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What are the easiest to learn, but most powerful programming languages for web development?

7

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Considered

55

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Jun 22, 2023

Last
Updated

7 Options Considered

What are the easiest to learn, but most powerful programming languages for web development	Price	Current stable version	GZipped size
-- Python	free	3.9.1	22.5MB
-- Elixir	-	1.11.2	3.61 MB (without required Erlang VM)
-- Clojure	-	1.10.1	3.7Mb, requires JAVA
-- Elm	-	0.19.1	23.2 kB
-- Ruby	-	2.6.0	15.9 MB

Python

Top Pro

Easy to get started

On top of the wealth of tutorials and documentation, and the fact that it ships with a sizeable standard library, Python also ships with both an IDE (Integrated Development Environment: A graphical environment for editing running and debugging your code); as well as a text-based live interpreter. Both help users to get started trying out code immediately, and give users immediate feedback that aids learning. See More

Top Con

Language fragmentation

A large subset of the Python community still uses / relies upon Python 2, which is considered a legacy implementation by the Python authors. Some libraries still have varying degrees of support depending on which version of Python you use. There are syntactical differences between the versions. See More

Specs

Current stable version:3.9.1

GZipped size:22.5MB

Platforms:Windows, Linux, macOS, AIX, IBM i, iOS, z/OS, Solaris, VMS

Typing discipline:Dynamically typed

Top Pro

Good documentation

The Python community has put a lot of work into creating excellent documentation filled with plain english describing functionality. Contrast this with other languages, such as Java, where documentation often contains a dry enumeration of the API. As a random example, consider GUI toolkit documentation - the tkinter documentation reads almost like a blog article, answering questions such as 'How do I...', whereas Java's Swing documentation contains dry descriptions that effectively reiterate the implementation code. On top of this, most functions contain 'Doc Strings', which mean that documentation is often immediately available, without even the need to search the internet. See More

Top Con

Slow to run

Check for example the first result from Google. See More

Top Pro

Clear syntax

Python's syntax is very clear and readable, making it excellent for beginners. The lack of extra characters like semicolons and curly braces reduces distractions, letting beginners focus on the meaning of the code. Significant whitespace also means that all code is properly and consistently indented. The language also uses natural english words such as 'and' and 'or', meaning that beginners need to learn fewer obscure symbols. On top of this, Python's dynamic type system means that code isn't cluttered with type information, which would further distract beginners from what the code is doing. See More

Top Con

Hard to debug other people's code

As the structure of Python code is based on conventions many developers are not following them and so it is difficult to follow/extract the design of not trivial application from the code. See More

Top Pro

Has many libraries for scientific computing, data mining and machine learning

Python is commonly used in data science and has many libraries for scientific computing, such as numpy, pandas, matplotlib, etc. See More

Top Con

Inelegant and messy language design

The first impression given by well-chosen Python sample code is quite attractive. However, very soon a lack of unifying philosophy / theory behind the language starts to show more and more. This includes issues with OOP such as lack of consistency in the use of object methods vs. functions (e.g., is it x.sort() or sorted(x), or both for lists?), made worse by too many functions in global name space. Method names via mangling and the init(self) look and feel like features just bolted on an existing simpler language. See More

Top Pro

Easy to find jobs

Python's popularity also means that it's commonly in use in production at many companies - it's even one of the primary languages in use at Google. Furthermore, as a concise scripting language, it's very commonly used for smaller tasks, as an alternative to shell scripts. Python was also designed to make it easy to interface with other languages such as C, and so it is often used as 'glue code' between components written in other languages. See More

Top Con

Limited support for functional programming

While Python imports some very useful and elegant bits and pieces from FP (such as list comprehensions, higher-order functions such as map and filter), the language's support for FP falls short of the expectations raised by included features. For example, no tail call optimisation or proper lambdas. Referential transparency can be destroyed in unexpected ways even when it seems to be guaranteed. Function composition is not built into the core language. Etc. See More

