The Great War.

I know all of you have something to say about coding. More specifically on what languages to either learn first or at all. This thread is for that.

Things to state:

1) What language do you recommend first to a new timer and why?

2) Why is it any diff than "x" language?

3) Have you coded in anything other than said language or "types" of said language?

4) Are you as fluent in the other languages as you are in the one from question 1?

5) Real world examples of why and how and reasons "x" is better than "y", || you said "x" over "y".

Everyone's going to say Python, because they don't really know much else.

But the truth is there is no optimal answer to a person's first language. It could pretty much be anything, quite frankly. C, Ruby, Lisp, Haskell, OCaml, Erlang... since it's your first, it won't be shocking, as you have no prior expectations and experience.

In fact, I would say that a beginner should learn a non-ALGOL language first, like Haskell, Lisp or ML. Because this will desensitize them to non-procedural paradigms right from the start, and they won't be yelling "OH GOD LISP MAKES NO SENSE OMG STUPID PARENTHESES THIS SYNTAX IS SO WEEEEIRD LOL" like a bunch of buffoons when they step outside of their comfort zone. Some hackers those people are.

Afterwards, go with C and then progress to a higher-level imperative language.

But, I'm going to take a stab here and say learn Ruby. It'll teach you ALGOL constructs, but it also has lots of elements from Smalltalk and Lisp, so it won't leave you entirely in a black hole.