Ask Slashdot: What Language Should a Former Coder Dig Into?

An anonymous reader writes "I was a consultant for nearly 20 years and I got into projects where I had to work with a huge variety of software, operating systems, hardware, programming languages, and other assorted technologies. After retiring from that I have spent the last 10 years in a completely different sector. Now I find myself wanting to really focus on coding for personal reasons. You can imagine how out-of-touch I am since I never really was more than a hack to begin with. I can learn syntax and basics in a weekend, question is, what Language should I become native to? Never liked anything 'lower-level' than C, and I don't have the funds to 'buy' my development environment....help me Slashdot, you're my only hope."

Comments

Python

[protactin]

n/t

Re:Python

[squiggleslash]

Disagree. Python is a great language, but it's unlike the vast majority of other languages out there. It wouldn't establish you with a base of "How things currently work". You can easily learn Python after learning one of a list of other languages, but other languages are going to come across as a tad confusing if you learn just this one.

I'd go with Javascript. STOP. READ THE FOLLOWING BEFORE FLAMING.

Javascript exactly at the intersection of everything right now. It's a scripting language that's close enough in concept to C# or Java for a jump to be relatively easy. It's enormously powerful, and has 95% of modern programming language features.

Now, TO BE CLEAR (shouting again, because I know you're going to flame me if I don't!) it's NOT that I'd recommend programming in Javascript in anger, it's more that if you jump from JS to Java, C#, Python, or PHP, you're going to find it an easier jump. Jumping from Python to, say, Java is rather more of a leap.

For learning purposes, JS is a great language. Python is also a great language, but don't allow your enthusiasm to get the better of you when promoting it. For learning how the world works today, recommending Python would be as sensible as arguing that a Chinaman who wants to talk to Westerners should learn Italian first.

(Yes, Italian's my favorite spoken language, I'd still recommend English to said Chinese person. Good combination of Romance and Germanic languages that'll get you understanding "us", even if it sucks!)

Re:Python

[shutdown -p now]

Disagree. Python is a great language, but it's unlike the vast majority of other languages out there.

In what sense? It doesn't use curly braces based syntax, but who cares about syntax? Semantically, though, it's a pretty nice OOP language with all the usual bells and whistles you see elsewhere, so moving from it to something else later will not be a problem.

Re:Python

[jmerlin]

You're overstating minor issues and making no major complaints. There are plenty of issues with Javascript, most of which we mitigate with standard practices (read: not being an idiot). These arguments are simply QQ for QQ's sake.

Re:Python

[tixxit]

Lastly, I would say JS is a lot of people's first foray into functional programming. I think a lot of the love for JS is just misplaced love for functional programming and that these types would be better served by learning Haskell, Clojure, Scala, etc. Basically, any other current functional programming language.

Re:Python

[joetainment]

I agree that Python is a great choice.

Python is perfect for someone in your situation because it is very easy to get into, and you have room to grow with it, since it can be made to work as fast as you need it to.

Keep in mind that there is a good chance that you will find you never need to code anything in C or C++ for speed reasons. Python could turn out to be "fast enough" for everything you want to do. You'll probably use libraries to do the heavy lifting, and they are probably already C or C++ based.

However, when Python isn't fast enough, it's pretty easy to write 95% of code in Python, profile your code, find the slow parts, and then write the really CPU heavy stuff in C or C++. Getting C and C++ code working with Python is pretty automated these days. In fact, Python even has "cython" available which is essentially C coding with a more python-like syntax. (It can compile to C).

For an IDE, you can use Eclipse and PyDev. Both are entirely free and excellent. There are plenty of other free tools as well.

For GUI development, you have easy access to the best GUI toolkit on Earth, QT. The Pyside project provides the official binding to QT, and the bindings are excellent. QT is used in incredibly complicated software such as Autodesk Maya, so it's not just for small stuff. At the same time, it takes about 5 minutes to write a fairly simple but useful application using QT and Pyside. (As an example, a GUI for wrapping the functionality of a command line program.)

Another great thing about Python as a language is that you pretty much never run up against a wall. "No, you can't do that" is something you almost never hear when people ask questions about Python. It's more often, "no, you *shouldn't do that.... but you can if you want".

You'll save so much time writing apps in Python that you'll have hours and hours of free time to spare optimizing the slow parts or adding new features. As a personal example, I'm comfortable in other languages as well, but I can make working apps about 5 times faster in Python than in C# or Java, just because there's less code to write. Assertions and test driven development can make the code just as robust as other languages with compile time type checking.

Re:Python

[styrotech]

Not flaming, but how exactly do you reckon that Javascript is closer to Java than Python is? I'm curious...

Apart from completely superficial stuff like having braces and semicolons that is.

