r/learnprogramming • u/Frxdnt • 1d ago
are there any good programs / languages to understabd the fundamentals without worrying about the syntax
I've always been passionate about technollogy since i was a kid, and lately i choose to get inro an IT career (big mistake in the current market but I don't see myself doing anything else), yet my programming skills are very questionable becouse I don't understand the fundamentals of programming yet 100%, is there a language or program to understand programming from scratch without worrying about the syntax?, I want to get ready to start projects asap
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u/TurtleFetus 1d ago
Check out Scratch: https://scratch.mit.edu/
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u/NeoChrisOmega 1d ago
I was about to suggest that too. It's not just for kids. At my college we used Scratch to learn about rapid prototyping before going to a program called Stencil.
I wouldn't recommend Stencil for a publishable game (then again, last time I used it was 2014). But block programming is a phenomenal place to start learning the logic without needing the syntax. And Stencil also allows the OPTION to use scripting too.
If you (OP) want to challenge yourself, make a 3D game in Scratch, or at the very least have an environment where you can move around and collect items. It's possible.
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u/ellipsp 23h ago
Pretty sure 'Idleon' uses Stencil and the dev is now rich.
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u/NeoChrisOmega 23h ago
I stand corrected then. Back when I was using it there were a lot of technical issues. To the point we only used it for the one semester.
It's nice to know it's proficient enough someone got it working for them.
I did use it only a couple of years after it first released. So that's probably why I had a bad experience with it.
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u/SpaceAviator1999 1d ago
is there a language or program to understand programming from scratch without worrying about the syntax?
It's funny that you say "from scratch," because Scratch) is meant to be a language where you don't have to worry about the syntax.
Author Al Sweigart wrote a book about programming in Scratch, titled Scratch 3 Programming Playground. You can buy the book online, or read it online for free.
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u/Feeling_Photograph_5 1d ago
What do you mean by fundamentals?
Nevermind. There's no way to learn to code except study and practice. Just go to the Odin Project and complete it. You can choose their Rails path or Node, both are useful. Node is more modern, Rails will show you what a good back-end framework looks like. You'll be able to build bigger things with Rails as a solo developer.
Study and practice an hour a day, every day. More of you feel like it, but at least an hour. See where it takes you.
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u/ConfidentCollege5653 1d ago
Every practical language requires you to learn syntax. Just do it and get it out of the way.
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u/JustBadPlaya 1d ago
Real answer - push through it
Silly answer - Lisp language family has almost no syntax by the strict definition of syntax
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u/stevevdvkpe 23h ago
Lisp isn't a silly answer. It really does have about the minimal amount of syntax possible.
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u/JustBadPlaya 23h ago edited 22h ago
I guess "silly" isn't the right word. Learning lisp as a first language is kind of unproductive because transitioning into algol-likes will be harder, and the majority of the industry uses them. But I guess in objective terms lisps are the correct answer
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u/Substantial_Ice_311 19h ago
Why harder? I guess it will be emotionally harder, because you are leaving Lisp behind. But that's the only way in which it will be harder. (I guess you mean harder than learning Algol-likes from the start.)
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u/Betelgeu5e 23h ago
My university course used the Oz programming language to learn us programming fundamentals.
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u/Jumpy-Seesaw-2026 23h ago
I started a C# project with no prior knowledge around 6 months ago, and have come pretty far, know basically all the syntax, atm learning how to break things down and how to model domain rules in code.
All I did was at every point, ask questions until I knew what was going on, and when you have done that enough times, you begin to understand why the syntax is created in the first place, not just what it is.
In those 6 months I have probably discussed around 3000+ questions with AI, had it made analogies for me to understand why something was important, etc.
It worked out pretty good for me, so can recommend.
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u/JGhostThing 18h ago
Start with either python or c. Memorize the relatively simple syntax. Then do *simple* projects.
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u/exploradorobservador 1d ago
The best language to get started would be python. Syntax in programming is the set of structural rules and conventions that define how code must be written for a computer to correctly interpret and execute it. Aside from a drag n' drop there's not really any short cut.
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u/Substantial_Ice_311 19h ago
Eh, why? Doesn't Python have syntax?
"Aside from a drag n' drop there's not really any short cut."
Well, Lisp dialects, especially Scheme, have very, very simple syntaxes. You can learn Scheme's in like 30 seconds.
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u/TurbulentPlurality 1d ago
Honestly, just jump into Python. The syntax is so close to plain English that you'll barely notice it's there while you're learning the core concepts like loops and conditionals. Most intro courses use it for exactly that reason.