What Languages do You Like?

[greenfox]

Do you every script, program, or tinker?  There's a lot of computer languages out there, so which one's do you like?  It's not necessarily a question of proficiency

Currently, I'm mostly working with Python, which I've started to like a lot;  however for web stuff, I still pretty much always use PHP.
On another note, I also really like the "Wolfram Language" (http://www.wolfram.com/language/).  I only know a little bit, but it can be really useful, if you can get access to the platform.

[Old Rabbit]

I used to do some 8 bit low level programing on the Commodore 64 in the 1980's, and Amos on the Amiga
in the 1990's.  I even sold a program I wrote for the Amiga.

A few years ago I dabbled with Visual C++.  But other than some html stuff I haven't
done anything lately. I don't remember anything I would call a favorite.

Python, being free is good to work with. No big investment that might end up in the closet..
I would probably play with it if I decided to do any more programming.

[greenfox]

Mmm... I used the Visual languages a lot a couple years ago;  sadly I was forced to abandon that because of the memory requirements.

Python, being free is good to work with. No big investment that might end up in the closet..
I would probably play with it if I decided to do any more programming.

That's  a good choice; I've found that its really quick to pick up comparatively.

[Purrrl]

I personally quite like C# (for windows application stuff) and Python (well, it's hard not to like), and I'm beginning to get to like PHP as I've had to pick it up for web things because of Drupal (I did my work experience at a company that use Drupal as their primary CMS, and I got kinda hooked on it for that kind of thing, because it was far easier than GAE, which I was used to)

[CodeSquirrel]

For what little programming/scripting I've done recently, it's either been C or shell languages (particularly bash).  I have a slightly unhealthy obsession with machine-level efficiency, so I tend to prefer languages that have a close relationship to asm, or at least compile to machine-level code.

It's not that I hate interpreted/bytecode langauges per se (e.g. Python, Java), but what bugs me is when they're used for things that (IMHO) they really shouldn't be used for, i.e. things that tend to demand a lot out of the CPU and/or are time-sensitive (*coughcough*Minecraft*coughcough*).  I understand that most interpreters/language runtimes often have dynamic trace recompilers and/or other optimizations that help speed things along, but still…overhead.  It also just bugs me that new programmers are seemingly encouraged to stay away from the machine and stick to the abstractions provided by the language runtime/interpreter. >.<

I can understand a beginner who's just starting to learn how programming works using a "cushioned" language like Python or Java or C# or such to learn the basics, but they should (again, IMHO) at least be aware that there are other, potentially more efficient options out there, even if they require a bit more effort on the programmer's part to manage.

…so yeah, I'm basically the young equivalent of a rusty old C/UNIX hacker who has little to no interest in writing fancy web applications or "the cloud".  I realize that makes me mostly irrelevant as an applications programmer (most new applications are either web-based or written in an abstracted/runtime-based language to make them easily cross-platform), but I have little self-worth as it is, and there's always kernel/system-level hacking if we do eventually reach a point where C/C++ and the like are rendered completely irrelevant/useless for user-level applications. :B

[greenfox]

I wouldn't use the word "cushioned" so much as "abstracted" (for the sake of connotation);  Good interpreted/bytecode langauges are equally powerful in their own right and are usually great for robust, rapid development on high-level applications (userspace, networking, web, etc); That said, there is something special and magical about compiled code that I really like.  I can't quite describe the feeling I get when 'make' completes with no errors   It feels "clean" and complete, I guess.

… if we do eventually reach a point where C/C++ and the like are rendered completely irrelevant/useless for user-level applications.

I don't see C/C++ disappearing from the userspace anytime soon, and if they do, there will be other compiled languages to take their place.  My hope for the future is that something more unifying will appear, but we'll see (there's stuff like gcj in the meantime).

[CodeSquirrel]

I wouldn't use the word "cushioned" so much as "abstracted" (for the sake of connotation)

I apologize if that came off as caustic; I really didn't mean for that to connote a derogatory slant.  I just mean "cushioned" in the sense that the more abstracted languages could be considered "safer" because they shield the programmer from potential pitfalls and foot-shooting that can occur with languages that sit closer to the machine.  Memory management, for example, is one thing that C doesn't make particularly easy, as you have to keep track of how much memory you're allocating and where pointers are and such by hand. (There's nothing more frustrating than a program crashing with the message "Segmentation fault" and not knowing what pointer inappropriately dereferenced where. )  Many newer languages offer the "cushions" of garbage collection or similar automated memory management (Java, for example, doesn't even have the notion of pointers, instead relegating memory management entirely to the JVM).

I don't see C/C++ disappearing from the userspace anytime soon, and if they do, there will be other compiled languages to take their place.

That's true; there are newer compiled languages being developed (Rust and Go come to mind, though I've never really used either), and I suppose if they really catch on, it won't be such a bad thing.   I think a lot of my bias comes from the fact that C is what I'm most familiar with, so I tend to try to frame things in that paradigm, I guess.  Somewhat ironically, though, I actually started with C++, then decided I didn't really need object orientation for what little "projects" I was doing, so I learned the C way of doing things like standard I/O (fprintf()/sprintf()/scanf() as opposed to cin/cout/cerr), thinking in terms of functions operating on data structures rather than classes with "methods" (member functions), etc.

I won't claim that C is the Holy Grail of programming languages; that's certainly not the case.  I wouldn't e.g. suggest that all command-line software be written in C/C++, especially if it isn't particularly demanding of the CPU (one exception I'll grant is core utilities like the Unix cp, rm, mv, etc., as those (IMO) do need to have finer-grained control/details of the underlying system calls and the like).  Even small GUI utilities that aren't particularly demanding could be written in e.g. Python (wicd, a network management daemon/utility, is written mostly, if not entirely, in Python AFAIK).

[Shim]

I'm rather fond of English. I speak Pig Latin as well. Al Bhed is nice too.

[Foxpup]

I like C++11.

There's nothing more frustrating than a program crashing with the message "Segmentation fault" and not knowing what pointer inappropriately dereferenced where.

Doesn't your debugger provide a stack trace or is this a "real men read core dumps in a hex editor" thing?

[CodeSquirrel]

Doesn't your debugger provide a stack trace or is this a "real men read core dumps in a hex editor" thing?

Sometimes (often times?) the binary will be stripped (i.e. no function entry point symbols), so the only clues you might get from a debugger from those are symbols from library functions (assuming those binaries aren't stripped/obfuscated as well), and that won't always be helpful.  I do often give it a run through gdb if I encounter that message, though, assuming I care enough to bother.

[greenfox]

I'm rather fond of English. I speak Pig Latin as well. Al Bhed is nice too.

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