Python and Java have classical OO rather than the prototypical OO Javascript uses. And although Python is not statically typed like Java is, it is strongly typed like Java is. Javascript is neither. Python has an extensive standard library and set of builtin objects/functionality (like Java), and Javascript doesn't.

This isn't a criticism of Javascript - but it is further away from most other common languages than Python is and requires a very different mindset than C# or Java. Javascript is a sort of hybrid functional language all by itself with an unusual OO design and unusual scoping rules.

Personally I'd probably put Python somewhere between Java and Javascript on most arbitrary sets of language style continuums. In fact I reckon Javascript and Java seem almost like polar opposites in a lot of ways.

Re:Python

[binarylarry]

That's very true, if you've never used any other IDE before... ever.

Re:Python

[shutdown -p now]

It may have been the original intent (make something like Perl, but with saner syntax), but today syntax is not really the most attractive part of Python.

Re:Python

[shutdown -p now]

Not in the conventional sense of 'copy.' In python, as opposed to C, there is no copy made of the contents of the variable at a new memory location. Instead var0 = var1 merely binds the name var1 to the same location (or object) as var0.

Not really, no. Every Python variable is bound to its own separate location, and assignment copies the value of one location to another. A location, in turn, always holds a reference to an object, but that is another different level of indirection. This becomes evident once you use closures (nested functions) and "nonlocal" (in Python 3). If every assignment were rebinding the name to a different object, then the variable captured by a closure would always retain the original object, having captured the original name-value binding. But this is not how it works in practice - after you assign to a captured variable, the closure will see the new value. This is because it captured the name-location binding (which never changes once the variable comes into being), and the bound location has had its stored value changed.

Naively, we are contrasting the difference in behaviour between var0 = var1 where both are, eg. of type 'int' in their respective universes. Since we are concerned about learners being mislead, not those with your sophisticated understanding. The need to understand that a python "variable" is like a C pointer actually foregrounds the difference. However even where our variables are pointers in C, the operation var0 = var1 relies on their being two distinct variables (memory locations) in C, each holding an equivalent pointer. Again in python there is only one object (memory location) with separate names bound to that single instance.

It doesn't really change anything if you look at integers alone. Sure, in Python they are objects, but they don't have an intrinsic object identity (i.e. any int 1 is identical - in terms of operator "is" - to any other int 1, no matter how you have produced that value). Furthermore, they are also immutable. In practice, this means that two object references to the same int object stored in two variables in Python are indistinguishable in terms of behavior from two equal int values stored in two variables in C. So one doesn't actually need to understand objects and references to deal with ints in Python - the same level of understanding as in C is fully sufficient.

A variable name is a binding, a variable is a location in memory to which that name is bound, or loosely the contents of that location, no? We're both veering close to argument by definition here. ;)

It would sound very strange to me to refer to arbitrary locations in memory as variables. If that were so, then an object referenced by a pointer in C would be a variable, as well - certainly quite alien to a C programmer. At least in C/C++ world, the conventional terminology is "location" for a chunk of memory that is used to store a value, and "variable" for a name bound to such a chunk of memory. Elsewhere this terminology seems to be followed, too, e.g. in Scheme. In Haskell, a variable is a name bound directly to a value, no locations involved.

Look, I actually agree with almost everything you wrote. However it is correct from the conceptual viewpoint (I'm tempted to call it a narrative) you have developed implicitly to harmonise the very differences between python and a "real" language like C. Which kind of begs the question really. Now this kind of narrative is invaluable, precisely because it corrects misunderstandings that might be drawn because of the difference between python names and C variables. The danger is that newbs may not have you around to help them to this higher understanding.

I don't really see it as some kind of complicated bridge. Once the nature of object references as values in their own right is understood - which is necessary in many other languages, like Java, C#, Obj-C, Ruby etc

Re:Python

[styrotech]

It doesn't really change anything if you look at integers alone. Sure, in Python they are objects, but they don't have an intrinsic object identity (i.e. any int 1 is identical - in terms of operator "is" - to any other int 1, no matter how you have produced that value).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that it (ie optimising by caching/reusing int objects below some arbitrary value) was an implementation detail that shouldn't be relied on to behave consistently between different implementations or versions.

eg:

Python 2.6.6 (r266:84292, Sep 15 2010, 15:52:39)
[GCC 4.4.5] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> a = 1
>>> b = 1
>>> a is b
True
>>> a = 300
>>> b = 300
>>> a is b
False

ie the interpreter cached the creation of 1 so that a and b refer to the same object, but 300 wasn't cached and so a and b refer to two different integer objects.

Re:Python

[ByOhTek]

I've used Anjuta, Eclipse, MonoDevelop and Netbeans. I definitely like Visual Studios the best. I've also used a couple non/semi-IDE editors (Emacs, Gedit, nano)...

The C++ compiler has had some interesting (read, aggravating/unpleasant) quirks, but the IDE itself is great. I also tend to stick with vanilla C, and avoid the C compiler issue...