Top Pro

Best chances of earning most money

According to Quartz, Python programming skills on average earn $100,000 per year. Closely followed by Java, C++, JavaScript, C, and R with $90,000 per year and above. See More

Top Con

Unflexible userbase

You will be expected to rigidly stick to the coding practices and to do everything by-the-numbers. See More

Top Pro

Very similar to pseudo-code

When learning Computer Science concepts such as algorithms and data structures, many texts use pseudo-code. Having a language such as Python whose syntax is very similar to pseudo-code is an obvious advantage that makes learning easier. See More

Top Con

Speed can matter

Python, like many interpreted and untyped languages, is fairly slow compared to compiled languages like C, C++ or Java. Sometimes this won't matter, but when it does you're talking about twenty times slower than C/C++ and ten times slowed than Java. See More

Top Pro

One right way to do things

One of the Guiding Principles of Python is that there should be only one obvious way to do things. This is helpful for beginners because it means that there is likely a best answer for questions about how things should be done. See More

Top Con

Significant whitespace

While proper formatting is essential for any programmer, beginners often have trouble understanding the need and lack the discipline to do it. Add to that all those editors that randomly convert N spaces (usually 8) to tabs and you get an instant disaster. See More

Top Pro

Active and helpful community

Python has an active and helpful community, such as the comp.lang.python Google Groups, StackOverflow, reddit, etc. See More

Top Con

Version Confusion with V2.x and V3.x

Top Pro

Can be used in many domains

Python can be used across virtually all domains: scientific, network, games, graphics, animation, web development, machine learning, and data science. See More

Top Con

Multi-threading can introduce unwanted complexity

Although the principals of multi-threading in Python are good, the simplicity can be deceptive and multi-threaded applications are not always easy to create when multiple additional factors are accounted for. Multi-thread processes have to be explicitly created manually. See More

Top Pro

Lots of tutorials

Python's popularity and beginner friendliness has led to a wealth of tutorials and example code on the internet. This means that when beginners have questions, they're very likely to be able to find an answer on their own just by searching. This is an advantage over some languages that are not as popular or covered as in-depth by its users. See More

Top Con

The process of shipping/distributing software is reatively complicated

Once you have you program the process of having a way to send it to others to use is fragile and fragmented. Python is still looking for the right solution for this with still differences in opinion. These differences are a huge counter to Python's mantra of "There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it." See More

Top Pro

Good introduction to datatypes

Python's built-in support and syntax for common collection types such as lists, dictionaries, and sets, as well as supporting features like list comprehensions, foreach loops, map, filter, and others, makes their use much easier to get into for beginners. Python's support for Object Orient Programming, but with dynamic typing, also makes the topic of Data Structures much more accessible, as it takes the focus off of more tedious aspects, such as type casting and explicitly defined interfaces. Python's convention of only hiding methods through prefacing them with underscores further takes the focus off of details such as Access Modifiers common in languages such as Java and C++, allowing beginners to focus on the core concepts, without much worry for language specific implementation details. See More

Top Con

Abstraction to the point of hinderance

Python is abstracted far enough that if it's your first language, it will be harder to pick up lower level languages later versus going the other direction. See More

Top Pro

Supports various programming paradigms

Python supports three 'styles' of programming: Procedural programming. Object orientated programming. Functional programming. All three styles can be seamlessly interchanged and can be learnt in harmony in Python rather than being forced into one point of view, which is helpful for easing confusion over the debate amongst programmers over which programming paradigm is best, as developers will get the chance to try all of them. See More

Top Con

Not good for mobile development

You can use frameworks like Kivy, but if your ultimate goal is to write mobile apps Python may not be the best first choice. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Installs and works on every major operating systems if not already installed by default (Linux, macOS). See More

Top Con

Does not teach you about data types

Since Python is a dynamically typed language, you don't have to learn about data types if you start using Python as your first language. Data types being one of the most important concepts in programming. This also will cause trouble in the long run when you will have to (inevitably) learn and work with a statically typed language because you will be forced to learn the type system from scratch. See More

