How Many Programming Languages Should You Learn?

today i want to talk about how many programming languages should you learn now before we get started i do want to say we're really gambling on this one because a power line was dropped behind my house and there's someone back there working i have my dogs in my office so there may be multiple takes here where my dogs start freaking out because they hear the person outside but let's hope that's not the case so we can get through this video and learn how many programming languages you should learn [Music] now i want to go ahead and jump into how many programming languages you should learn but i am sorry to say some people watching my videos tried to steal my privacy.com virtual card information i have gotten like a half dozen emails from people trying to take my virtual cards that i created on privacy.com oh by the way this video is sponsored by privacy.com but luckily i closed those cards and that is the beauty of privacy.com is because you're able to create virtual cards so that way if 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willing to sponsor this content i wouldn't be able to make the videos that i make today so if that's something you're interested in i would appreciate the support in using mylinkprivacy.comforest and back to the video about how many programming languages you should learn alright so just to kind of jump into it this is going to heavily depend on where you are in your career whether you're just starting out it's also going to heavily depend and really mainly depend on your goal because i'm not going to just talk about how many programming languages you should learn but which one should you learn there's so many different programming languages and frameworks and technologies that you can get lost in the shuffle and you're just going to be procrastinating for a year trying to figure out the best one to start with that you're never going to start so let's start off with the people who are just starting out that's a lot of y'all so when you're just starting out one you want to learn one programming language when you're just starting out once you go later on in your career we'll talk about that later you i think it's beneficial for you to learn multiple it may even be necessary for you to learn multiple but when you learn one and you get to a good level of that one you're going to be a lot better at programming overall because you're going to understand the concepts but it's also going to make learning other programming languages a whole lot easier so now i say it's very dependent upon your goal but there are also two trains of thought so whether your goal is to go to college to get a particular job at a particular company or you just want to build something whether it be as a hobby or you want to turn into a business this will determine what programming language you should learn first because maybe you're 15 and you have your idea of okay i want to learn or i want to go to this college and go through their computer science program if they're teaching java it'll benefit you to learn java so if you're able to build a foundation yourself and then when you go to college you're able to solidify that foundation because they're re-teaching you things you already learned you're already a step ahead of everybody else now let's be clear don't act like you're a step ahead of everybody else you always hate those people in class that pretend that they already know everything or even if they do know everything then they act like be humble with your knowledge don't act like somebody who knows everything because you don't if you're an entry level programming class you don't i barely know anything and i've already completed my computer science course and worked as a professional developer and you see what i'm saying so don't act like you know everything and also remember that there are going to be other people in your class that act like they know everything don't get intimidated by them don't compare yourself to them that's just a little bit of advice a little tangent in this video but also don't fall into the trap that many people do is that when you already have an understanding of something and then you go to class and they're teaching you something that you already know you kind of zone out you slack off because you're like i already know this stuff i don't need to relearn it that's not the right way to go about things you should go about it where you are using this redundant information to solidify your knowledge of that topic whether it be as simple as variables or how functions work or or classes themselves just use that as an opportunity because you took the initiative to learn it beforehand to solidify that knowledge that's really the best thing i could say because if you go in there and you slack off not only will you be wasting your time but you also be forming a bad habit so when you start to learn stuff that you don't know yet you're going to fall behind because you already have the mindset i'm gonna go to this class i'm gonna just sit here i already know the stuff i'm gonna pass i'll be able to do whatever i need to do because i already know this stuff but once they start to pass your knowledge then well you already form that habit and we're creatures a habit as humans and you don't want that to be you you don't want to fall behind especially if you already took the initiative to get ahead so just use every opportunity you can where you're being taught by a teacher who knows what they're talking about ask any questions that you may have that otherwise you wouldn't be able to ask because you wouldn't have the knowledge so since you already have a decent understanding of some of this stuff you may have some questions that will be more beneficial to you don't get too ahead of the class but ask questions that again allow you to solidify that knowledge of java now if you're in school right now you may be inclined to learn another programming language or just teach yourself something outside of class because you know you're in class you're learning java and you're just building a bunch of terminal applications and that's not what you want to build but you do what you want but talking from my own experience if you want to build something on your own instead of just focusing on your classwork build something with that same programming language java again it could be whatever whatever language your college is teaching but in this example throughout this video the college is going to be teaching java so just double down on the language that your college is teaching you because the mistake that i made when i was going through college is i tried to learn ios development i did some web development and some wordpress development i did some a bunch of random stuff along the way don't get me wrong but i really kind of doubled down on ios development in my own time meanwhile my college was trying to teach me c plus plus you know how much a better programmer i would be now and what a deeper understanding i would have had earlier on of programming languages as a whole and specifically c plus plus if i just didn't focus on ios development and i focused solely on c plus for at least that first year or two now i know you're going to say well i want to build this and if i i don't want to put it off for another year i want to be able to build this now that's not the right