Regarding the question in TFS...

I would recommend looking at C, C# and Python. I find for almost any problem, one of the three tends to be the best solution, or close to it. Usually I like combining one of the latter two with C.

C - Works almost everywhere, very powerful, and if you are creative, allows you to perform some interesting tricks.
C# - With mono, this has great cross platform functionality. Compile-once and run on most desktop environments. The exception is if you want to use it on "big iron" style systems, such as HPUX, AIX, etc., where mono usually isn't ported. You can even use it to make apps for Android, iOS, and WindowsPhone, though unlike the desktops, each requires a recompile, and probably some code tweaks for the specific UI APIs. I picked this over Java for the cleaner API.
Python - An extremely flexible language. Not the best performance by default, but with some things like Psycho or PyPy, it can provide higher performance than you'd expect. The ability to modify not only the values, but even the existence of members (even functions) run-time is incredibly powerful (but also dangerous). I could spend several hours on this post, and not do justice to this language, both in terms of pros, and dangers (the latter of which are easily avoidable by a moderately experienced programmer, who doesn't get distracted by the 'oooh-shiny' aspect of them).

Regarding the "no pay" requirement - for C# there is MonoDevelop and VIsual Studios Express - both are free (as in beer).

Brainf*ck

[greywire]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck

Re:Brainf*ck

[cupantae]

I'm genuinely sorry. Reminds me of school days, where some idiot would take my joke, make it louder and worse, and everyone would laugh.
Now that's me.

re

[Anonymous Coward]

"...help me Slashdot, you're my only hope."

You're screwed.

Re:re

[Genda]

Friggin Nerf Herders...

Development environment

[Lord Lode]

Don't worry, I can't think of many languages that for which you need to 'buy' a development environment.

Want to do frontend stuff? JavaScript, etc... Your dev environment is a good JS debugger in a browser.

C/C++: Do those in Linux for best ease of use (compiler and debugger come with the OS)

Java: Eclipse, or IntelliJ's open source edition?

I think even C# can be developed with a free editor...

Re:Development environment

[PlastikMissle]

Yes. C# (VB.NET and C++ as well) has the free Visual Studio Express from Microsoft. While it doesn't officially support Python, it does become a very good Python IDE by using the equally free (and unimaginatively named) Python Tools for Visual Studio.

Your answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Forgive me for sounding rude, but to give you advice about what languages to get into, without giving even a hint what you're trying to create, is ridiculous.

Languages have evolved around their purpose. No purpose, no advice.

PHP

[schroedingers_hat]

It's clean, elegant. Has consistent, well thought out syntax, is easy to debug (PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM) and is secure by default.

For personal reasons?

[gman003]

If this is for your own, personal use, I can only recommend that you take a week or two (or a month, if you like) and try out as many new and interesting languages as you can, then decide for yourself which of them you liked best. There's literally dozens of languages people will recommend, and very few of them are going to be "wrong".

Some half-truths and prejudices

[Anonymous Coward]

Best all-around: Python

Best for enterprise work: Java

Best for OS dev, e.g. device drivers: C

Best for system programming above OS, e.g. database internals: C++

Best for game programming: C++

Best for financial apps: C#

Best social networking startup interview: Ruby

Best for web dev: JavaScript

Best for bioinformatics: R, SAS

Re:Some half-truths and prejudices

[ClickOnThis]

Best all-around: Python

Best for enterprise work: Java

Best for OS dev, e.g. device drivers: C

Best for system programming above OS, e.g. database internals: C++

Best for game programming: C++

Best for financial apps: C#

Best social networking startup interview: Ruby

Best for web dev: JavaScript

Best for bioinformatics: R, SAS

Although Perl gives me a splitting headache, I think it deserves an honourable mention somewhere in this list (bioinformatics and web dev?) or maybe in a category of its own.

Also, some missing categories:

Best for numerical analysis and simulation: C/C++ (nowadays), Fortran (once upon a time, still has some holdouts)

Best for scientific visualization: Matlab (not free) or Octave (free), IDL (not free)

Best for mathematics: Mathematica (not free), Maple (not free), various freeware options

That's all I can think of at the moment. I invite others to augment/modify the above.

Re:Some half-truths and prejudices

[elashish14]

Best for numerical analysis and simulation: C/C++ (nowadays), Fortran (once upon a time, still has some holdouts)

Best for scientific visualization: Matlab (not free) or Octave (free), IDL (not free)

Python deserves some mention in both of these categories as well. Numpy/Scipy are outstanding tools which can easily replace Matlab and Octave. Namespace hierarchies and OO implementation aren't necessarily the highest priorities for simulation, but when they are, Python kicks the pants off Matlab. Pylab has also fit all of my needs for plotting, though I have never really used it for anything too serious and it still isn't Python3 compatible.

