In December of 2014, this blog featured a post designed to help teachers develop a programming course to get their students coding–even if they weren’t programmers themselves.

The next logical step in teaching programming is to teach students a programming language. Like any other language–English, Spanish, French–programming languages have their own vocabulary and grammar (although programmers themselves prefer the worlds ‘code’ and ‘syntax’) that allow users to create commands and programs.

Choosing a programming language to teach your students can be tricky; after all, to an unpracticed eye many of them look exactly the same! However, different languages are used in different situations, to create different kinds of programs, or even for different hardware depending on the situation. This means that there isn’t any one answer to the question of what programming language to teach, but that there’s a lot of information about each language to consider. Here’s a list of some languages you might have heard of recently, along with some notes to help you decide:

Java
Java is one of the oldest languages on this list, having made its debut in  1995.  It’s also one of the most commonly used–while it’s not typically the base language for an operating system, website, or game the way other languages in this list are, almost every computer in America uses applications based in Java. This is also true for smartphones–every app on an Android, for example, is written in Java!
As an open-source language, Java is free and incredibly easy to find additional resources for. Platforms like Apache and Google have released their own libraries, and the 20-year-strong community and extensive documentation make it one of the most reliable and best-supported languages in the world.  Many educational platforms such as Greenfoot also start users off in Java, so as an educational choice it’s a smart first bet.

HTML

HTML is probably one of the hidden types of coding students come into contact every day. Along with CSS and Javascript, this language helps create almost every webpage on the Internet, so it’s the primary candidate for your curriculum if your goal is to teach students web design.  HTML provides the foundation of a page–the location, size, and orientation of major objects on your webpage. Basically, it formats the page so that it looks how you want it to look. However, I would note that most webpages are not built JUST out of HTML, which is something your students should be clear on before beginning.

CSS

 Also known as Cascading Style Sheets, CSS is a styling language designed to describe a presentation of a document written in another language. The most common use by far is to format a webpage described with HTML, dictating the aesthetics while HTML dictates the overall structure and content. While it is a useful tool, and helps clean up other languages to make them easier to read, it is not recommended as a stand-alone language for a curriculum due its limited focus.

JavaScript
First things first–no, Java and Javascript are not related languages. Javascript is the third language seen most commonly associated with the creation of webpages–as a matter of fact, many places online are built out of all three! While HTML dictates structure and CSS formatting, JavaScript will often be used to add additional content (Animation, interactivity, server updating) that the other languages have not already embedded.

(Note: While I recommend that you make it clear that these three languages are commonly all used together, I would suggest starting students on HTML if teaching web design. After all, building a webpage becomes easier when the basic structure of the page is  put into place first. If focusing on general programming, however, Javascript can be more user-friendly. After all, it’s the language Code.org chooses to focus on for their yearly Hour of Code.)

Python

Out of all the languages on this list, Python is probably one of the most multi-purpose. Introduced in 1991 and named after “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”, it’s known as one of the first languages designed to express complex commands in fewer lines of code. This gives it a lot of power to create games, major frameworks, and even platforms as instantly recognizable as Youtube!
Python is an incredibly forgiving language for students for two reasons. First, the language is flexible, allowing it to be used in a variety of real world contexts ranging from email coding to programming full video games. Second, Python’s standardized rules make even complicated programs easier to read, which opens up even complex resources for use by new programmers.

Ruby (and Ruby on Rails)
Released in the mid-1990s, Ruby has seen a recent surge in popularity due to the emergence of the Ruby On Rails (or Rails) framework built out of the language in 2005. Programmers who like to use the two tend to focus on web development and apps, and praise the language as being designed to make pages and applications very user-friendly. Teachers may love Ruby as a starter language because it also simplifies commands considerably; for example, here’s a short comparison of a simple program between two languages–C++ and Ruby. The C++ program is first–it’s attempting to put the words “Hello, world!” on  a screen.

Swift
One of the newest languages on this list, Swift was first introduced by Apple in June of 2014. Swift is specifically designed to be used to create code for Apple products like IPhons or Macs, so schools that use primarily PCs would do best to avoid this language. However, Apple-heavy schools may want to consider it–the development of Swift was designed to be streamlined like Ruby, as well as eliminate common coding errors in other languages. It also pairs well with an interactive playground, letting students see the results of their coding quickly!

Scratch
 While Scratch is common in schools that teach programming, it would be a misnomer to call it a language in the same vein as others on this list. For the most part, Scratch is an entirely visual structure designed to teach programming principles. Students use interlocking blocks to create programs, which mostly consist of animations and simple video games.
As a stepping stone into the world of programming, Scratch is great; however, its narrow focus and lack of depth means that there’s really no applicability to the language outside of the classroom. As an educator, I recommend using this as a starting point for teaching programming logic, then moving on to a language with real-world applications once your students are familiar with basic principles.

Conclusion

Naturally, this is only a list of the most common languages we are asked about here at Teq–there are many, many others, each designed for different purposes. What language you decide to focus on should reflect the goals of the programming curriculum you create. For example, courses on web development should definitely focus on HTML, while a class about making video games would do better to teach in Python. However, it is important to note one important principle: all programming languages, whatever their function, follow common frameworks and logical principles that become way easier to spot once you get a little practice. This means that no matter what language a student learns first, it will be much, much easier for that student to learn other programming languages. You can think of it as being similar to the relationships  between related spoken languages–a student who learns Spanish, for example, will find the task of learning French or Italian a snap!

With that in mind, don’t worry if the language you choose doesn’t cover every single thing you want your student programmers to know. By focusing on one language and making sure they understand the structure behind it, you are giving them a foundation on which they can build code for their entire lives.