It's also used for more 'math-y' stuff like data science. So, should I learn JS next? I mean, I already completed the course on Codecademy. I'm thinking of learning Electron next so I can build desktop apps like Spotify, Skype, Atom, VS Code, etc.
Python doesn't give any immediate results like a shiny website or a fancy app. It's just console and console everywhere! It CAN be used to make games and graphics, but they are too complex. When you learn Python and someone asks what you have made with it, you can say two types of things: YouTube and Google were made with Python, so even I made a billion dollar app with it. Or you could say "I built a guess the no. game which works in the console and which most people have no idea how to run"! I mean, you either make something magnificent or something obscure and not very useful with it. But Python is easy, and that's why everyone just learns how to write hello world in it and call themselves 'pRoGamEr'. (r/programmerhumor, anyone?!)
SO. What I'm trying to say is, can Python make something which JavaScript can't? (Like something which has GUI and is quick and simple to make).
The correct answer is Python AND JavaScript.
Imagine you want to be a chef and asking if you should learn to use the stove or the oven.
No matter what language you pick, you're not going to get very far with one language. Every language has its pros and cons and any interesting program is built using a mix of languages.
YouTube isn't written in Python. It's written in Python AND JavaScript AND C++.
Same with Google - it uses a mix of C++, Java, and Python primarily with a dozen other languages for specific purposes.
Same with all of those other apps you mentioned - virtually all of them use a bit of multiple languages.
So, stop worrying about which language to choose as if it's going to determine the course of your career. Pick one and learn it really well and figure out what it's good at and not good at. Then learn your second language - I guarantee it won't take as long because a lot of the concepts are the same. Then keep learning languages for the rest of your career, it never ends.
SO. What I'm trying to say is, can Python make something which JavaScript can't?
No.
And they could have written Google in Anrold-C or Delphi if they had wanted to do that.
Programming languages tend to be Turing complete, which means they can all do all of the same things. There's nothing that you could do in JavaScript that you couldn't also achieve in Python.
It's not always practical, of course. Python doesn't run inside webesites - but you could get it to do just that with a ton of extra work.
If you ever find yourself thinking that you can't do this, that or the other thing because you don't know a particular programming language, you've identified your own shortcomings as a programmer. Programmer, not "polyglot of programming languages".
Python doesn't give any immediate results like a shiny website or a fancy app. It's just console and console everywhere! It CAN be used to make games and graphics, but they are too complex. W
See? that's all you, and none of it is has to do with Python. I just had a look at a quick youtube tutorial on tkinter, and it looks easy enough. The difference is just that you already know HTML and don't want to spend time learning something new. (Which is all fair enough, but doesn't make python in any way inferior.)
What separates you from being able to build something amazing is not the programming languages you do or don't know. It is experience programming. If you do build something amazing, you'll find that putting the results into a GUI is simple - regardless of the platform.
Nobody will ever want to play "guess the number", no matter whether it's in the console, or a website, or an executable. Because building that game is a learning exercise, nothing more.
And just as it isn't difficult or complex to build a GUI in python, it's not difficult to turn your code into a stand-alone executable. You want to learn electron to do the same thing - and that's fine. But, again, it doesn't mean python can't do it, or that it's somehow overly complicated to do so.
Learning either Electron or tkinter will not allow you to build amazing software, though. It's usually not the GUI that makes something amazing.
I've been studying the JavaScript ecosystem since January. Minus a couple of months back when I moved. I've come far with it, but something happened when I finally got to React which I thought was an end goal before I start creating a portfolio. I don't like it. I ask myself what changed? It's probably the level of complexity went way up or something. They say React is easy compared to Angular, but it's still difficult. I've never liked the flexibility of it all as it is. Also, it's been hard because the tutorials teach you the old way and the new way (ES6) and that has doubled the amount of time to learn everything.
I've been exploring Python and it looks on the outset like a much more stable programming language to learn. Why I never even considered it at all when I started is a shame. I just didn't know the differences between frontend and backend back then. Also, I'm not one of those who gets excited to see his work on the front page of a website. It'll be obsolete two years from now anyway. So it makes no difference to me. I just want to be good at coding so I can earn money doing it. I don't care about the latest framework. But I had to choose one and I chose React because that's the direction everything seemed to be in at the time.
Is this a case where the grass isn't greener on the other side and I'm going to have just as many issues grappling my head around Django/Flask? Or is it less complicated to understand once you get there with solid Python training? Thank you.