Top Pro

Comes with extensive libraries

Python ships with a large standard library, including modules for everything from writing graphical applications, running servers, and doing unit testing. This means that beginners won't need to spend time searching for tools and libraries just to get started on their projects. See More

Elixir

Top Pro

Great for concurrency

Leverages the existing Erlang BEAM VM. See More

Specs

Current stable version:1.11.2

GZipped size:3.61 MB (without required Erlang VM)

Site:https://elixir-lang.org

Top Pro

Great documentation

Elixir's documentation is very good. It covers everything and always helps to solve any problem you may have. It's also always available from the terminal. See More

Top Pro

Powerful metaprogramming

Write code that writes code with Elixir macros. Macros make metaprogramming possible and define the language itself. See More

Top Pro

Great getting started tutorials

The tutorials are very clear and concise (even for a person not used to functional programming). Plus they are also very mobile friendly. See More

Top Pro

Scalability

Elixir programming is ideal for applications that have many users or are actively growing their audience. Elixir can easily cope with much traffic without extra costs for additional servers. More details can be found here. See More

Top Pro

Full access to Erlang functions

You can call Erlang functions directly without any overhead: https://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/erlang-libraries.html See More

Top Pro

Easy to download libraries

Comes with built in build tool called "mix". This will automatically download libraries and put them in the scope of the application when you add them to the "deps" function and run mix deps.get See More

Top Pro

Syntax is similar to Ruby, making it familiar for people used to OOP

All of the benefits of Erlang without as steep a learning curve of Prolog-based syntax. Elixir is heavily inspired by Ruby's syntax which many people love. See More

Clojure

Top Pro

Huge ecosystem of libraries to work with

There's a very large ecosystem of high-quality Clojure libraries which developers can use. One example is Incanter. It's a great data analytics library and a very powerful tool for dealing with matrices, datasets and csv files. See More

Top Con

Syntax can be alien / jarring for those used to other Lisps

Perhaps some may consider this attribute an advantage, but I do not. Clojure does not attempt to maintain significant compatibility with other Lisps. So, if you already know a Lisp or are used to the way Lisp works in general, you'll probably be confused if you take a look at Clojure. See these resources for more details on this subject: https://clojure.org/reference/lisps http://stackoverflow.com/q/6008313/2636454 http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2015/01/one-major-difference-between-clojure.html http://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/q/153128/166211 See More

Specs

Current stable version:1.10.1

GZipped size:3.7Mb, requires JAVA

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Site:www.clojure.org

Top Pro

Minimal syntax

Being a LISP, programs are simple: they're just functions and data. That it doesn't get bogged down with syntax or the loftier FP concepts like monads makes it one of most approachable functional languages for beginners. See More

Top Con

Tied to the JVM and it's limitations.

Some language constructs were obviously created as workarounds for JVM limitations. This makes the language much less elegant than it could have been. Also, the JVM has a very cumbersome FFI. See More

Top Pro

Immutability is the default

Clojure programmers are highly encouraged to use immutable data in their code. Therefore, most data will be immutable by default. State change is handled by functions (for transformations) and atoms (an abstraction that encapsulates the idea of some entity having an identity). See More

Top Con

Confusing error messages

Clojure's error messages more often than not are very confusing. They usually involve stack traces that do not thoroughly explain where the error was caused or what caused it. See More

Top Pro

Dynamic language

A superb data processing language. While rich type and specification systems are available they are optional. See More

Top Pro

Good for writing concurrent programs

Since Clojure is designed for concurrency, it offers things like Software Transaction Memory, functional programming without side-effects and immutable data structures right out of the box. This means that the development team can focus their energies on developing features instead of concurrency details. See More

Top Pro

Extensible

Clojure has an elegant macro system which enables language additions, Domain-specific languages (DSLs), to be created much easier than most other languages (with the exception of Racket, perhaps). See More

