What was your first programming language?

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The result of the survey What was your first programming language?

  • Participated: 139 Zigsters.
  • Programming languages: 29.
  • Winner: BASIC(47/139).
  • Oldest: FORTRAN(1965).
  • Youngest: Rust(2024).

Full information

Main content of README.md generated by zig program.

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I don’t have an account on reddit, so I’ll reply here, if you please.

The very first programming language (+IDE, fck them all) where I started to understand what’s all about was probably Pascal (first its was PDP-11 like computers, then there was DOS and Turbo-Pascal, 1993 or so).

Also there was some tiny experience with BASIC (1991)
(GOTO was awful, but now welcome to call/cc :slight_smile: )
and FORTRAN (1992)
(also had some very interesting experience in rewriting FORTRAN progs in Delphi).

Started to learn C in 1998, but do not remember exactly when and why.
Still it is the most convenient programming language for me.

well … I was born in the year C lang did, it’s a karma :crazy_face:

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Long road to Zig

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tell me about it

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algol60,asm,fortran,plm,c,c#,vbs,psh,go,php
1971-2024
zig - since July

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Had a similar journey, started in 1978: ASM, Fortran, C, Pascal, Smalltalk, C++, Java, Go, Zig. :slightly_smiling_face:

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a
a1243Ă—747 75.3 KB

where is Ada?

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For me, it was Turbo Pascal in 1997 when my neighbor gave me a book about it. And then two years later, I started learning it in high school as a part of a class.

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My Journey in Programming Languages:

  • 1979: IBM34 GAPII
  • 1980: IBM38 RPGIII (Gap III)
  • 1985: Pascal / C / Basic on PC
  • 1990: RPG4 ILE / C++ (IBM) Java
  • 1995: C on AS400
  • 2000: Started with the internet, HTML/JavaScript on IBM400/PC — 45 years on mainframes
  • 2020: Nim
  • 2022: ZIG — I now work exclusively with Zig
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2017 - HTML (?!)
2020 - Python
2021 - C
2023 - Java, Lua, Go, Rust
2024 - Zig

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Technically, BASIC and Logo, but I don’t know if 20 GOTO 10 should count.

I actually picked up the knack learning Turbo Pascal, which really was a generational rite of passage. Not surprised to see it well-represented among programmers who found their way to Zig.

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Python → C++ → a ton of stuff like html, php, java, etc… → Zig

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  • BASIC: Commodore 64; Run magazine listings. The fun part was waiting a whole month to see the bug fixes due to typos and misprints.
  • Javascript / VBScript (Browser and ASP)
  • PHP
  • AWK
  • Java
  • Groovy
  • Go
  • Nim
  • Crystal
  • Rust
  • Zig
  • Python / Mojo
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1984: BASIC on Acorn Electron; included great programming books and 6502 assembler
1986-1987: I read the first edition of “The C Programming Language”, loved it and decided to become a programmer
1988: Professionally programming using C
then: C++, Java, ruby, C#, erlang, clojure, go, zig
I love: forth, lisp, smalltalk, haskell
also learned: Fortran, COBOL, Pascal, Visual BASIC, Rust

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  • 2017/18: get into python after learning scratch at school
  • 2021/22: aqcuire used laptop and install linux, get back into programming
  • 2022-present:
    • learn rust, and many “more advanced” concepts in the process
    • bounce around many languages (rust, go, a little lua, haskell etc.) - just curiosity
    • do “crafting interpreters” with go (ported from the Java version)
    • want to do the second version which is in C
    • heard of some C alternative called “Zig”…
    • …today
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Mine was GML in 2006. I got a disk with the GameMaker software in the book Game Maker’s Apprentice which I bought through an ad in Nintendo Power.

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  1. Stata (does this count?)
  2. R
  3. Python
  4. Haskell
  5. Learned about zig thanks to this blog post: I think Zig is hard...but worth it - ratfactor and that was the start of a journey towards learning systems software.
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There’s just something so pleasing about firing up the 6 year old laptop, installing Linux, and writing some zig that can relatively easily be ported to so many architectures. Feels very under-consuming.

Anyway,

  1. 2016: Arduino (c++)
  2. 2017: Swift
  3. 2018: Python
  4. 2019: MATLAB (no thanks engineering school!)
  5. 2020: Julia (for a class)
  6. 2022: Python (professionally)
  7. 2024: Zig
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btw thank you for Zig in Depth - didn’t let me smash my head againts the wall (especially black magic interfraces)

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Basic, C, Fortran, Lisp, Prolog, Perl, C++, Raku, Zig.

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