Honestly, the specific language you learn initially isn't very important to what you do in the long run. A good software engineer will learn lots of languages over time. There are pros and cons to both options.
Pro-Python: Python is easy to learn and pleasant to code in. You will almost certainly have fewer issues understanding Python and learning Django and/or Flask. If this is what you need to really enjoy learning, and to push forward effectively, then it's probably a good idea.
Pro-Javascript: There are a lot more jobs. Every FE needs JS one way or another, and lots of programmers don't want to do it. Getting your foot in the door would likely be a lot easier, and an experienced JS programmer who has learned Python on the side will have a much easier time getting a Python job than an inexperienced programmer. Also, most jobs will need some JS even if that's not their main thing. If you're in a position to get your foot in the door doing JS soon, then that's probably the smart play.
It sounds like you are in the early stages of learning programming / computer science. I'm someone who likes programming in Python, but has fallen in love with javascript programming over the past couple of years. I program in both quite regularly and enjoy both languages.
A few things
JS is probably a terrible first choice for picking up programming. There are far too many complicated things about it that make the entire process daunting.
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The tooling required to get anything done is simply staggering and extremely complicated to a complete newbie. You need to figure out Webpack, Babel, NPM, Node.js and a whole bunch of other stuff just so you can start writing code. And you most certainly don't want to not use ES6 syntax, so you're definitely going to need to figure out what transpiling is and how to get it all working.
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Good luck trying to figure out how imports / modules work in JS land. At least now, with ES6, named / default exports have made things a lot more saner, but I still don't really understand the difference between UMD and CommonJS and whatever else style of modules there are.
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It is a Prototype based language, so it really doesn't do OOP particularly well. So if you start with JS, you're not really going to learn how to organize / write code the OOP way. Now, that doesn't mean it's the only way, but most folks start learning programming in a language with robust OOP support. And OOP is easier to wrap your mind around over Functional Programming if it's your first exposure to programming
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JS is pretty nice for functional programming, which I've come to really enjoy (and now find Python severely restrictive in that area), but the cognitive load of parsing / understanding FP code is pretty high to a newbie. It's not uncommon to see 3 to 5 levels of nested functions and you pretty much have closures and higher order functions strewn about all over the place. It is extremely powerful, but also extremely daunting to someone new to programming
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JS moves extremely fast and the amount of fads that come and go are insane. You could spend a year learning something and being good at it, and then a year later, your knowledge (regarding tools/frameworks) pretty much becomes obsolete. Unless you want a JS job, or have one, it simply isn't worth the effort of putting in all the effort to constantly stay up to date with the community. Sure, the core language is more stable, but you're pretty much always going to use JS with other frameworks / libraries to get stuff done since the batteries aren't included with JS unlike with Python.
All that being said, JS is also a really fun language, and I say this as someone who used to roll his eyes at the mention of JS. With all the new language features, it's actually a pleasure to code in, and it's amazing how much you can build if you get good with JS. I've built several desktop Apps using Electron, deployed a pretty complex Web app on AWS that utilizes Flask + React + MobX, and have also done a bunch of cool data visualization / interaction work using D3 and dc.js.
My advice to you is:
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Start with Python (or something else that interests you). Focus on learning good programming practices. Most importantly, don't focus on learning a language. Focus instead, on learning some of the basic "computer science" things.... Algorithms and data structures, OOP, Functional Programming concepts, Software engineering concepts, etc.
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I cannot recommend enough, Berkeley's CS61A class (Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - In Python) - https://cs61a.org/ . Many years ago, I spent a couple of months working through the entire course, and it was the single most instructive thing I ever did. I finally "grokked" closures and recursions and it pretty much opened my eyes with regards to Functional Programming concepts. Edit - The online companion textbook for the course can be found here - https://composingprograms.com/
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Make sure you work on projects to learn. Reading books and doing courses alone wont get you very far. You learn a lot more by doing. Re-architecting the same code over and over again as you get better at coding and structuring software.
I've loved computer programming since I was a kid, but I never took a formal CS course in high school, college or grad school though I did dabble with MATLAB and Python during those years. I started pretty much from scratch about 6 years ago (started with Python) and now I code every single day for work. My only real advice to you is to be persistent, and to focus on learning CS principles and concepts rather than languages. Once you understand the former, the language for the most part becomes a trivial detail. The other piece of advice... once you do get good at programming in a language, pick another one up that is very different (perhaps a FP language) so you expose yourself to other ideas and concepts. Being exposed to different ideas and approaches to programming will be invaluable in helping you improve the way you tackle problems.