For numerical analysis and simulation, you can always write Python wrappers for your low-level C and Fortran libraries.

Another consideration to keep in mind for these types of projects is that if you're gonna run them on a supercomputer, you can damn near guarantee that Python will be available on it while Matlab probably will be, but will require a bitch of dealing with license matters.

C or Java

[phantomfive]

C and Java are the leading languages by a lot of measures right now. C will easily get you a job, you'll get back into it easily because you already know it, but you'll have to learn how to write code without leaking. Java is a fine language, but the number of enterprise libraries you have to learn can feel overwhelming. C# can get you a job if you want live in Microsoft world, and it's designed to be easy to pick up.

Really I'd say focus on what you want to do, then learn what language is popular in that area. Embedded? Learn C. Enterprise code? Learn Java. Games? C++. If you want to do general scripting, learn Python. If you want to write web apps, focus on Javascript, and learn a bit of Java/Python/PHP/Ruby (choose your favorite, Ruby is fun) to figure out the server side. Choose one database (oracle/MySQL/Postresql) to start out with, the knowledge will transfer to the others. Figure out what you want first, then choose a language that will support it.

Ruby

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty much in the same boat as you, trying to revive a career that I once had but spent the last 15 years removed from coding. I looked around a lot and asked a bunch of people stuff. I have chosen Ruby because it looks like it's strong, gaining popularity, and has a big demand in jobs right now. It seems everybody and their brother already knows Python and the PHP framework, so you'll get a lot of 'be one of us' posts, but I recommend you figure out your goal, besides just personal hobby stuff which you can do in any language. Looking for employ-ability? You might find what I did, that Ruby, then Ruby on Rails will be a good fit.

Re:Ruby

[BitterOak]

I second that. If you want to learn a new language now, Ruby is the way to go. It just makes it so easy to do object oriented programming properly. (In that sense it's the polar opposite of C++). So, Ruby is a great all purpose language, and for speed critical work, just use C.

Re:Why do people ask questions like these?

[cupantae]

in a completely different sector

OP said he [she?] has been in a completely different sector. Who knows what the technology is like there?

Beware of dynamic languages for large projects.

[Anonymous Coward]

Python, Ruby, Perl and their ilk are very useful for throw-away scripts, and even small applications. But beware if you're thinking of using any dynamic language for anything beyond a small application, especially if there'll be more than one or two developers working on it at any given time.

When working on larger projects, especially involving many developers, any time saved due to the capabilities of dynamic languages will be lost debugging problems that the compiler would've caught when using Java, C#, or C++.

Some people (especially Rubyists) will claim that these kind of bugs won't happen. They will, and they can be costly. This cost increases significantly as the program size increases, and as the team size increases.

Automated unit tests aren't the answer, either. You'll soon find that 90% or more of your unit tests are merely implementing checks that the Java compiler, for example, would've taken care of automatically. Again, like the debugging problem, this isn't an effective use of time.

You and your team may see some initial time savings when switching to a dynamic language, but there's a significant long-term cost that you need to consider, too. Something that would've taken an hour in Java may only take 15 minutes in Ruby, and another 15 minutes writing unit tests. But you'll find yourself spending well over 30 minutes debugging a problem involving this code at some points, usually due to a completely unrelated change. Meanwhile, a similar issue with equivalent Java code would've been caught by the Java compiler on the developer's system, well before the code ever was committed to whatever source control system the team is using.

And like I warned earlier, there will be people who claim that such problems "won't happen in practice". Chances are that these people have only worked on some small Ruby on Rails websites alone, or maybe with one other person. Had they worked even for a week with a 300 developer team, or even with a 10 developer team, all working on the same code base, they'd soon realize that such problems happen much more frequently when using dynamic languages than when using more static languages.

Re:Beware of dynamic languages for large projects.

[rubycodez]

Nonsense, you are talking out of your ass. huge projects have been done in all the languages you name. there are web pages devoted to list huge projects in each one

Re:Beware of dynamic languages for large projects.

[Anonymous Coward]

Right on! You are totally correct about all languages being equal. That's why all our largest projects are done in COBOL. Since that's the only language we're comfortable with, it just makes sense to use it for everything from throwaway scripts to enterprise software and shrink-wrapped products.

Re:Beware of dynamic languages for large projects.

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be one of the Ruby nuts that the GP warned about. I've had to interview a bunch of them recently. Apparently they can't find any work using Ruby, so they've been applying for the C++ jobs that I have open at the moment. I seriously can't believe how some of them behave. One of the first guys I interviewed wouldn't take off his fedora, wouldn't shake hands with anyone, and openly admitted that he wouldn't work with any of our female developers and testers for some reason. Another guy refused to use C++, while interviewing for a C++ programmer position! During his interview, we asked him to write some small sample programs in C++, but he turned in some Ruby code, and told us it was "more efficient" or some bullshit like that. The rest usually don't even get that far. Some of them don't even know what the STL or Boost are! I could easily see these guys considering a 4,000-5,000 line web app as being a "huge project".

