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Little-Known Programming Languages That Actually Pay

Posted by samzenpus on from the thinking-in-esperanto dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes There is no shortage of programming languages, from the well-known ones (Java and C++) to the outright esoteric (intended just for research or even humor). While the vast majority of people learn to program the most-popular ones, the lesser-known programming languages can also secure you a good gig in a specific industry. Which languages? Client-server programming with Opa, Salesforce's APEX language, Mathematica and MATLAB, ASN.1, and even MIT's App Inventor 2 all belong on that list, according to developer Jeff Cogswell. On the other hand, none of these languages really have broad adoption; ASN.1 and SMI, for example, are primarily used in telecommunications and network management. So is it really worth taking the time to learn a new, little-used language for anything other than the thrills?

4 of 242 comments (clear)

  1. Source... by gunner_von_diamond · · Score: 4, Interesting
    An article from Dice.com. On a site owned by Dice.com. How about that. According to a Dice job search, there are not ASN.1 jobs out there. Learning ASN.1 will not

    secure you a good gig in a specific industry.

    Therefore,

    So is it really worth taking the time to learn a new, little-used language for anything other than the thrills?

    No.

  2. Re:ASN.1/SMI by Carewolf · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They are not turing complete programming languages, but they are domain specific programming languages. This is the same as making the argument that SQL is not a programming language since you only use it to define/insert/update/delete data in a database and cannot write general purpose programs without another tool that does provide a turing complete function set. ASN.1 and SMI are formats to describe messages and message data types to be used by another higher level protocol like SNMP, LDAP, X.509, etc.

    No, ASN.1 is a syntax like XML is, except more abstract, as it is never used it directly, it is not a programming language. That would be like saying digital numbers is a programming language.. You can stretch it and say they are forms of languages, syntax languages, but that still doesn't make them programming languages.

  3. Skip MATLAB, Learn R by Kagato · · Score: 4, Interesting

    IMHO Matlab is a dead end. R is a similar language in the statistics and big data fields and the base spec and sample programs are open source. If you're a Math or Stats major you're likely getting a sample of R in school already because the tools are free. In the paid space big data tools like HP's Vertica will split up complicated R functions across it's cluster and crunch the data much faster than Matlab.

  4. Re:ASN.1/SMI by lgw · · Score: 4, Interesting

    SQL is actually Turing complete, oddly enough (or is with the common extensions that all the major DBs support). The C++ template definition language is also, frighteningly enough, Turing complete. But a "programming language" doesn't have to be Turing complete to be such, instead it has to be a way of specifying algorithms.

    What you're describing are formal languages. They are not programming languages because they don't define algorithms. Much like Boolean algebra is a formal language, but not a programming language.

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