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

No thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Plenty of jobs in the bread-and-butter languages. I could also rehash older languages if I wanted to maintain legacy systems. Not wasting my time with flash-in-the-pan languages though.

Re:No thanks

[PRMan]

Plus, you run the risk of steering your career into a corner from which it's hard to escape. I did C# for 5 years and then a custom Pascal scripting language for 2 years. What did I hear? "You're not a C# developer, you're a xxxxx developer." Um, it's not like I forgot everything I knew or even didn't use it during that time, but it's a resume-killer, so be careful.

Re: No thanks

[MichaelMacDonald]

Easy enough to pick up a new language if you need it. No big deal. Nowadays it takes me a few minutes to get up and running and coding in a language I've never used before.

Re:No thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed.

A lot of these "guy making 100k a year writing software in something you've never heard of" are more about that guy's domain knowledge than their programming chops or unique skill sets.

It's one thing to know COBOL. It's another to understand what that massive payroll system is actually doing.

Re: No thanks

[Anrego]

Language, maybe. The tool stack around that language though, I call BS.

Sure, a c++ guy can pick up java itself fairly quickly, but it takes time to come up to speed on the various widely used libraries and tools. General programming concepts transfer, the specific workings of something like EJB or OSGI don't.

Re:No thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Your résumé will not suffer from what you don't put onto it.

Rule #1 of writing a résumé is to make it specific to the posting you're applying for. If you're applying for a Java/Oracle development position, don't put your Go and Hadoop experience on there by name. Leave it as "n years of professional development experience building x, y, and z." What you should plainly state is whether you have Java and/or Oracle experience, how much of it, and how recently.

It's really not difficult to avoid getting pigeon-holed into a scut-work niche, and it's even less difficult to get out of one by jumping ship to a new company.

The Dice Overlords here like to play up the difficulty of searching for a job, but that's because they have a vested interest in fooling everyone into thinking it's hard. It's not.

Re:No thanks

[RavenLrD20k]

Unfortunately, C# suffers from a sort of fragmentation where every year there's something new and fresh with it. Even though you and I, as developers in the wild, understand that this "fragmentation" is a bunch of hype and circumstance where the underlying base and syntax hasn't necessarily changed much over the past 3 years, the technologies around it have changed significantly.

To give an example, just today we ported an in-house app that is a tool to help with debugging that was updated at the very end of 2013 and ran on Server 2008 no problem to a new environment running Server 2012. Just about 2 weeks over a year after its last rewrite, it took about 20 minutes to install "legacy" packages on the server where it could be shoehorned in as Network Service .NET 2.0. Our other option was to take another 2 weeks (minimum) to completely rewrite (average 2 days writing and testing) and implement (the remaining time satisfying the red tape of the business) the application where it could run as Network Service .NET 4.0. Not something economical for what is essentially an R&D prototype system at this step.

Other examples are abound... Such as our desire to update several of our apps to take advantage of new features in MVC 6... but other features that we relied on in MVC 4 and MVC 5 broke, so there's a heavy need to develop work arounds or find "the new way to do it" (tm). Also, management wants us to implement Entity Framework 6 for our new database connections rather than use LINQ as we had been...and as we have time, update some of our older and more critical applications to make use of these new frameworks as well. And just wait for the next round of "Oooh Shiny" that we are going to want to make use of this year.

The technologies packed around C# and .NET in general are targets that move so fast that if you're out of the game for 2 years, even though you could probably pick up and run with the new stuff within a week or less, you're likely going to be competing with hundreds of applicants that are fresh and in the game with the current tech already and will (in theory) be off and running on the first day at their desk.

If you want to have a language background where you can take 2-5 year hiatuses from it and still maintain a decent demand with it, learn straight C/C++ and COBOL. Where I work I command among the highest programmer salaries in my department not because I'm good with the current tech and keeping up with it (my perf reviews have always indicated this to be true), but because I save my team from having to submit a WorkRequest to the Mainframe Developers for quick batches. My team can tell me what they need and I can submit my time bid and process to the Datacenter Operators in half the time with only one sheet of paper used for signoffs and approvals(instead of 5)... just because I can actually write COBOL (apparently hard to find in anyone younger than 40 these days, and our last COBOL Programmer is slated to retire in 2018).

