Hey 👋 - Mads here.

Happy Wednesday and welcome to this issue of the Top 3 in Tech newsletter.

One quick note before we get started: Could you please respond to this email with what you most enjoy (or don't enjoy) about the newsletter? I'd love to make it as great as possible for you, so I will read and consider all your feedback. Thank you!

And with that, let's get started:

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1. What programming language should you learn first?

Perhaps the most common question among new developers or people looking to enter the field. And definitely the one I get most often!

It's a great question too. With so many different languages to learn, how would you know which one to focus on? You don't want to pick "wrongly" and spend time learning a language you don't enjoy or that doesn't have job opportunities. But you also can't spend all your time looking for the perfect language without getting anything done.

The way I see it, your first language isn't that important. As you get deeper into development, you realize that all programming languages are fundamentally very similar; they all have variables, loops, conditional statements etc. The concept of functions or classes remain mostly the same across languages too, so learning one provides you some easily transferable skills.

With that said, that answer is also kind of a cop out. If your goal is to get hired ASAP, your choice of language does make a difference. There's no universal "best first language", but here is a (somewhat subjective) list of the language(s) I would start with depending on your field of interest:

1. Front-end development: Start with HTML and CSS, then move to JavaScript.
2. Back-end web development: Pick either Python, PHP or Ruby.
3. App/mobile development: Swift for iOS, Java or Kotlin for Android.
4. Machine learning or data science: Python or R.
5. Operating systems/IoT development: Start with C.
6. Game development: Either C++ or C# with Unity.
7. Windows desktop applications: Go for C#.

Just remember that whichever one you pick doesn't have to be the one you use forever. I started out learning Java and C#, before I realized that my real passion was in front-end development - then I switched entirely to writing JavaScript. And it still holds true that skills can be transferred rather easily between languages, so don't sweat it if you feel like you picked the wrong starting point.

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2. State of frontend 2022

A few weeks ago we got an exciting new release 🔥 The results of the "State of frontend 2022 survey" are out!

This year featured just under 4000 respondents from across the globe, and the results might surprise you!

Here's some key takeaways:

• Majority of the respondents (over 57%) were mid-level or senior developers
• Over 80% are working in software development companies, agencies or tech companies.
• Svelte and Remix were among the highest frameworks that people are excited to learn in the future
• SCSS was the most popular styling tool at nearly 50%, with Tailwind following at 35%

Definitely recommend checking out the full report to learn more:

​Read the full report here​

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3. 10 Design Patterns in 10 minutes

If you've studied Computer Science, you've definitely heard of "software design patterns". And even if you haven't, chances are you've read some vague description without really understanding what design patterns mean.

You and me both! Luckily, the amazing Fireship YouTube channel has us covered in this cool, 10 minute introduction to design patterns. It starts by introducing what they even are, and then moves into concrete coding examples that make the most common patterns much easier to digest. Definitely recommend checking it out if you've ever been confused about what a "design pattern" is:

​Learn about design patterns here​

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That's it for now! I would really appreciate if you would share the newsletter with your friends on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, by email or copy/paste the link mads.fyi/top3 on other platforms. It really helps to keep me motivated and let the newsletter grow. See you in 2 weeks ✌

— Mads Brodt