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What Was Your First Programming Language?

Following up on last week's " What was your first computer?" question (the
VIC-20 was a clear winner), this week's question is "What was your first programming language?" Thinking back, I initially thought it was Level Basic for the TRS-80, but Eric's post reminded me the first thing I programmed was an HP calculator, mostly so I could use it to cheat in class :-) After the TRS-80 I programmed my Apple IIe in Applesoft Basic, which was much better than its predecessor because it could do floating point numbers. Does anyone remember numbering your lines counting in tens so you had room to add other lines in the middle?
Applesoft Basic Aloha World: 
10 TEXT:HOME
20 ? "Aloha World!"
The first time I saw Amiga basic I was thrown by the fact there were no line numbers. AmigaBASIC Aloha World: 
PRINT "Aloha World!"
The progression of languages I learned from grade school to today: Level I Basic (TRS-80) -> Applesoft Basic -> Amiga Basic -> Pascal -> Objective C (remember NeXTcube?) -> Python -> Java & C# How about you?

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Comment by Brooke Fujita on July 22, 2008 at 2:45am
Funny, I was just perusing ./ when I came across this thread on how to encourage a teen to learn programming.

I started off with Commodore Basic on the Vic-20, and I must have logged hundreds of hours hacking away at game and word processor programs in those hobby magazines. But if my kids were old enough and had their curiosity piqued?

I would absolutely forbid them to learn Python, and then sit back and watch them do it anyway to spite me.
Comment by Daniel Leuck on July 21, 2008 at 11:21pm
Grant> hmm either Basic or Fortran.

If it was Fortran we can remain friends :-) JK - My first language was Level Basic so I can't really cast stones.

So far I think Sam wins for the earliest hard core programming.
Comment by Grant on July 21, 2008 at 10:46pm

hmm either Basic or Fortran. I missed programming with punch cards in high school by only a year or two. that would've been something to really brag about huh? cementing my status as geek overlord of my circle of nerd friends. bah. I guess since my path went in a different direction, I wouldn't have the opportunity to crow about it all the time until coworkers or peers got sick of it anyway... so I guess it didn't really matter in the long run.
Comment by Sam Chepkevich on July 18, 2008 at 6:49am
I will show my age here. My first language was AN/UYK-20 Assembler/Machine Language. The input device was a row of LEDs, On = 1, Off = 0. Also had a Program Counter switch to advance the Program Counter in addition to a few other switches. The machine was actually pretty cool, it used NVRAM. I also believe that the nmemonics made the rest of computer science, operating systems and programming languages easier to understand.

After that the languages I learned were Fortran, Basic, Pascal, COBOL/DIBOL/SIBOL, C, x86 & Motorola 68XXX Assembler, SQL, Java, Perl, lately I have added some C#. I also use Perl for quick development and system administration.

I agree with Cameron's comment of "I think understanding "how" it works is what is most important. Loops, sorts, linked lists, database normalization."
Comment by Stephen McMahon on July 17, 2008 at 3:08pm
My first programming language was BASIC on an Apple IIe. And like Mika, the first programming language that I used at work was PERL. For the past 7 years I've been working almost exclusively in C# and SQL with the occasional work on some old VB6 code. When I have extra time and motivation, I work on learning Ruby and Python.
Comment by Mika Leuck on July 16, 2008 at 7:06pm
The first language I learned was COBOL. They made me study it in school even though it was already a very old language. Then I took a class in C. The first language I used for work was Perl. Now I am studying Ruby, even though I do more sys admin / network work than programming. Ruby is definitely my favorite.
Comment by Jared I. Kuroiwa on July 16, 2008 at 4:49pm
I remember NeXT... It was right next to the SunSPARCs we used to use in undergrad. I also had a little Casio calculator in the 80's with BASIC (uncle and aunt lived in Hong Kong).

BASIC... Pascal... Assembly... FORTRAN 77... After that I'd consider what I did less languages and more scripting. Lotus 123, dBase III and IV, ForPro, VB, Access, VBScript, JavaScript, SQL, ASP, PHP... Are these really languages anymore?

I think understanding "how" it works is what is most important. Loops, sorts, linked lists, database normalization...

Learning any language is pretty much the same, just different syntax. I don't think I've actually "programmed" since application development in FoxPro.

Now most stuff is ripping apart other people's stuff and making it fit what we need. I love today's world of programming and open source. The web really opened the doors to software/hardware independence...
Comment by Cameron Souza on July 15, 2008 at 12:15pm
My first language was
Logo, which was basically a dialect of Lisp. They taught it at my grade school. We used it with
Turtle Graphics to create basic graphics.

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