Contemplating this post.
Y’know, my main beef with Python is how muddy it is, conceptually. It doesn’t enforce structure—it just sort of shrugs and says, “do whatever.” It functions more like a scripting language (Perl, PHP style), except it doesn’t have an organized, methodical way to natively handle complex regular expressions… which, honestly, should be the very first thing any new dev learns before habits calcify.
Ten years ago, before React ate everything, I would’ve said: JavaScript’s a great first language. But now? React just kills the fun of doing it. I hate working in React. Just hate it.
By contrast, Go is clean, powerful, parallel, and fast. And the compiler has no patience for your nonsense—which I deeply respect. The catch? Go, Rust, etc. are verbose. Unnecessarily so, at times.
If I were learning my first language today, I’d ask:
1️⃣ Does the syntax support minimalism—but let me ignore it when I need to actually get things done?
2️⃣ Do the conventions and data types help me build transferable skills across languages—or am I just becoming a tuples expert in a vacuum?
3️⃣ Is it general-purpose enough to teach real foundations—or is the default path stitching together frameworks, praying to the wind gods, and hoping you know what happens when something breaks?
4️⃣ Can I write and run code without installing a small city of runtimes, SDKs, and IDE glue? If not—skip it. (Sorry Kotlin. Sorry Flutter.)
5️⃣ Will the language still work five years from now, even if the maintainers vanish? I don't want to bring up Flash/Flex/ObjectiveC/F#/VB again, but it bears repeating.
6️⃣ Does the world know this language exists? Experimental platforms are fun, but there isn’t exactly a long line of recruiters hunting for Rebol specialists.
7️⃣ Are the people who work in the language gatekeepy authoritarians?
In other words: is their way the only way?
Strong opinions are great. But so is open-minded discovery.
A first language should balance both.
So yeah, when you do the math, Node-style JavaScript (no React, back-end only) or Golang are the smartest entry points today.