This is why I’ve long argued that BASIC is the most consequential language in the history of computing. It’s a language for noobs, sure, but back then most everyone was a noob. Throughout the ...

The pioneer of structured programming, Edsger Dijkstra, said in 1975, for example, that it was almost impossible to teach good programming to students who had previously come into contact with BASIC.

The Most-Often Recommended Programming Languages for Beginners. Most of the "mainstream" programming languages—such as C, Java, C#, Perl, Ruby, and Python—can do the same—or nearly the same ...