Top Pro

Cross platform

Clojure compiles to JVM bytecode and runs inside the JVM. This means that applications written in Clojure are cross-platform out of the box. See More

Top Pro

Tries to solve problems as simply as possible

Simplicity is one of the pillars on which Clojure is built. Clojure tries to solve many problems in software development as simply as possible. Instead of building complex interfaces, objects or factories, it uses immutability and simple data structures. See More

Top Pro

Rich Hickey

The creator is so awesome, he's a feature. Just look up his talks and see why. See More

Top Pro

No C/Java syntax

Refreshing, BTW! See More

Top Pro

Game is available with which you can learn Clojure

Nightmod is a tool used to make "live-moddable" games. It displays the game's code while you are playing and allows you to inject new code using Clojure. This can be a fun and useful experience for people trying to learn Clojure. See More

Top Pro

Great tool used in automating, configuring and managing dependencies available

Leiningen is a very useful tool for Clojure developers. It helps wiht automation, configuration and dependency management. It's basically a must for every Clojure project. See More

Elm

Top Pro

Higher confidence in code correctness and quality

Pure functions, immutable data structures, amazing compiler, clean and homologous syntax used for HTML, logic, and optionally to replace CSS, elimination of entire classes of bugs so you don't even need most unit tests. These factors lead to better code, better programs, higher confidence, and ultimately, more satisfaction. See More

Specs

Current stable version:0.19.1

GZipped size:23.2 kB

Platforms:Windows Linux Mac Web

Top Pro

Not quite Haskell semantics

Luckily you do not have to learn Haskell to be able to do any Elm. It is meant to be a language that compiles to Javascript, so for Javascript programmers (Front end) not for CS students who want to learn as many different algorithms as possible. See More

Top Pro

Good tooling

All major editors have great support. With Atom for example, Elm plugins are available for linting, formatting, make/compiler support and Elmjutsu will simply overflow you with super useful functions, like navigate to referenced definition and show expression type. See More

Top Pro

Batteries included

The Elm Architecture means you don't need to spend valuable time and effort choosing the right frameworks, state management libraries, or build tooling. It's all built in. See More

Top Pro

Missing syntactic sugar

Easy to learn, most functions have only one way, not 5 alternatives where you must study where to best use what. See More

Top Pro

Great and simple way to learn Purely Functional Programming

You can try to apply some functional programming ideas in other languages that have an imperative basis, but you haven't seen the real power unless you tried it in the environment of purely functional programming. Elm is a simple language with great learning resources and easy graphical output, which makes it easy to explore the power of functional programming. Plus programming in Elm is very readable. See More

Top Pro

Inferred static typing

ML static typing is great because it's always there, you just choose how explicit you want to be and how much you want the compiler to do. See More

Top Pro

Super easy refactoring with very helpful compiler errors

In no other language you can refactor so easy without any worries, since the compiler will guide you through. It is like TDD but than compiler-error driven. See More

Top Pro

Designed around high-level front-end development

As Elm was designed as a front-end langauge, it has out of the box support for things like DOM-element creation, letting programmers focus on their application logic, rather than implementation details specific to the web. See More

Top Pro

No run-time exceptions

Lack of run-time exceptions makes it easy to produce large swathes of reliable front-end code without drowning in tests. See More

Top Pro

Easy to code review

The lack of side-effects and simple, consistent language semantics make it easy to quickly review incoming changes. See More

Ruby

Top Pro

Ruby on Rails

Lays out an easy to follow and opinionated MVC pattern that teaches best practices through necessity. See More

Top Con

Monkeypatching

Requiring a library can change the rules of the language. This is very confusing for beginners. See More

Specs

Current stable version:2.6.0

GZipped size:15.9 MB

Top Pro

Widely used

Ruby is one of the most popular languages for developing web sites. As a result, there's an abundant amount of documentation, sample code, and libraries available for learning the language and getting your project up and running. The most popular features are just 'gem install' away. Additionally, it is easier to find Ruby jobs because of this. See More