Re:Beware of dynamic languages for large projects.

[sylvandb]

I disagree.

I've done large multi-threaded systems with python. It works great.

The only problem with "python is not reentrant" is if you are calling a module or extension written in some other language AND that extension needs to call back into python.

That may be a problem in some applications, but has not been for me.

Re:Beware of dynamic languages for large projects.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no Java projects that weren't huge. Even the trivial ones.

Re:Beware of dynamic languages for large projects.

[johnnyb]

I disagree about the time spent debugging - usually it is pretty straightforward. However, the problem is that users wind up hitting code paths that your tests missed and compilers could have warned you about. Either that, or you actually spend 10x writing tests than writing code, which means that using the language is no longer a help but a waste of time.

I've found that Objective C is one of the best languages that has an intermediate between the dynamicism of Ruby and the type-checking of Java. It allows you to go uber-meta when you want to, but it does a lot of the static checking that is left out elsewhere.

Re:Beware of dynamic languages for large projects.

[TapeCutter]

But what has any of that got to do with coding for 'personal reasons', eg: a retirement hobby? - My 78yo dad has just discovered Python and PyGame and loves it, he is a game development team of one and the only cost involved is his time. Commercial development processes are meaningless.

Re:Beware of dynamic languages for large projects.

[Spy Handler]

i see what you're saying, and I think it makes sense too... but then there's Facebook, which is only like, the biggest website in the world, and they use PHP..... *scratches head*

Re:Beware of dynamic languages for large projects.

[sjames]

With some creativity and possibly a psychological condition, you should be able to come up with a CICS layer that renders to GTK. :-)

Re:Beware of dynamic languages for large projects.

[jmcvetta]

Sure, tell that to twitter or YouTube. or many, many other large web sites. Hint: they're not using java. Or C. or Go.

A substantial chunk of the Youtube backend is written in Go.

Re:Beware of dynamic languages for large projects.

[musicmaker]

Do you have any idea how a compiler actually works? Have you ever actually used a statically typed language? I think it's unlikely, otherwise you'd realize that he's talking straight.

Change an interface in Java, and the compiler mandates you change all the objects that implement it. You don't end up with a missing method down the hierarchy. That's just one frustration of many with dynamic languages.

The number of times the type system has caught a syntax error that occurred _because_ of a logical error in my experience is not insignificant, and therefore it could be argued, that the type system has some capability to help with logic errors also. The statement is literally and technically correct, but in a practical sense, it's wrong.

Re:Beware of dynamic languages for large projects.

[codepunk]

1 and or 20 million records is absolute child's play. I recently banged out a php project on codeigniter hitting a db with 20 billion rows. This while having sub second response on the web front end. It is all about designing a system to handle those requirements not the language. I could have just as easily used python, ruby, java, perl and the results would have been the same.

C#

[Kittenman]

Wealth of books out there, it's fairly easy, and the "Express Edition" is free (and comes with a free Visual Studio). It looks good on a CV, makes you more attractive to the opposite sex, guaranteed to put hair on a billiard ball ... sorry, but you get the idea. Python's fine, but most fun is had in C#. YMMV, of course.

Re:C#

[aaronb1138]

Definitely agreed here. There is plenty of movement away from Java towards C#. Microsoft is working hard to be fair to the community and let the language become a real standard without severe restriction.

Also, C# lets you develop on a wide array of platforms, Windows, WP7/8, iOS (Mono), OSX (Mono), Android (Mono), Linux (Mono again).

Versus Java, C# affords a better opportunity to stay within one language for the entirety of a program. Higher performance doesn't mix with Java, video games for example, frequently need modules coded in C/C++ in order to achieve reasonable performance levels. Some of the Java -> C# porting has shown massive performance gains.

Unless Oracle changes their policies regarding Java, the language is likely to languish as it has for the past several years.

I'm not a fan of Python like others. I've always felt the language doesn't encourage the best coding practices because of the ease and lax style. I will give it credit as probably one of the faster to implement languages for one-off rapid application development. C# strikes me a better language to continue your existing knowledge while modernizing and have a path forward.

Re:C#

[gadzook33]

C# programmers are the most highly paid right now but slashdot doesn't really take it seriously because it's related to MS. It's a shame because it's a phenomenal language and .NET is one of the best designed libraries since the STL.

It's not (just) the language - it's the API

[Ken_g6]

You say you can learn the syntax and basics of a language in a weekend. You're probably right. What you can't learn in a weekend is the standard API that comes with each language, defining all the standard objects and methods you'll want to use. That's probably the biggest change in the last 10 years. What you want to look for in a language is one that makes it easy to do stuff. What you want to look for in an API is good, usable documentation.

