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Ask HN: Best first language for a budding MechE

1 points by GlenTheMachine ↗ HN
My 21 year old daughter has come to realize she doesn’t like her chosen profession (nursing) and wants to become a mechanical engineer. She’s started to take introductory math and engineering classes. And to this end, she wants to spend the summer teaching herself to code, and asked me which language she should learn.

When I code in anger I use Julia, but that isn’t what I’m recommending for her. The obvious answer here is python, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.

4 comments

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qualudeheart
Fortran honestly. A surprising number of engineers use it in spite of it being called “outdated” by the current generation of tech geekers (as described by Xah Lee).

Python in the cases I`ve witnessed is wont to hamper the user’s rate of learning.

mardiyah
C up to intermediate by the authors' book (The C programming language by Brian K.&..)

Don't get us wrong, let's get it analogue: we're assigned to serve or cook to someones just well to satiate the hunger, as we have little versatile skill in doing it what we need is the urgently simplest skill, such that is know how to make dough and bake while keep clean work, and the rest ones will be achieved on the fly further as we're working next

That very basic urgent but also simplest one, is C up to intermediate or upper basic

Then some linear data application or PL, Julia, FORTRAN, Mathlab etc etc accordingly to the most suitable stance

DNF2
You code in anger? How does that work:D?

Anyway, Julia is my preferred language, and it has the depth to teach you widely useful concepts. For example, I'm now learning C++, and my Julia experience has been very valuable.

Python, of course, is the safe, mainstream choice. (If you want her to become a weirdo or outcast, you might of course consider C or Fortran;)