Top Con

Meta-programming causes confusion for new developers

The ability for libraries to open classes and augment them leads to confusion for new developers since it is not clear who injected the functionality into some standard class. In other words, if two modules decide to modify the same function on the same class can introduce a number of issues. Mainly, the order in which the modules are included matters. Since you more or less can't tell what kind of "helper" functions a module might write into any class, or for that matter, where the helper function was included from, you may sometimes wonder why class X can do Y sometimes but not at other times. See More

Top Pro

Hugely object oriented

Object oriented programming is one of the most important concepts in programming. See More

Top Con

More than one way to do it

A problem inspired by Perl. The core API interfaces are bloated. There's at least four different ways to define methods. More is not always better. Sometimes it's just more. See More

Top Pro

A large ecosystem of tools & libraries

Ruby has a large ecosystem of tools and libraries for just about every use. Such as ORMs (Active Record, DatabMapper), Web Application Frameworks(Rails, Sinatra, Volt), Virtualization Orchestration(docker-api, drelict), CLI tools(Thor, Commando), GUI Frameworks(Shoes, FXRuby) and the list goes on. If you can think of it, there is probably a gem for that ( and if not you can create your own and share with the community). See More

Top Con

No docstrings

It's hard to access Ruby's documentation from the REPL (irb), unlike Python, Lisp, and Smalltalk which let you ask functions how to use them, which is a great benefit to the beginner, and which also encourages you to document your program as you code it. See More

Top Pro

Test Driven Development, #1

It's the fore-runner and trend setter for TDD. See More

Top Con

Arcane grammar based on Perl

Ruby is too complicated for beginners: arcane Perlisms; semi-significant whitespace; parentheses are not necessary around method arguments, except for sometimes they are; control constructs could be elegantly implemented with block like Smalltalk (Instead they're baked into the grammar.); verbose block syntax, unless it happens to be the last argument. (proc lambda). There are too many exceptional cases and arcane precedence rules. See More

Top Pro

Pry

Top Con

Its ecosystem is limited outside of web development

If you're looking to host, generate, manipulate or secure a website, Ruby is your language. There's also some great support here for infrastructure as code work via Chef. However, it just doesn't have the depth and breadth that Python does. Things like native UI development, high performance math, and embedded / small footprint environments are barely supported at all in Ruby-space. See More

Top Pro

Clean syntax

Ruby has a very clean syntax that makes code easier to both read and write than more traditional Object Oriented languages, such as Java. For beginning programmers, this means the focus is on the meaning of the program, where it should be, rather than trying to figure out the meaning of obscure characters. presidents = ["Ford", "Carter", "Reagan", "Bush1", "Clinton", "Bush2"] for ss in 0...presidents.length print ss, ": ", presidents[presidents.length - ss - 1], "\n"; end See More

Top Con

Does not teach you about data types

Since Ruby is a dynamically typed language, you don't have to learn about data types if you start using Ruby as your first language. Data types being one of the most important concepts in programming. This also will cause trouble in the long run when you will have to (inevitably) learn and work with a statically typed language because you will be forced to learn the type system from scratch. See More

Top Pro

Newbie-friendly community

Top Con

Dynamic type system

Majority of bugs could be resolved with types. See More

Top Con

Focus on Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)

Focussing on OOP in a beginner stage is an easy and popular plan, but not the best one. See More

JavaScript

Top Con

The constant churn of tooling and language

Trying to keep up=javascript fatigue. You won't have time to learn anything else if this is your first language, and you will probably think all programmers are crazy. Plus web assembly may open the door for better alternatives. See More

Top Pro

High demand for JavaScript developers

If you're looking for a career as a developer, JavaScript is the place to focus your attention. There is a huge demand for good developers especially in frameworks such as React and Angular. See More

Specs

Engine:V8/ChakraCore

Author:Ryan Dahl/Joyent

Minimum Supported ECMAScript Version:ECMAScript 6 (Node v4.x-v10.x)