Re:No thanks

[jythie]

That was what leapt out at me about the list. At least when it comes things like matlab and mathmatica, it is not the language that gets you the job, it just happens to be the language used by the people who have the skills the job is looking for. Go into one of those interviews without the appropriate scientific background and 'do you know matlab' is not going to be their main question.

Re:No thanks

[CODiNE]

The trick is to have a continuously running project in the previous language or framework while working on the newer one. Send a patch in to an open source project once in a while, or even keep a little toy program for trying experimental stuff on.

That way instead if "5 years C#, 2 years Pascal" you have "7 years C#, 2 years Pascal"

Re:No thanks

[__aaclcg7560]

The real problem regarding resumes is what you done in your last three positions. While I was unemployed for two years (2009-10), recruiters looked at my help desk resume, assumed that I wanted to do help desk, and told me that they had no help desk jobs available. Never mind that I wasn't applying for a help desk job. After I worked six months as a part-time PC technician for a moving company, recruiters figured out that I could do other jobs not related to help desk.

Re:No thanks

[computational super]

Yep. I just left a job that paid me to learn Salesforce Apex programming "language" after two years because I knew if I didn't get out then, I may never be able to escape Apex - until, of course, Salesforce stops being the "in thing" and nobody is hiring for those positions anywhere any more.

Re:No thanks

[__aaclcg7560]

You never look bad for having worked at a failed start-up.

You will look bad if the recruiters and hiring managers discover that you're lying about your resume. My current job requires a government security clearance. A two-hour investigate interview became four hours as the investigator nitpicked my work history to death. Having two or more jobs at the same time in this economy was a security concern. Having lived in the same apartment for nine years also raised some eyebrows. I'm just not a normal American.

Re:No thanks

[Zordak]

Having lived in the same apartment for nine years also raised some eyebrows. I'm just not a normal American.

Just run up a few thousand in credit card debt, and they'll rubber stamp you with their eyes closed.

Re:No thanks

[pepty]

You simply have to lie on your resume if you don't want this kind of thing to happen. Been out of work for 2 years? Get a friend to make up a start-up (or make one up yourself) and put that on your resume. You never look bad for having worked at a failed start-up.

Why even lie? If you're unemployed, roll yourself a start-up. If you use it to ask lots of people lots of questions ("how do I?", "Who knows how to?") you'll keep making connections and learning as opposed to just living in self-promoting/begging-for-a-job hell. People will want to talk to you a lot more if you are discussing how to solve a problem as opposed to asking for money. Anyway, it worked for me.

Portmasterz luv R

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't lived until you've ported a 3-D shooter like crysis over to R!!!

Re:Portmasterz luv R

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't lived until you've ported a 3-D shooter like crysis over to R!!!

This is a collection of R games and other funny stuff, such as the classical Mine sweeper and sliding puzzles.

Re:Portmasterz luv R

[Anonymous Coward]

i would think a pirate themed game would be better suited to that language

C++

[Anonymous Coward]

No one knows it, really.

Re:C++

[Jeremi]

Which makes me wonder...is the STL such a mess because Alexander Stepanov didn't understand it? Or was it because he did?

I imagine he didn't understand what he was getting himself into until it was already too late to stop. If you haven't ever experienced the "oh dear God, what is this abomination I have created?" moment, you're not yet properly a C++ programmer. ;)

Re:C++

[Anonymous Coward]

The STL is not an official part of C++, it is a 3rd-party library written by Alexander Stepanov.

The C++ Standard Library, which was added to C++ after the STL was created, is what is now part of C++. The STL and the C++ Standard Library are not the same thing even though the C++ Standard Library was designed to be very similar to the STL.