Javascript, for one, is a pretty bad language with hardly any standard API (aside from the browser's DOM). Fortunately, there are free add-ons, like jQuery, that add both language features and an API.

Java was one of the first languages with a large standard API. It has nice documentation, but the language is barely better than C/C++. An ecosystem has developed around Java bytecode, however: languages like JRuby and JPython can run like Java and interface with Java code. There's also "groovy", a "modern" language built entirely around Java bytecode.

The major competing bytecode standard is .NET, from Microsoft. They offer free-with-certain-restrictions .NET compilers for C/C++, C#, Visual Basic, and more. All of them can use the .NET API which is documented on the MSDN site. I never found the documentation quite as nice as Java's; but it's usable. Again, other languages have been made to run .NET bytecode: IronRuby and IronPython.

Python and Ruby outside the bytecode versions have their own APIs. If you liked Perl and like object-oriented programming you'll love Ruby.

Finally, if you find you can't stand all this object-oriented programming, try PHP. It's used widely for making dynamic web sites, and has a nice, large API with documentation; but it rarely uses user-defined objects.

Chinese

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Programming isn't important. You "pay people to do that" - usually some minimal fee in the Philippines or Malaysia or India. The language to learn is chinese because this century belongs to them.

Re:Chinese

[Surt]

The Chinese economy has peaked. Jobs are beginning to leave China for cheaper locations. Their economy may double in size one more time, which will still leave it smaller than the US economy.

Clojure

[slasho81]

If you're doing it for personal stuff and don't have the constraints of the corporate world - Clojure. It's the cutting edge. It's way ahead of anything else out there today.

A Book You May Like

[DannyO152]

Pragmatic Programmers published "Seven Languages in Seven Weeks" last year. I liked the book and would recommend it for any one who wanted a taste of today's interesting languages. Over the past year, I've seen that some readers were disappointed at the language choices and some didn't like the way the author, Bruce A. Tate, selected a movie characters as shorthand descriptions for the languages' feels.

The languages: Ruby, IO, Prolog, Scala, Erlang, Clojure, and Haskell. As for development and runtime environments, these can be had and installed at no cost.

If I was asked to name the one language that is widely used, has immediate practicality, and the runtime is already installed on your computer, I'd pick javascript, which runs in the browser. Get a browser that has a console for reviewing javascript errors. The java part of its name is deceptive. It is quite different than java, but the 90s Netscape folks figured that that imprecision would help adoption. I'm not one to rue days, but that one could a candidate.

You didn't mention what languages you were familiar with from your consulting days. One question to be asked is whether you want to look at a language that is familiar but advanced the the ones you did work with or would you prefer to explore the other streams of language design. If you wish to write personal application and utilities, there is likely to be a language tied to your platform. For Windows, it's C#. For OS X, Objective-C. For Linux, you will have to pick a gui framework and its language.

What are you writing?

[techhead79]

If you don't work for a company that forces you to develop in language xyz then you should pick the language that fits your needs...not pick a language and then start writing away. Yes...most languages can be bent upside down and backwards to do almost anything. That's ignoring the point though.

You're completely free to choose. Most of us don't have that luxury. Study carefully what you want to do and pick the best language for that task. Do not ask a large group of tech heads what language they love best. All we are going to do is preach up and down what we use the most. I use J2EE at work and PHP at home. For old school applications that actually exist on the freaken computer they are being used on...I honestly like QT but I'd love to have another chance to try python as a long time ago I did some work with tcl/tk.

Regardless of what you pick someone is going to have a problem with your choice. In fact if you're looking forward to years of development chances are the language you choose may not be the language of choice for new projects when you finally get around to finishing it off.

Pick the right language for the job...don't pick the most popular language out there unless you're looking to be employed again in the field.

Python and ActiveState's Komodo Edit

[skyhawker]

I agree with Python, and be sure to check out ActiveStates's Komodo Edit as your development environment.

Re:Why do people ask questions like these?

[JWSmythe]

    Because they don't want to say "I'm a noobie, what should I code in?"

    If he was a seasoned programmer, he would have included little tidbits like what he intended to do, and what his experience was.

    Web page? PHP.
    High load gaming? a flavor of C.
    3d gaming without reinventing the engine? Whatever that engine needs.
    Phone apps? Java.
    Simplify how his Linux machine boots? Bash.
    Some new hardware that he just invented? Probably assembly.
    "Hello World"? Any language he'd like.

    I started real development with Perl. I've mostly moved away from it, but there are still a few things that I need the Perl modules to do, that are difficult to find good interfaces anywhere else.

