Little-Known Programming Languages That Actually Pay

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?

Comments

Source...

[gunner_von_diamond]

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.

Skip MATLAB, Learn R

[Kagato]

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.

Re:ASN.1/SMI

[lgw]

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.