For more insight:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5205491/whats-this-stl-vs-c-standard-library-fight-all-about

Re:C++

[HornWumpus]

not yet properly a programmer.

Re:C++

[serviscope_minor]

The STL isn't a mess.

For general algorithmic code, it's the nicest library in any imperative language, bar none. I challenge you to find a better one.

Re:C++

[Marginal Coward]

I've only used it for longer than five years, but only intermittently. I keep hoping it will grow on me. ;-)

The basic problem for an intermittent user like me is that the syntax seems ugly and non-intuitive. (Note to moderators: YMMV.) For that reason, I have to keep referring to docs or my own prior examples every time I do anything. But maybe like Lady Gaga, it eventually looks beautiful to it fans.

Re:C++

[superwiz]

Nah, C++ itself is the problem. Linus got it right. Instead of standardizing name mangling and RTTI, the language went in the direction of accomodating everyone who didn't think to use auto_ptr when returning containers from functions. The whole reason for virtual functions is to get around huge case statements resolving discriminated unions. But without standard discriminators for these discriminated unions (and relying on points into virtual table instead) these cannot be persisted or sent over the network. So you end up with people still using multiple enumeration schemes which cannot be even logged in a consistent way. Mess, mess, mess!

ASN.1 isn't a programming language.

[Dimwit]

That is all.

ASN.1/SMI

[adturner]

Maybe ASN.1 and SMI are so little known as a programming language because... they're not a programming language? Don't get me wrong, it's good to know if you're reading/writing RFC's or dealing with network protocols (especially in the telco space), but they're not programming languages.

Re:ASN.1/SMI

[chuckinator]

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.

Re:ASN.1/SMI

[Carewolf]

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.

Re:ASN.1/SMI

[Anonymous Coward]

I see you are an HTML programmer.

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.

Re:ASN.1/SMI

[disambiguated]

HTML+CSS is Turing complete
Then again, CSS makes C++ seem user-friendly.

Meh

[Anrego]

There's tonnes of niche technologies, though people don't tend to specifically target them so much as just kind fall into them and get lucky.

I know someone that does pretty well maintaining stuff made with foxpro. In her words: "laugh all you want, it paid for my house". Doesn't mean it's a good idea to learn it at this point, but if you happened to luck out by sticking with a dying technology that never actually died, and are now one of a few people around who can call themselves experts in it, enjoy the benefits.

Also WTF

[Anrego]

Also, wtf dice.

I get that you want to shitpost your own articles here, but throwing a campaign ID in the URL to track the success of your shitposting is going a bit far.

Once you know ASN.1..

[TechyImmigrant]

.. you understand why it must die.

Re:Once you know ASN.1..

[FooAtWFU]

What needs to die are the network equipment manufacturers who change the meaning of OIDs on minor firmware version updates (because they're autogenerated from some XML somewhere and someone deleted an element in the middle of a list).

wut?

[tehlinux]

>lesser-known

>MATLAB

Really?

Re:wut?

[Marginal Coward]

I actually read a post from the main Matlab guy about one-based arrays once. Basically, his point of view was that mathematics uses one-based matrix notation, and Matlab was intended to solve mathematical problems. That's a different design criteria than programming languages like C and its progeny, which are designed to run fast on a machine.

So, maybe they're both right, though for those of us who do a lot of zero-based programming, it's a bit of a gear shift to do a little Matlab every now and then.

And being one-based isn't the worst of Matlab's sins. It's badly designed up and down the line, except that as a system - that is, a combination of its language, toyboxes, and IDE - it's better for solving certain kinds of problems than anything else out there. So, I depend on it, but I only use it when it's advantages are compelling for what I need to do. [sigh]

Re:Encrypt it all

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations, you've been selected to be an editor at Slashdot!

MUMPS!

[fhic]

Or M as it's usually known now.

You haven't suffered enough until you've had to debug someone else's "clever" M code.

Re:MUMPS!