My favorite: C++/Qt

[Kjella]

I've found that Qt wraps most for the craziness that is C++, it's a very nice toolkit for for "personal project" size. Don't know what the commercial market is and don't care, but for hobbyist work I find it great. Of course if you want to be part of the "cool kids" you'd probably go with Java so you can program for Android, mobile is all the rage these days but I don't feel I need it for my projects. And that's really the question, what kind of apps are you looking to make? Desktop apps? Mobile apps? Web apps? Scripting? Simulations? There's still no one language to rule them all because they all do better at certain things.

Re:Why do people ask questions like these?

[wazafoojitsu]

As I noted in my post I never was a seasoned programmer, I was a total hack, aw hell you guys prolly don't even know what a hack is, you probably think I had an area of expertise too. I HACKED SHIT TOGETHER and got PAID! I learned whatever I needed to know to accomplish what others couldn't. I probably forgot more about the languages I've used than most 'experts' know of any single language. I couldn't possibly have listed all the languages and technologies I have done work with. But here's a sample.... BASIC, C, Pascal, Ada, COBOL, Perl, CGI, vbscript/asp, scripting (*ux shells mostly), VB, most recently PHP. I am only interested in general purpose work, utilities, hell I don't even know yet exactly where I will go with this. I was hoping for some informed guidance and expert advice but maybe slashdot isn't what it used to be...

Re:Why do people ask questions like these?

[ClickOnThis]

As I noted in my post I never was a seasoned programmer, I was a total hack, aw hell you guys prolly don't even know what a hack is, you probably think I had an area of expertise too. I HACKED SHIT TOGETHER and got PAID! I learned whatever I needed to know to accomplish what others couldn't. I probably forgot more about the languages I've used than most 'experts' know of any single language.

It will come back. Start with some of the languages you worked with already. Which brings me to the rest of your post:

I couldn't possibly have listed all the languages and technologies I have done work with. But here's a sample.... BASIC, C, Pascal, Ada, COBOL, Perl, CGI, vbscript/asp, scripting (*ux shells mostly), VB, most recently PHP. I am only interested in general purpose work, utilities, hell I don't even know yet exactly where I will go with this.

That's actually a pretty respectable list, although I don't know how deep your experience goes with each. In any case, if I were you, I'd start with a project in mind, and then choose one of your past languages that fits it best. From there, your experience will grow.

Or Object Pascal

[etrusco]

General programming for personal uses or your own company: Object Pascal with Free Pascal (and Lazarus).
http://freepascal.org/
http://lazarus.freepascal.org/

Programming for fun? Lisp and Smalltalk

[Riktov]

You say you want to "code for personal reasons", which I take to mean because you find programming enjoyable and want to write programs for fun.

Then I would absolutely recommend Lisp and Smalltalk. For Lisp, you can get started with Lisp In A Box and Peter Siebels' "Practical Common Lisp". For Smalltalk, try Squeak accompanied by Squeak by Example. It's all free.

No, you are probably not going to get a job writing in either of these languages, but learning them may indeed help you get a job, as they are both conceptually deep, and their influences are broader than many realize: JavaScript borrows heavily from Lisp, and Ruby and Objective C from Smalltalk. Even Python and Perl have some Lisp concepts in them. In fact it seems that every new dynamic language to come out in the last twenty years owes something to these two languages. They are like the Greek and Latin of programming languages.

Re:Why do people ask questions like these?

[phantomfive]

lol we know what a hack is, we don't know what you want.

Tell us what you want, and maybe someone will tell you how to get there. If you just want to hack together utilities, BASH is the way to go. But on the other hand, if you want to hack a graphics engine onto a neural network, you might want to hack in C++. But if you want to make simple GUI utilities, try C# (on Windows, QT anywhere else).

See? The answer changes drastically based on the question. If you didn't ask a good question, you won't get a good answer.

Re:Javascript

[shutdown -p now]

By leveraging Node.js you can write web services and client-side presentation with standard html and javascript. Can't think of another language that allows you to write a server and client with the same language with as much ease

You'd be surprised at how many languages allow you to write both client and server with the same language in a very convenient fashion, provided that you don't stick to the notion that the client must run in a browser.

Learn an HDL - vrey challenging.

[hamster_nz]

If this is for a hobby, and you want to keep challenged, buy an FPGA development board (e.g. a Digilent Basys2 or a Papilio One) and learn a HDL. It will cost a little bit of money ($60) but you will get months of play time out of it.

Once you've programmed in 10 or so languages they are pretty generic, but the jump from programming to Hardware Designing is a complete mindfsck, but one you grok it it is very satisfying. Everything happening in parallel in hard real time....

Build your own 'soft' CPUs, invent the next big thing!

Re:Learn an HDL - vrey challenging.

[solidraven]

The real mindf*ck for most computer programmers comes when they realise half their common constructs are completely useless.
Looping is generally a bad idea (unless if it's a generation loop), recursion shouldn't even be considered, etc... . But VHDL is one of the better languages out there actually. I've written large snippets of VHDL that worked instantly. Simply cause of the fact that it's very hard to make a mistake in VHDL. But the learning curve might be a bit steep without a good tool chain (Xilinx ISE + ModelSim should get you started though).