mindset to have because i guarantee you if you spend this year solidifying your knowledge of one programming language and then you spend the next year building what you want with whatever other programming language you're actually going to complete that app or whatever you want to build quicker and better than if you were to try to build at the same time as learning the basics of another programming language because you don't have the full understanding of it overall and again once you have a full understanding or at least a solid understanding of one programming language it's easier to learn the next and then if you are starting out and you you know you say i want to work at this particular company well look at what that particular company uses look at the main language because you're going to be falling into the trap of oh you see uh facebook uses all these different languages well that's because there are a bunch of different teams inside of facebook and then even within those teams if you're a web developer you're going to be using multiple programming most likely well you could be just like a strict full stack javascript developer with the exception of you know maybe doing some sql and some other random you know html and css of course or whatever framework that you use for front-end stuff but if you were like me i did java for the backend typescript for the front end and then i mean those are really the two main languages but those are two different languages again if you're starting out just learn one language but learn a language that'll benefit you long term and that'll allow you to only learn that one language within the first few years of your coding career or hobby or whatever it may be lucy it's okay it's okay it's okay now i said there are two trains of thought one is that learn the programming language that'll best fit your goal to allow you to get best at that programming language but the other train of thought is simply learn c and a lot of people recommend to learn c as your first programming language for various reasons one of which being that c is the mother of all languages programming languages that is and the reason being is that it is very low level so this is going to make c more difficult to learn i've used c in the past i don't like c so that is why i'm not going to recommend you to learn c as your first language just because it's so hard but if you can learn c as your first language well it's good because you're basically building things from scratch you don't have a higher level language to kind of lean on for some of your mistakes when it comes to like memory leaks and garbage collection and all this other stuff that that more modern languages help you with and when you don't have that you have a deeper understanding of what's right and what's wrong you have a deeper understanding of these programming concepts when you work with a lower level language and when you have that understanding when you have that deep deep understanding then you'll you'll pick up java or c plus or especially like something like a scripting language like python or javascript like that you're like oh this is way easier but the only reason why i would recommend you to learn c is if you want to get a deep understanding of those programming fundamentals and concepts if any of those other criteria fit you or even if you do plan to go to college and they're teaching java then maybe you could try to learn c i just think that c is hard i never liked c so it's hard for me to recommend you to learn c but again if you learn that as your first language and like actually learn that as your first language well then you're probably going to be a step ahead of everyone else so take without what you will you understand my recommendation but you also understand the benefits of learning a low level language like c so there you go that is the the idea of just how many programming languages should i learn starting out one but again i said that you want to be able to learn multiple programming languages sometimes it is necessary like if you want to be a web developer again you're probably going to be learning multiple programming languages but also learning multiple programming languages and switching from something even as simple as from java from your college years to c plus even though they are very similar but it gives you a more well-rounded understanding of programming as it is because you you have a understanding of two programming languages instead of just one and most of it is just a syntax difference obviously there are different uh deals you know uh benefits as to why you should use c plus plus over java or python over those or javascript or that's also another reason why it is a good idea to learn multiple languages because it gives you a better understanding of which language is better for which job but maybe even more importantly it gives you a better understanding of which programming language you like best i won't know which restaurant is better unless i eat it both right and i won't really have a deeper understanding of which restaurant is better unless i have multiple dishes at each and with programming languages it's the same idea the more you use each one later on in your career after you have an understanding of how programming languages actually work and you're basically just learning new syntax and taking advantage of what these what different things these languages can do well then you'll have a better understanding of which one you like better just like you have an understanding a better understanding of which restaurant you like better now i'm looking at my notes over here i feel like i've missed some stuff these are just kind of loose notes and i just kind of ramble as i as i wish with the knowledge that i have up here but this kind of helps me organize it and i may have missed some things that's okay but just to recap if you're starting out learn one because you want to get really good at one and then i recommend once you have a decent understanding of one and the definition of decent understanding or solid understanding that is kind of arbitrary i don't know if you'll ever know if you have a solid understanding of one but that's what i'm going to say for now and you should learn another one once you have a solid understanding of one for the various reasons that i laid out in this video so i hope you all enjoyed this video i have a lot more videos on the horizon again if you watch my last video of closing a chapter you know that for the rest of the year i really want to upload as many videos as possible dump all the knowledge that i have up here and just give it to y'all in video format more so than i've already done over the past few years but i'm excited for this year and i'm excited for the videos that i have planned and i hope you all like them too so subscribe if you are interested in this type of content software engineering computer science programming all that and like it if you liked it and i'll see y'all in the next one [Music] you

Channel: ForrestKnight

Views: 116,306

Keywords: programming, coding, how many programming languages should i learn, how many programming languages should you learn, how to learn to code, learning code, programming languages, software development, software engineering

Id: Z554ln47V3k

Length: 14min 11sec (851 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 27 2021