Every once in a while, a non-programmer interested in game programming will ask me where they should start learning. They’ll usually know that most modern programming languages are derived from or related to C and that most games are developed in C++, so the first question I hear will usually be:

Should I learn C first? Or C++?

My answer is: neither. I recommend learning C# first.

There are so many bad habits and terrible practices you can develop by starting with C or C++ first that it’s a bad road to go down. By starting with C# first you’ll be forced to learn how to develop object-oriented code instead of being able to mix an ugly blend of procedural and object code with no method to the madness.

The transition from C to C++ can be very easy — almost any code written in C will run unmodified in C++, with the biggest danger being that you might have used reserved keywords as variable names.

That’s very dangerous.

In C++ there are a lot of things that can be done that just shouldn’t be — especially global variables and constants, un-encapsulated data and procedural code, etc. The C++ compiler doesn’t care how badly-written your code is as long as you follow proper syntax. Some people spend years trying to “unlearn” C programming once they transition to C++. I know I had a hard time with it, and entire books have been written on the subject.

Instead, if you eventually end up making the transition from C# to C++, you’ll already be used to the idea of being able to use library functions and be less-inclined to “roll your own” version of things when you can find a library to take care of it for you. This will result in faster development — after all, it’s often far easier to plug something in or look up what’s available in the standard library than it is to write and debug new code, which C trains a programmer to do more often. Remember: an architect doesn’t reinvent the nail every time he designs a house.

Some other reasons to learn C# first:

• C# is also good as a first language because it’s a very easy to make a transition to Java. Some people refer to C# as a “child of C++ and Java”.
• With Microsoft’s Silverlight (designed as a Flash-killer), C# is also becoming more relevant for developing web-based games.
• Every person I know that has tried to learn programming and given up has died at the same point: pointers. With C# you don’t have such a mind-boggling mess of things and are far less likely to have weird pointer-based crashes and glitches. You never have to learn the abstract insanity that is pointer arithmetic and memory manipulation. (void ** pointers still make me wake up screaming sometimes.