[JoeRandomHacker]

As to whether the language pays, MUMPS is actually used quite a lot in financial and medical applications. As a language, there isn't much going for it except the installed base; it reminds me a bit of BASIC. However, it does have built-in persistence, and can be made to store and retrieve data reallyreallyfast, to the extent that attempts to switch to something else tend to fail due to reduced performance. So if you can handle the language, there are places that will pay you to program in it, and given the typical application domains, the job would likely be fairly secure.

Full Disclosure: set ^dayjob(me)="MUMPS Implementation Developer"

How about Libre Office Basic?

[50000BTU_barbecue]

For some reason I start playing with that. :)

Any jobs out there?

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.

I would say yes, it is worth it

[erp_consultant]

Here's why:

1) If your skills are limited to commonly used languages then a potential employer has a large pool of people to choose from. That means that you have to compete against a lot of people for a given position. It also means that your rate will be lower because a larger labor pool will tend to drive down prices. If, OTOH, you choose to focus on niche markets it will have the exact opposite effect. Fewer people to choose from and, therefore, higher hourly rate. Essentially it puts you (as an employee or contractor) more in the drivers seat.

2) It gives you something else to add to your resume.

3) It might give you exposure to industries that you might not have had otherwise.

4) It's fun :-)

Having said all of that, I still think that it is important to have a solid grounding in Java or C/C++. Why? Well, for one thing it gives you a good foundation for tackling other languages. It also gives you something else to fall back on if the esoteric thing doesn't quite pan out ;-)

SNOBOL/SPITBOL . . . JCL . . .?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Is anyone here old enough to remember those languages . . . ?

I don't think anyone ever started from scratch, writing a JCL program . . . you always just took an example, and fiddled around with it.

. . . but then, when I needed to write a IP driver for ATM, the folks told me: Just look at the Ethernet driver, and follow that

Re:SNOBOL/SPITBOL . . . JCL . . .?

[plopez]

Yes. The dynamic binding of operations in SNOBOL was fun, in a funny sort of way. JCL however, despite its inverted logic, is not a programming language in the strict sense of the word.

Re:SNOBOL/SPITBOL . . . JCL . . .?

[HornWumpus]

JCL? (Eyeball starts to twitch)

Run away!

LOGO

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

I'm currently working on my LOGO certification. I hear the pay can be good, especially if you've also got a background in Spirograph.

q niche

[MissMountain]

$130,000 average salary. q language, an array language / database used for time series analysis http://www.timestored.com/b/fo...

Any place that rolls there own analytics knows R.

[technomom]

Around here, knowing R can pay some bills. I'm surprised it isn't listed among the Math languages.

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:Skip MATLAB, Learn R

[0100010001010011]

Matlab is a dead end if you use it for statistics.

Matlab is not a dead end if you use it for a ton of other stuff that there are toolboxes for.

I've used matlab at work for almost a decade and never come close to using it for something R was good at.

Re:Skip MATLAB, Learn R

[joe_frisch]

Different languages are good for different things.
At SLAC we use Matlab extensively for accelerator modeling and control, It has a lot of very nice features (with add-ins) for signal processing, feedback design, linera algegra and general numerical analysis (numerical integration etc.). It has some nice parallel processing tool boxes and can be very high performance for vector applications. I also has excellent graphical and debugging capabilities.

I've used Matlab and Python (Pylab, numpy) and find Matlab to be a much better tool for this type of signal processing problem, and worse at other jobs. I haven't used R, but I believe it is optimized for statistical analysis which is a different sort of problem.

The wide variety of tool boxes are a big help for many types of problems.

Like most specialized languages it is very good at doing what it is designed to do, not so good for other applications.

The cost of matlab is not significant compared to the cost of the person who is using it. (A FTE here costs the lab ~$250K/year, so a few thousand for a Matlab license is lost in the noise).

Re:Skip MATLAB, Learn R

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody does signal processing in R - it's all done in Matlab.

Nobody does statistics in Matlab - it's all done in R or SAS or SSPS.

