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What Programming Language For Linux Development?
k33l0r writes "Recently I've been thinking about developing (or learning to develop) for Linux. I'm an IT university student but my degree program focuses almost exclusively on Microsoft tools (Visual Studio, C#, ASP.NET, etc.) which is why I would like to expand my repertoire on my own. Personally I'm quite comfortable in a Linux environment, but have never programmed for it. Over the years I've developed a healthy fear of everything Java and I'm not too sure of what I think of Python's use of indentation to delimit blocks. The question that remains is: what language and tools should I be using?"
Hindi.
C/C++, C#, Objective-C, Java, Python, Perl, [insert language of choice]
All can be used to do Linux development.
KDE, stick to C++ and Python.
Gnome, stick to C and C# and Python.
GNUStep, stick to Objective-C
Java and Perl and any other language you choose can be used as well, but the desktop environment support for them is little to non-existent, depending on the language.
http://www.mono-project.com/
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This question is remarkably easy.
The UNIX API is written in C. If you don't know C, you won't be able to understand UNIX system calls.
Beyond that, learn Java and learn Python. You yourself say you have a "fear of Java." Sounds like a pretty good reason to learn it. Likewise, you say you're not sure about Python's use of indentation. Sounds like another good reason to learn it.
It is usually good practice to learn one new language a year. These recommendations should be seen as beginnings not endings.
My final bit of advice is to learn PROLOG, LISP, Haskell or Erlang. And by 'learn,' I mean 'become fluent in.' These languages are radically different from anything you've experienced before. Learning how to think differently about problems will make you a much better programmer, regardless of what language you ultimately wind up using in the private sector.
... it is also pertinent to note here that the GNU standards document, section 3.1: "Which Languages to Use" strongly advises plain old C for both performance and absolute maximum cross-platform compatibility.
Since operating system and hardware platform independence are both key factors of code re-usability and really what open source software is all about I personally think this is a strong call.
However the parent post is correct in that application intent trumps all. If you are just writing shell tools you never intend to use outside of Linux then PERL is likely fast enough and probably much easier/faster (bottom line: cheaper) for the average developer to work with.
If you're writing web software use PHP, but it will make you feel dirty inside.
I was also curious about your "healthy fear of anything Java" .NET experience Java is a significantly more mature language than C#. You are more likely to get better performance and stability out of Java's virtual machines just because they've had more time to be beat up by a vast community of developers. M$ did a good job of getting C# out the door but like any child it has some growing up to do.
Really? You are way too young to be developing "healthy fears". Java, like *every other language, has its issues but there is nothing abnormally nasty about it to treat it like a plague. Specifically relating to your
As many of these posts have mentioned: Don't limit yourself. Try everything. Obviously for Linux purposes knowing C (and a healthy amount of Bash scripting and Perl) is useful purely because the OS is built on it BUT for developing applications on top of it many languages have benefits depending on what you are trying to implement and so eliminating anything from your list will hurt you in the long run.
"Free your mind and the rest will follow"
-En Vogue
Why do people usually underestimate shell scripting? Shell scripting is a real scripting language by which you can even create GUI apps for a modern desktop environment like KDE.*
* for example using kdialog
Persian Project Management Software as a Service
If something like indentation is a show-stopper for your choice of language, then you are missing the point.
Computer languages are about data structures and idioms for manipulating them efficiently. In contrast, whitespace is a cosmetic, superficial thing.
Yes, I adore Python. (I wish I had paid attention to it ten years sooner than I did.)
Develop in LOLCODE:
http://lolcode.com
"HAI WORLD" Example:
HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
VISIBLE "HAI WORLD!"
KTHXBYE
I'm doing contract work right now, and won't my client be pleasantly surprised to see the project completed in LOLCODE... ROFLMAO!!! I can haz milestone payment?!?
I've worked professionally with a hammer and it was totally unusable. We've had 4 finger smashes a week. Hammers are absolutely unusable on real world projects; worse, they're counter-productive due to that finger crap.
Managed code performance is good enough for essentially anything aside from high-performance video games (and even that isn't far off).
"Java is slow" is a stupid old myth. Does it not occur to you that JIT compilers compile to native code?
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
...it's the only way to be sure.
No sig today...
I too have a healthy fear of Java, but that is changing.
I feel it VERY important to state that Java apps as a general rule are bloated crap.
I also feel it VERY important to state that Windows apps as a general rule are bloated crap.
I used to avoid Java like the plague due to the slow bloated feel of the apps I had used. Fortunately, recently I was forced to write a Java servlet because a library for that I wanted to use was a java library and it was the only one with a license acceptable to the project I was working on.
In the course of writing the Java servlet I came to learn that Java and the JVM aren't the problem, its just the poorly written apps that I've seen. I meantioned Windows above because it suffers from the same misconception to most non-techies (techies have their own more legitimate reasons for disliking it). Most Windows (and Java) developers suck. They aren't developers, they are people who wrote an app for some other reason. Whatever that reason my be isn't important. Whats important is that we see a lot of crappy Java and Windows apps because those are things that lots of people have easy access to. Pretty much EVERYONE has a Windows machine of some sort they can use, and most of those Windows machines hava JVM. Since you can easily setup a Windows or Java development machine for little to no cost or technical ability, the barrier to entry is low enough that those non-developers can write bad apps that give the language (or OS) a name as a poor performer, when in reality, 99% of the time, the app is the issue, not the engine under it.
I write this post as a former Java hater, who now maintains a servlet that services hundreds of thousands of hits a day, certainly not the biggest web app by any standard but it is a high performance application doing image manipulation in 'real time' for its end users. I still think you should learn C (C++ is good as well, but do C first IMO and you stand a better chance of using object oriented languages properly rather than abusively), but if you are a good programmer, Java can be an excellent language and runtime enviroment to build on. I would not have wanted to write my web servlet in C or C++ in this case.
So for the Java haters, just think about why you hate Java. Do you hate it because of the shitty apps you've used, or because there REALLY is an actually problem with it?
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