PS - If immediate employability is a concern, then JS might be a good idea since there are a ton of jobs in that space. In that case, I'd recommend trying going through the freecodecamp curriculum (or something similar) so that you have some level of guidance and a bunch of cool projects as portfolios.
Hello!
Im 26 years old and have an associates degree, I’m doing a career change from Finance. I realized that going to bootcamp is not worth it , and pursuing a CS degree would help me get a job. It should take me about 2 years to finish but meanwhile I go through those classes I want to self learn, build my skills, get my portfolio going.
My goal is to become a web developer(front end preferably) or even backend if I end up liking it.
My first 2 classes at the university are python related, so would it make sense for me to go all in on Python by taking self learning courses through udemy or youtube? and worry about learning JavaScript later? I already know html, css and a little bit of JavaScript but I’m not sure if its doable learning python and JavaScript at the same time. Has anyone tried learning python and JavaScript at the same time?
Thanks!!
languages don't matter too much. You'll need to learn a new language for many things that you'll do. Learn languages when you need them, so in your case python first. In fact learning a language quickly is a skill in and of itself.
It depends on what you want to do. If you want to be a web developer, learn Javascript. Javascript is the only language used on the frontend and also can be used in the backend (Node.js).
Sure, python has simpler syntax, but if you're really interested in webdev then you might as well start getting used to Javascript and then its libraries and frameworks once you learn fundamentals.
Edit: Also it's definitely a good idea to not go to a bootcamp unless you're really REALLY bad at motivating yourself to learn. There are so many free resources online.
Hi, I want to learn programming but I don't know where to start, I've been told that Python and JavaScript are beginner-friendly, my end goal is to make websites and apps, so I want to know your guy's opinion and experience in learning these languages and which one of these is better suited to my goals?
Better suited is JavaScript. I learned Python first, it seemed less daunting and it helped when transitioning to other languages, but you can jump right into JavaScript first.
Id say learn to be comfortable with vanilla Javascript first before diving into Frameworks like React, Vue, Angular etc.
It sounds like html/css/javascript is the best route if web dev is your goal. I'm doing Python because I wanted something more multipurpose, plus you can make Python websites with Django and Flask
Ok so I want to learn coding.
If you had to do it all over again, would you want to learn JavaScript first or Python first?
Pros and cons of JS->Py | P->JS? Why?
I probably just butchered the above line. But hopefully you get my point.
Hi, I'm 17 right now and currently wasting a lot of my time so thought of getting into coding. I did some research and came to a conclusion that most recommend either javascript or python as their first language.
I have a very basic foundation in C, like very basic so wondering which one would be more useful to learn first. I'm thinking of giving both js and python a week or a month and then decide which one I'll study further. Would this be a good idea or a waste of time?
I'm choosing js because of web development and python since many said it's easy to understand and won't take much time to learn. I don't exactly have a goal to pursue either web development or any js things OR the machine learning, data science thing from python which is the reason i thought of learning both for a week or month to figure out what I would be suited for most. But I plan to get a job on this related firled quick. Thank You.
My path to learning to code is C, HTML,CSS in that order, and now I'm done with it, but i don't know what i should do now. which of this programming language should i learn next?
HTML/CSS without Javascript isn't very useful, so I'd say pick up JS next, then python soon after.
I think it depends on what you want to do, but definitely learn JavaScript. While you're at it, study node.js. Also, C# is a great language to learn and widely used. I personally learned Java before C#, and ended up preferring C#. I think they're both great though. Since you've already been learning C, you probably shouldn't have too much trouble with C++. I learned C# first, and found C++ to be much more complex, but very interesting and you can do so much with it. If you get into some game programming, and want to learn Unreal engine, C++ is the way to go. Again, much tougher than C# so many choose to go with Unity engine for that reason. If you're wanting to develop for the web, definitely focus on JavaScript/nodejs first, then C#. It would also be good to learn some data-related stuff, like sql, nosql, and json. On the topic of web, look into one or more of the following: Angular.js, React.js, and Vue.js. For mobile app development, react-native is a good way to get started with that.
Hello there, total newbie here! I decided to learn the basics of coding about a month ago. The language that I choose to start with was Python, because I saw many people claimining that it was the easiest language for people who had never coded before to pick up. So I enrolled myself into an Udemy course "Python for beginners".
