What language would you recommend for a beginner?

Python. It's very readable, can do basically anything you want, and there's tons of documentation and educational resources available for free.

If you really want to understand core concepts then start with C and cover the basic topics like printing, input, variables, primitives, macros, command line, arrays, struct, union, function, pointers and DMA then start implementing Data Structures and Algorithms in C. Shift to Traditional C++ and learn about OOP Concepts after covering all that do Modern C++ (Modern C++ doesn't have proper documentation so this would be hard) then look at the code of open source projects and try to understand them. Have a language reference by your side and find something if you don't understand. Join communities if you can't get help online.

If you want to take the easy way then start with Python. Its syntax is easily to understand. But it doesn't really explain all concepts in depth (at least I couldn't understand the concepts of it much).

Disclaimer: I am not discouraging anyone. Its up to you if you are able to understand the core concepts in any language. C was my first language so I mostly tell people to learn that first.

I first started with python, then went to javascript. I have no idea why but js "clicked" for me very fast, while i didn't understand too much (intermediate / advanced) python after a few months of playing with it.

I know some begginers have problems with understanding concepts such as "closures", "prototypes" and "higer order functions", but in my experience, those came naturally. I was "expecting" it to work that way (except for prototypes, which i didn't understand that fast, but when i did it made sense).

The hardest question to understand the answer of while learning js was: why doesn't my game render if i put the logic inside a while true loop?

After using js for a while and then once in a while going back and playing with python, a lot of things made sense, and I can see why so many recommend it. It's definitly better for things like "courses" where someone explains someone else something. My route was more the "start a project you always wanted to do and then google all the problems you encounter" route:)

A year ago I switched to typescript (and i'm never going back:))

Also, for the last month or so i've been learning c++ and it's cool, but definitly not begginer-friendly...

Disclaimer: english is not my first lang, so please forgive the typos & grammar mistakes.

For absolute beginners, Python. That's kind of what it's designed for, and it's got a big standard library that includes a lot of stuff you'd otherwise have to go searching for, so at least at the beginning you don't even need to touch a package manager (and by the time you do, you should have a solid enough understanding that pip and/or venv won't be much of an issue to work with).

Others that come to mind include:

• C. Especially for those looking at doing systems or embedded programming. It's easy to branch out from (C++, C#, Objective-C, Cilk, even Rust to a certain extent), provides a solid understanding of the true fundamentals, and it's a very marketable skill by itself. Doing well though really requires knowing how to read documentation.
• Lua. Super-lightweight, runs on almost anything (any platform with an ANSI C implementation can run Lua), relatively easy to learn, and remarkably useful. Package management is not bad, but not great either, and you kind of need to use it to do many useful things in standalone Lua. The downside is that Lua has some quirks that are a bit odd by most standards (like arrays actually being tables under the hood).
• Ruby. I have little to no experience with it myself, but that's mostly due to not needing any so far. What I do know of it indicates that it's a relatively good language for beginners. My only complaint given my limited experience with it is that some of the naming is a bit... odd.

For specific types of programming:

• Web Development: JS. Syntactically and semantically it's not very beginner friendly, but package management is wonderfully simple, you don't need any special IDE, and you don't need to worry about portability anywhere near as much as with many other languages.
• Game development: C#. Essentially, just start using Unity directly. There are all kinds of other game engines and languages they use, but C# plus Unity is one of the easiest combinations out there for learning.

Ones I'd say for beginners to avoid:

• BASIC. Encourages lots of bad habits, not particularly portable, not particularly salable, and has very limited utility in the modern world.
• Java. Encourages lots of bad habits and has a number of performance and efficiency issues.
• Ada. Not a bad language, but seriously over-complicates many things in ways that are challenging even for some experienced developers to understand.
• Almost any pure FP language (Haskell, Erlang, Elixir, ML etc). FP is seriously hard for a lot of people, and traditional procedural paradigms are often challenging enough for new programmers.

I definitely recommend Python. It provides a good foundation for understanding computer programming. It has plenty of technical aspects to grow into as you're ready, but keeps the complicated stuff mostly out of sight until you want it.

It also doesn't encourage bad habits, rather guiding towards good habits and style, without whacking you on the knuckles if you get it wrong. Tools like flake8 and black help with this. You can then jump from (idiomatic) Python to any other language, and you'll find a lot of the good practice ports.

Python also works well with the functional, object-oriented, and procedural paradigms, or any combination thereof. You aren't forced to use any one of them. As with literally any language, you have to learn how to use these well, but they're all supported in a way that accommodates responsible mix-and-match.

And yes, virtual environments are easy. They're actually easier than having to mess with system-wide stuff, because you can have multiple venvs like sandboxes, each with precisely the tools and packages you need for any given project. Here's the only four commands you need:

python3 -m venv myvenv  # create virtual environment
source venv/bin/activate  # turn on virtual environment
pip install <whatever>  # install stuff
deactivate  # when you're done

(That's on Linux. Just as easy on Windows, the commands are only slightly different.)

It's my interest in computers in the mid-80s that "forced" me to learn to read English (before that, I often didn't understand most of what I was reading). All the good programming magazines (what's that?) and books were in English.

Whichever language you have the best support structure for. Some languages are definitely harder than others, but being alone is way harder.

That being said, if you have no human beings around to support, I would say JavaScript or Python. There are tons of resources aimed at beginners for those two.

For beginners I think it's not just about the language. They need to understand core parts of programming.

1. basic stuff (function, loop, list.. Etc)
2. Package management
3. Platform you're targeting

If you get the basic fast enough the it's no problem what language you're using.

Coercion, this, and prototype inheritance are next step from beginners level. It's language feature.

So yes JavaScript, because it's already on a browser no pain to set up the env

I like Ruby. My concern is that it locks mind in OOP-paradigm, it takes some time to recognize there are other approaches. On the other hand, I guess any language will lock you in one or another paradigm

As a Ruby developer by trade I would second the recommendations for Python. It is readable, can do anything you want and it is an excellent scripting language for server administration and such as well. Not to mention all the machine learning stuff.