ECMAScript Modules:Available (as a flag) (only on Node 8.x-10.x)

Top Con

Counter-intuitive type conversion

JavaScript is rather inconsistent when dealing with different types. For example, when working with the + operator and two numbers, they will be added, two strings will be concatenated: 3+5; // 8; "Hello "+"world"; // "Hello world" When using + with a string and a non-string operand, the non-string operand is converted to a string and the result is concatenated: "the answer is "+42; // "the answer is 42" "this is "+true; // "this is true" In any other case (except for Date) the operands are converted to numbers and the results are added: 1+true; // = 1+1 = 2; null+false; // = 0+0 = 0; See More

Top Pro

Complete dev stack can be run online

With codepen.io and other prototyping tools, you can learn Javascript from a mobile device. You don't even need a computer. It can be learned from an internet cafe or public library. See More

Top Con

Has really bad parts you're better off avoiding altogether

But beginners won't know better. And even after you learn, you might have to deal with others' code that uses the bad stuff. JavaScript was originally developed in 10 days. It just wasn't designed that carefully. See More

Top Pro

Required for web development

If you are looking to create web projects, you will have to learn Javascript in order to develop the client side code. If you learn the foundations of programming in JavaScript you can reapply that education later in building web applications. See More

Top Con

Easy to accidentally use globals

If you forget a var or new, you can clobber the global scope. For tiny scripts (JavaScript's original use case) globals are great, but for larger applications globals are generally regarded as a Bad Thing. This is because changes to one small part of a program can randomly break things anywhere else. These kinds of bugs are notoriously hard to find. See More

Top Pro

First-class functions with lexical closures

While certainly not the only language with these features, this pro alone is so powerful that it compensates for most of JavaScript's problems. You'll learn to use closures and higher-order functions well in JavaScript, because you have to. And then you can generalize this knowledge to any other language that has these, and the good ones do. See More

Top Con

Complex

JavaScript has a long litany of warts and gotchas. JavaScript will bite you if you're just a wee bit careless. You have to exercise a great deal of caution and awareness. You either have to know the entire 545-page ES6 spec to avoid them all, or use a linter to help restrict you from using the bad parts (and you still have to be familiar with the language), but beginners don't know these things. (Linters are also prone to time-wasting false positives.) This is a significant cognitive burden on even the experienced programmer (as if coding wasn’t hard enough already), but try learning to program in the first place on top of all of this and you'll understand that JavaScript is a terrible choice for the beginner. See More

Top Pro

Runs on both the browser and the server

With Node.js, it is now possible to run JavaScript as a web server. This would allow you to be able to create server based applications sooner than would if you had to learn a separate programming language as well for server side code. As JavaScript is the only language supported by web browsers it puts it in the unique situation of being the only programming language that's available on both the client side and server side. See More

Top Con

Weird type coercions

'5' - 1 == 4, but '5' + 1 == 51. There are other examples that make even less sense. See More

Top Pro

Massive ecosystem

JavaScript has one of the largest programming ecosystems, as shown by the being the most popular language for projects on GitHub. As there are so many projects written in JavaScript there are lots of libraries available to build off of and many of them are written to be easy to use and integrate into other projects. There are also lots of resources available for learning JavaScript. Other than traditional tutorials, language learning sites such as Codecademy have JavaScript courses. The Mozilla Developer Database also serves as a great resource for learning about the standard libraries built into JavaScript. See More

Top Con

Does not teach you about data types

Since JavaScript is a dynamically typed language, you don't have to learn about data types if you start using JavaScript as your first language. Data types being one of the most important concepts in programming. This will also cause trouble in the long run when you will have to (inevitably) learn and work with a statically typed language because you will be forced to learn the type system from scratch. See More

Top Pro

Easy to build an application

By using the UI capabilities in HTML and CSS you can develop substantial applications with graphical interfaces more quickly and with less effort than in other languages which would require you to learn a windowing library. Building a useful application is one of the best ways to learn a new language and because of the low learning curve for creating applications you can create more substatial programs and learn more practical programming priciple faster. See More

