Best Programming Language to Learn as Beginner? (Especially for Kids!)

Unlike learning spoken languages that has great difference in grammar, pronunciation and cultural influence, programming languages follow similar key concepts such as variables, loops and conditionals. By mastering one programming languages, one can effortlessly pick up another programming language. The question that baffles beginners would be which one I should start learning? Here we compile some of the most widely used languages and why you should start learning programming with them.

Block-based Programming Language

Text-based programming language could be daunting for kids (age below 10) as they require strict syntax. Starting with text-based programming might lead them to lose their interest quickly as they would constantly encounter problems due to the language syntax. As the main objective is to teach kids to understand concepts of programming and problem solving, block-based programming would be a much suitable option. Scratch and Blockly are two widely popular block-based programming languages kids can learn.

Scratch – Kids can create their own interactive stories, games, and animations and share their creation to the world.

Blockly – Blockly is a visual programming language developed by Google. Most block-based programming platforms are built on top of Blockly, including Scratch! In our block-based coding program, we use MIT App Inventor – a mobile app development platform that allow kids to build their mobile app.

JavaScript

JavaScript is the main scripting language for all web browsers. Over the years, it has become the main development language for modern websites, server-side, desktop and even mobile applications. Mastering JavaScript, one can build many different applications across different platform!

JavaScript is a high level programming language, where it is much closer to human language than machine language. It is easier to learn as programmers do not need to worry about the underlying communications with computer hardware.

As all modern browsers run JavaScript by default, students can easily run their code on their computer browser to visualize their result. With some basic HTML & CSS knowledge, students will be able to create a functioning web application and share their work with others.

Python

Python is the second most popular programming language. Similar to JavaScript, python can be used to build all kinds of web applications, games and 3D graphics.

In terms of learning curve, Python is as easy to learn as JavaScript. However in terms of versatility, JavaScript has the advantage of being both front-end and backend language while Python is more restricted as server side language. Python is used more in upcoming fields like data analytics, AI(Artificial Intelligence) and ML(Machine Learning). It’s also more utilized in areas like Finance/Fintech for for levering the sort of data useful in that realm.

Our Verdict

Based on our experience, students are much more interested in learning when they able to visualize their outcome. For younger age students (age 10 and below), they could start by learning the concepts with block-based language then progress to learn JavaScript as their first text-based languages. Coupled with learning HTML and CSS, they can build simple web applications that allow them to put their ideas into workable solutions.