Beginning Programming ALL-IN-ONE DESK REFERENCE FOR DUMMIES®

Chapter I.3. Types of Programming Languages

After you understand how to plan, organize, and create a program through one or more methodologies (such as structured programming, event-driven programming, or object-oriented programming), you're ready to start utilizing a particular programming language.

Just as your native spoken language can shape the way you think and speak, so can your first computer programming language influence the way you think, design, and write a computer program.

You can choose from literally thousands of different programming languages with obscure names, like Icon, Algol 60, APL, Forth, and Scheme. Although you can understand programming by using any programming language, it's probably best to know at least one of the more popular programming languages, such as BASIC or C.

Knowing a popular programming language, like BASIC or C, simply gives you more opportunities to work. More people use BASIC and C, which means more jobs are available for programmers who know BASIC or C. Just as knowing English, Chinese, Spanish, or Arabic allows you to travel and speak with more people around the world (compared to knowing Swahili, Mayan, or Eskimo), so can knowing BASIC or C give you more opportunities to work and write programs anywhere you go.

Note

Sometimes there's a good reason to know an obscure programming language. One of the oldest programming languages, COBOL, was heavily used by businesses back when computers filled entire rooms and cost tens of thousands of dollars. ...