What programming language should i learn in 2021?
January 28, 2021
What programming language to learn is one of the hardest questions you can ask when learning to program, for each person you ask you’re more then likely to get a different set of answers as well as comments you did not ask for.
bias exists and it won’t be going anywhere soon. In this blog post i’ll go over some of my thoughts on what language could be worth learning in 2021 and some more general thoughts to help you make the decision on what to learn.
What do you want to program?
there is a different tool for each type of work you may be interested in, do you want to build Mobile apps, web applications, embedded systems? have a think about what kind of work you might enjoy doing, chances are there is the most used language based on the type of industry and the domain you wish to enter for example
- Interested in Finance / Data Science / Machine learning? - Python
- Interested in Building Web applications? - PHP / Dotnet Javascript
Pick what is easy to learn
Some people might sigh reading this but personally i think learning to program is hard enough, having resourceful content that you can revisit every day and learn something new makes a big difference to your ability to stick it out.
There is lots of good learning resources out there but when ever i think about it the first one that comes to mine is Laracasts which is operated by Jeffery Way there is endless amounts of videos on learning to program using languages as as PHP and developing with frameworks such as Laravel as well as VueJS
most years around Black friday you can pick yourself up a insanely discounted life time subscription of Laracasts which will keep on giving even through out your career as a programmer. Not to mention the videos are well thought out make sense, a practical and an incredible amount of value.
Of course there is lots of other courses out there via Youtube or Udemy you will need to filter through and find what works best for you, not having a good resource when learning to program for the first time is not ideal.
Look at what industries are hiring and the technologies they are seeking
In the case you don’t know exactly what you want to learn, look at where th jobs are, in australia we often use seek search on your equivalent the languages and or frameworks such as Javascript, PHP, GO, NodeJS, Dotnet, VueJS, React, look at the kind of jobs that are being offered do these look like jobs you would be interested in? also it does not hurt to check the salary ranges as well of course.
Plot twist, it does not matter (usually anyway)
If you can learn a language and learn the concepts and patterns that are widely used, you will be able to pick up a new language in a short amount of time
after you know one language it’s mostly just changes in syntax between different languages the approach to the problem and pattern solving stays the same. There is a bit of common sense for this however. While my first Programming job was working with Perl I can’t say i would reccomend this. Look for what is being used, what has good resources to learn and what are the community like? one of the most important things to remember is that there is no Silver Bullet when it comes to picking “the best” programming language to learn.
Summary
Don’t be afraid to try a few languages while starting out, curiosity is key as well as being open minded, find one you enjoy and work towards becoming competent with the language. Chances are you will need to learn more then one during the life time. A lot of jobs desire “Fullstack developers” which will often involve knowing a front end language such as Javascript as well as a back end language such as PHP, Dotnet, Java and so on.
If this is the year you choose to learn programming, good luck and remember to stick at it. If you have any questions i am always happy to help where i can so reach out on Twitter if you find yourself having questions after reading this article.