I always get confused by all these new languages. Ive heard of: nim, rust, D, V, and now Zig. Where do I start? Should I start with C or C++? Or pick one of these? But which one?
Im currently looking at Lisp because I read it was good for alot of things. I'm also aware of Go and Swift but not looked into them at all.
Also, unlike the other languages you mentioned, Go and Swift aren't low-level languages. Low-level languages are those that give you very precise control over the machine instructions, almost as much as Assembly. Low-level programming is not as widely important as it used to be, because these days the cost of an instruction does not depend so much on what the instruction itself is but on the current micro-architecture state of the computer (e.g. which data is in which level of the cache; which branches are predicted and how) so even machine code is pretty high-level these days, but in some domains, especially memory-constrained environments, it is still irreplaceable.
By this definition I would say C is not “low-level”
I would say that a better approach in your case is to start by saying "I want to write programs to solve problems like XXXX", or "I want to learn a language that lands me a job doing YYYY".
For example, if you want to:
- build network services -> golang
- fiddle with OS level stuff (schedulers, memory management, etc.) -> C
- write high performance calculation/simulation programs -> julia
- get a nice solid base that can cover most of the above and has a promising future -> rust
Nim, D, V, Zig are very niche and I wouldn't recommend as a first "lower level" language (because you'll have a harder time finding answers, and they won't give you clear benefits over the other options in any problem space).
C++ is... huge. Modern C++ is a fine language, but you'll have to learn a lot to be able to handle it.
My main aim is really to learn about it. I wouldnt mind having a broad general experience in high level and low level before I decide to focus on anything in particular.
I've started looking a compilers and how they work im working through a book about building a compiler. Im really just interested in whats going on in the background. I always find myself wondering about the implementations of the languages I'm using.
C is not “low level”, in the assembly sense. It is absolutely a high level language. But it is the simplest, and the one with the most fine control.