Top Con

No "clear choice" frameworks/libraries

The closest JS gets (IMHO) is jQuery for consistent DOM api. From libraries to fill the hole left by no comprehensive standard library (eg: lodash, underscore, ramda, functionaljs, sugar, core-js, stdlib, locutus, or the N implementations of range or pad on npm), to front-end frameworks (angular, aurelia, vue, react, ember, polymer, etc), and everything in between; the JS ecosystem is hugely diverse and there is rarely a "major" library or framework for a given purpose. This is overwhelming for a new user. While diversity is good, at least having a major/primary library/framework for a given need/use is highly desirable for a "learn this first"language in order to be productive and focused (not to mention finding fast and accurate help from the community). See More

Top Pro

C-like syntax

After learning Javascript, you will feel at home in other languages as C-like syntax is very common. See More

Top Con

Fractured ecosystem

Angular, React, Ember, Meteor, Backbone, Knockout, Express, Mithril, Aurelia. The web frameworks pass in and out of fashion too quickly to keep up with. The endless civil wars are becoming tiresome. See More

Top Pro

Atwood's Law "Any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually be written in JavaScript."

May also be a con. See More

Top Con

Fast moving

The language and the web platform move fast these days. this makes it difficult for students as there is a lot of fragmentation and outdated information. See More

Top Pro

Very good debugger

Has a built in debugger with break points, watches that work on local values, and a console that you can use to edit anything at any time. Both in the browser (eg: Chrome), and server (eg: Nodejs). See More

Top Con

Many errors pass silently

JavaScript looks for every possible way to treat the code you write as runnable and is very reluctant to point out likely errors. For example, you have call a function with too many arguments, the extra arguments are simply discarded. See More

Top Pro

Prototype based Object Oriented System

Being object oriented, it supports the predominate and powerful programming approach. Being prototype based, it provides an intuitive approach to OOP. Whereas other popular languages use classes, which focus on thinking in the abstract, Javascript's prototypes allow you to focus on thinking in the concrete. For example, in a prototypical language, you think of a rectangle, and define it. You now have a rectangle. Let's say you want a red rectangle, you copy the rectangle and give it the property red. Want a blue one? Copy rectangle again give it a blue. Big blue rectangle? Copy blue rectangle and make it big. In a class-based language, first you describe a rectangle, describe a red rectangle as a type of rectangle, describe blue and big blue rectangles, and now that you have described them, you must create instances of them, and only then do you have the rectangles. Essentially: Classes are factories for objects, prototypes are objects themselves, and the latter method was created to be more intuitive, which is particularly advantageous to beginners. See More

Top Con

Array-like objects

Many cases when you should get an Array, you just get an Array-like object instead and none of the Array methods work on it. See More

Top Pro

Can be very simple (teachable)

By setting a few ground-rules (effectively coding in a subset of JS), JS is one of the simplest languages to learn (requiring very few must-learn prerequisite concepts). See More

Top Con

Limited standard library

Much often needed functionality is not in the standard library. (Contrast with Python.) However, there are well established libraries such as Lodash, to fill the gap (however, due to the diverse/fractured ecosystem it may not be clear what library to use). See More

Top Pro

Great tools for development

Flow, JSHint/ESLint, Babel, npm, etc. See More

Top Con

Each browser has its own quirks when executing the same code in some cases

Beginner programmers often make the mistake of coding something, seeing it works in the browser they tested it in, and then scratching their heads when it doesn't work in another browser. Ideally you'd want a language that works consistently across all platforms in order to be able to focus more on the programming and less on the underlying environment. It just takes time away from learning and forces you to spend time figuring out why this worked in browser X but not browser Y. See More

Top Pro

Integrates very well with UE4

Coding an immersive 3D game can retain the attention of new programmers. ncsoft/Unreal.js. See More