Re:Why I Hate All Programming Languages

[cforciea]

Okay, I almost feel like you are some evil pointy-haired-boss pretending to be an engineer so that you can try to speak as "one of us" and convince us to commoditize ourselves out of existence. Like somehow you think that programming is hard only because engineers are stupid and haven't bothered to make it easy, and you think that posing as a coder on Slashdot and whining about it will get us off our asses.

I'll skip the long drawn-out explanation for how ridiculous you are and just state that what you are asking for is not possible, the Turing Machine isn't just some paradigm that we can toss out the window because you don't like it, and that the industry is already churning out too many retards that only know how to do their job by screwing together buzzword frameworks without you helping us along.

Re:Why do people ask questions like these?

[Serious Callers Only]

Decide exactly what you want to do first, then decide on the most appropriate language to do it.

Having a problem to solve will help with two things - motivation when learning gets tough, and deciding on a language. There is no one true language which is best for everything. If you want to produce utilities for Linux or mac os, ruby, python, or even bash would be your best bet, though it does depend what for - for processing excel data I'd use csv export and ruby, for scripting adobe programs JavaScript, etc, etc. If you're on windows, perhaps consider their powershell thing and .net.

Also, don't ask slashdot for advice :) nowadays it's entertaining, but unlikely to be useful. Maybe things were different back in the day, but nowadays this site is infra digg.

Forced?

[Kupfernigk]

brainphysicalexpressionofsexualattraction

Re:Why I Hate All Programming Languages

[TheInternetGuy]

Maybe it's time for them to gracefully retire and let a new generation have a turn at reinventing the wheel.

There, Fixed That For You

Re:Why do people ask questions like these?

[llin]

If you're looking to learn something new and general purpose, Python has a combination of decent docs (you can start with http://www.python.org/doc/ , http://pleac.sourceforge.net/pleac_python/ , and http://www.lightbird.net/py-by-example/ ), good libraries (see http://pypi.python.org/pypi and https://github.com/languages/Python/most_watched ) and all-around flexibility (all the regular system stuff, lots of microframeworks for web, scientific computing tools, 2d+3d graphics).

You may want to take a look at IPython ( http://ipython.org/ ), Reinteract ( http://fishsoup.net/software/reinteract/ ), and DreamPie ( http://dreampie.sourceforge.net/ ) for some interactive shells/interpreters to play around with. I use vim for programming, but there are a number of IDEs. Of the ones I've tried, I thought IEP offered the most interesting tools: http://code.google.com/p/iep/

Probably the fastest/easiest way to learn (and learn if you like) Python is to go through Zed Shaw's book/exercises: http://learnpythonthehardway.org/
There's a lot of other stuff on the Python wiki: http://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide/Programmers

Slashdot definitely isn't what it used to be. For programming questions you may want to look at Stack Overflow or Quora. For general nerdly news, I find Hacker News, Techmeme, and The Verge tends to cover my bases better these days.

Re:Javascript

[gl4ss]

there's stuff like http://www.webtoolkit.eu/wt if you want to write both server and clients in one go.

Re:Why I Hate All Programming Languages

[mwvdlee]

Your COSA thing seems to be describing exactly what every DSP language has already been doing since the dawn of time (take a look at SynthEdit, Max/MSP, SynthMaker for some very visual examples).
DSP languages are fantastic for parallel execution tasks such as... well... DSP. They absolutely suck at procedural tasks or complex flow control.

Re:Why I Hate All Programming Languages

[khallow]

in addition to being inherently sequential, timing is not an inherent part of the model

"inherently sequential" solves the timing problem. There are no concurrent operations in a Turing machine, and hence, no concurrency problem. The Turing model wasn't intended nor is it used to model parallel computing. Nor was it intended to be a viable computational language. It is merely a theoretical approach for putting bounds on how long it takes programs to do tasks.

The computer industry is facing a major problem known as the parallel programming crisis.

Nonsense. The problems of parallel computing have been solved in a number of ways and those ways work just fine.

The real difference between a Turing machine and a real computing machine is memory. A Turing machine has access to an infinite amount of memory. That's the way it breaks in the real world.

But who am I kidding?

Yourself. You demonstrate a profound ignorance of what the Turing computational model is used for. It's not intended in itself to be a model of parallel computing. There are variations that are, and which work successfully as such.

A second way that you're deluding yourself is in dismissing Turing machines on the basis of typical crackpot arguments. The Turing machine isn't "worshipped" in the CS community because Turing is a God, but because it is, to our knowledge, computationally equivalent (aside from the infinite memory issue) to any classical physics computing machine that we can construct in the real world. Come up with a better machine first.