I think starting with C++ as a first language is a bad idea, not a good one

I tried teaching myself C++ from a textbook last summer and spent 3 weeks just debugging memory errors before I even got a program to run. For a complete beginner, that kind of frustration just kills motivation before you learn anything useful. Has anyone else found that starting with something like Python actually made the basics click faster?

2 comments

2 Comments

piper_dixon4518d ago

Echoing what nina_clark said about the confidence thing - that's the REAL killer. I tried C++ first and spent a whole weekend tracking down a memory leak from a missing delete statement, and I literally cried at my desk. Switched to Python and had a working tic-tac-toe game in two hours, and that feeling of "I actually built this" is what kept me going through the harder stuff later. The syntax overhead in C++ just slams the door on beginners before they even get to enjoy solving problems.

nina_clark18d ago

My first coding class in college actually started with C++ and I thought it was totally fine until I tried helping my cousin learn from scratch last year. He spent four days on a pointer issue that would take me 30 seconds to fix now, and it just crushed his confidence. I watched him switch to Python and suddenly he was building little games in a weekend instead of fighting with segmentation faults. That flipped my opinion completely.