Top Con

Dependency on browser developer(s)

JavaScript is a language that is ran inside of the browser. Because of this, you are limited to what the browser can do. Sometimes they even have different functions to accomplish the same thing! A great example of this is the following: This works in Chrome and IE: document.getElementById("foo").innerText; And this works in FireFox and Chrome and IE: document.getElementById("foo").textContent You're also unable to use some of the less-popular CSS3 features in one browser versus the other. Can't give a detailed list due to ongoing development. See More

Top Pro

Speed (most implementations)

JS/ES is in the running for the fastest interpreted language given the optimizations and JIT integration of popular implementations. See More

Top Con

Many tutorials, code, and resources, are structured for older ES5 code

Top Pro

JSON is native to JS

JSON is arguably a "must-learn". With JS, that's one less additional syntax to learn. See More

Top Con

Asynchronous coding is not easy for beginners

JavaScript can work synchronously but its current use is mainly around asynchronous instructions, and it's surely not a good way to start learning programming. See More

Top Pro

Instant gratification

While it's easy to argue that Python will give you instant gratification, JavaScript is far better in this regard. Make a small change to a page and it's immediately visible in the browser. You can throw in a JavaScript library like jQuery with minimal fuss. See More

Top Con

Inconsistent operators

Given "" == 0 is true, and 0 == "0" is true, therefore "" == "0" is false. What? See More

Top Pro

The most used language in the whole Solar System in amount of scripts/applications

Because it runs in many different environments, it is the most used language in the world. See More

Top Con

Numbers that begin with 0 are assumed octal

This is very surprising for beginners. Especially since 00 through 07 seem to work just fine. And this isn't just for hardcoded numbers. The parseInt() function has the same problem, but only on some systems. See More

Top Pro

No installation required

If you run a web browser you already have JavaScript installed and can get started right away. Modern browsers such as Chrome also have very powerful programming consoles built into them. Aside from the browser console, you can also use online Javascript playgrounds such as JS Bin and JS Fiddle. Even from a tablet. See More

Top Con

The `null` and `undefined` objects aren't really objects

Therefore, attempts to call methods on them will fail. This is especially frustrating since these are often returned instead of throwing exceptions. So a failure may appear far away from the actual cause, which makes bugs very hard to find. See More

Top Pro

Several Platforms to use the web stack and JS to create multi-platform apps

Opens the door to native application development as well as just websites. Use with React Native, Weex or Quasar (Vue), PhoneGap or Cordova, NativeScript... (etc) to build native apps. Use mostly the same code base for multi-platform and web. See More

Top Con

The "this" keyword doesn't mean what you think it means

this is bound to whatever object called the function. Unless you invoke it as a method. Unless you invoke it as a constructor. Unless it's an arrow function. See More

Top Pro

Modern ESNext is far better than the JS of days past

Modern JS has made great strides, and can be targerted to older (or non-standard) browsers using Babel. There are new language constructs that can make programming in JS comfortable.; e.g.: async / await ( <3 ). See More

Top Con

Easy to fall into bad manners and bad mind structure

It wouldn't consolidate a good mind structure for moving to other languages. Too open. See More

Top Pro

Extremely popular

JavaScript usually tops the lists for most popular languages in use today and rightly so. It's used almost everywhere and it's in high demand, making it very easy to find a job for anyone who knows JavaScript. This helps make it desirable for a first language, as it will often be used in the future. See More

Top Con

Very confusing to read

Top Con

Good tools are pretty much a MUST for new programmers

You really want to be using a good editor (light IDE) and a linter, type checker (e.g.:Flow), etc. until you grok the language. And choosing / setting-up that development environment is it's own learning curve. If taught in a classroom, using a subset of JS with solid tools, there is an argument that JS could be an ideal first language... however, that is a lot of ceremony to protect the new programmer from JS gotchas. But without the tools, JS can be a very painful painful first language (trying to figure out why your code isn't doing what you intended). See More

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