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Why Every Developer Should Start Programming With C
You can start programming with any language — but starting with C has more perks!
There are about 700 programming languages in the world. However, developers use about 20 different programming languages to build enterprise software. In other words, there are only a few popular general-purpose programming languages, even if there are many programming languages. Developers usually start coding at school, university, or when they begin their career.
When they start coding, every developer find themselves asking one question: Which programming language should I learn first? If you studied computer science at a university, the syllabus usually has the C programming language first.
The C programming language is still used frequently in hardware-related software projects.
But languages such as Java, C#, JavaScript, Go, Python, Ruby, PHP, and Kotlin are dominant in the modern software industry. This is because of their:
- Human-friendly syntax and semantics
- Full-featured standard APIs
- Community support
- Rich frameworks and libraries ecosystem
On the other hand, the modern community doesn’t often use C — other popular languages offer a more friendly, easy, and flexible environment than C. Yes, C is a better choice for hardware-related projects, but the majority of developers work with web and mobile-related projects.
Let me explain why learning C is the best choice.
C makes you a good problem solver
Almost all programs offer built-in methods or library methods to solve coding problems that need logical algorithms. For example, if you need to copy specific items into a second array, you can use the built-in filter method in JavaScript. If you’re using Java, you may use the filter method from the java.util.stream package. Literally, any popular programming language has a built-in method or library method to filter an array. But if you’re using C, you have to implement it yourselves — because there’s no built-in or library filter method in C.