Back when I did that, I had no idea about the differences between front-end and back-end development. Now that I'm clear about, I've decided that I want to become a web developer, so I ran into "The Odin Project", and discovered that they teach Javascript, alogside Nodejs in their curriculum, and I heard that js is essential if you want to become a web developer. Should I drop the Python course and follow The Odin Project's curriculum, instead?
I've got 6 months worth of money to live on while I study and I REALLY don't want to go back to my old job.
I've done a couple of courses on Python lately and just started to build some very basic programmes in Python without guidance (dice roller, guess the random number game...). I'm worried that Python will not be as fast to learn as JavaScript, that it won't be as easy to find a job in under 6 months, and that JavaScript is a faster place to start.
With JavaScript, I played around with it and HTML/CSS a little bit last year (made one crappy website) but I can remember basically nothing about JS.
I'm feelibg like right now I still have time to go either way (Python or JS) to learn and make enough stuff to have a shot of getting a job by 2019. But I'm really torn between whether I should go with JS or Python. Any advice/thoughts would be much appreciated!
Unhappy with my current job, and looking to move into programming. I've done about 8 chapters of Learn to Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, but I want to know if this is the most efficient way of learning/being on the right path to getting a job.
My goal is to obtain a job in web-development as soon as possible (front-end first, then hopefully full-stack later). I was planning on learning Python first, and then moving over to JS later, but am I wasting my time doing it that way? Should I learn JS first?
I just want to know your opinions of what language I should go with, and how long would it take me to land an entry-level job, assuming I have very basic knowledge, and can put in 2-4 hours (possibly more) a day working on it?
Sorry if this isn't the right place to post the question; please redirect me to the proper sub if this isn't right.
If you're goal is front end development, there's no reason to not jump into javascript now. Try learnjavascript. You're time learning python won't be wasted, but you can learn programming fundamentals using JS.
You are pretty much wasting you time with Python if you want to become a web developer. Maybe later in your career you can learn Python for more advanced concepts but if you are a novice programmer and you know that you want to learn how to make websites, then just go for Javascript, HTML, and CSS
Here are 2 books that I really like (They have a really good aesthetic too) https://www.amazon.com/Web-Design-HTML-JavaScript-jQuery/dp/1118907442/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1484694500&sr=8-2-fkmr1&keywords=html+and+ccs+books
Is it useful or helpful to start by using JavaScript in order to learn Python? Are they similar?
Just learn python, then learn Javascript when you need it. Aka web development.
Learning just for the sake of learning is a waste of time. Learn something only if it helps you.
So, to answer your question: why bother with JavaScript if you are interested in Python ? Go directly to Python if that's what you want to learn.
I’m new to coding and want to learn the fundamentals of it. I just want to know which one is the best and that’s it and give me some YouTube tutorials recommendations.
When I picked up programming I started with Python but now mainly use Java. I want to do frontend so I just recently started learning JavaScript. Before I thought JavaScript was a language for frontend only, but now I realized that it could be used for backend and I'm thinking why don't people recommend JavaScript since it has the same concepts as Python and Java but it has more uses?
I need to take a programing class for my collage next semester and need help deciding between JavaScript or Python. I'm new to programing so I'm not sure which to start off with. Any feedback is appreciated!
Hey everyone,
I’m a beginner in programming. I'm confused about whether to go with Python (Flask/Django) or JavaScript (Node.js) for backend development.
Here’s some context:
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I’m also learning front-end (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript).
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I want to build full-stack web apps.
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I enjoy Python’s simplicity, but I’m also okay learning JavaScript properly.
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Long term, I might also be interested in data science or AI (so Python would help there).
Can you guys share what worked best for you, or which path makes more sense for someone starting out?
Any tips, resources, or personal experiences would be really helpful!
I stayed away from python at first since I wanted to build cool stuff immediately but as a programming beginner the mingling syntax between js, html and css just frustrates me and I can’t make a lot of progress quickly.
I’m wondering if switching to python would be a good move since I’m studying engineering and I won’t have that frustrating part of not knowing the syntax for three different things.
Just focus on one program and build it correctly you know.
Thanks for reading.
I've searched this sub but didn't get an conclusive answer, hence my question.
At the moment I'm working towards becoming a UI/UX/web designer. I know HTML and CSS, but would like to expand my skillset and learn some coding. From what I've understood is that Python is easier to learn than JavaScript, but JavaScript is more useful to learn as a webdesigner. Eventually I want to design apps, so I'm wondering if perhaps learning Python first might make it easier to learn JavaScript.
I would like to have some input in this, thanks!