Re:Skip MATLAB, Learn R

[ishmaelflood]

matlab programmer here. $130k+super+6 weeks leave +18 sick days per year. So, as dead ends go, not too shabby

In parts of the automotive world matlab is used for algorithm development (for example for image recognition for anti collision systems) which can then be automagically cross compiled for the target embedded processor.

Symptom of thinking vocabulary is the key

[raymorris]

Just another symptom of thinking that software architecture and development is mostly about a language. Yes, knowing the language used in your field is important - that's why lower-level college classes have plenty of vocabulary. A developer should know the words, abbreviations, and symbols used in software development, just like an archeologists should know the words, abbreviations, and symbols used in archeology, and a fire marshall should know the words, abbreviations, and symbols used in fire protection. None of these fields is ABOUT the vocabulary, though. The words and symbols are used to record what you've done, but they are ancillary to the field.

Really, saying "C# developer" is like saying "Spanish anthropologist" or "English physicist". Maybe Stephen Hawking only speaks English - a certain German guy named Al Einstein showed how much language matters when he came to the US.

Sometimes I forget what language I'm writing in, and end up with excellent, reliable code written in two languages at once. Sometimes, most of my functions will compile and run in two or three different languages = X + 3 is x + 3 in most languages.

Re:Symptom of thinking vocabulary is the key

[Roger W Moore]

You are absolutely correct. I laughed when I read the line in the article which said:

For example, if you master a couple math and science programming languages, you might find opportunities as a programmer working at a scientific research center.

since it shows how clueless the author is about programming languages in science. When I am hiring a postdoc I could not care less which programming language they have used: if I am looking for someone with technical skills all I care about is that they have experience programming. The delay in learning whatever specific languages and packages we use is minimal so long as they have a strong technical background.

Re:Symptom of thinking vocabulary is the key

[Roger W Moore]

Then, he will have very hard time getting proficient in, let's say, Mathematica.

Why do you assume that? I would agree that it is hard to imagine anyone with a strong technical background only knowing Fortran in this day and age but, should such an individual exist, I would not see it as a barrier to hiring them. During my time as a student and a postdoc I taught myself Matlab, Perl, C, C++, Python, Alpha CPU assembler, SQL, ROOT and an interesting variation of BASIC which ran on an old Caviar CAMAC crate controller from the late 1980s! Learning a new language when you already know how to program probably takes a day for basic proficiency and a bit longer to get fully up to speed. It's far more important that you have someone who understands the science and has a strong technical background: if you have that the language is easy to add, if it isn't then you do not have someone with a strong technical background.

Re:Not just flash in the pan

[Darinbob]

True. I'd hardly call MATLAB a little known language, it's very commonly used in EE circles, and I've seen it other places doing engineering or science. I've worked on a product that included lengthy MATLAB computations as a part of the build. MATLAB also has the problem of being a one-vendor proprietary product.

But this is a Dice story after all. They seem to just love stories about "hey, here are some languages that aren't Java or C!" They forget that Slashdot is for nerds who actually know stuff and is not a site for job seekers.

Re: ADA

[RavenLrD20k]

Here I thought he meant the Americans with Disabilities Act...

...now this again. Learning programming languages?

[Mirar]

This is brought up now and then on Slashdot. Treating programming languages like something actually hard to learn.

Specific programming languages are irrelevant.

Programming paradigms and levels are relevant. But if you know a language in one paradigm, it's easy to learn another one. If you know C, the step to Python is fairly close. Lisp or Erlang is a little more distant, but it's not impossible far to learn in a few weeks.

If you can't pick up the basics of any computer language in a few weeks, I get the impression you're not really sure of what you're doing.

So it's irrelevant if you already know the language. Except for very confused recruiters. The question is, can you get good at the skills needed at the job within a few weeks? You wont know the projects or the libraries in the new company anyway, picking up a new computing language isn't going to be the hard part.

But then again, ASN.1 isn't a programming language more then TCP/IP is a programming language, so maybe the question is more confused than that.

(Languages I have encountered in my professional career: V2 BASIC, 6510 assembler, ABC8* BASIC, dBase 4, x86 assembler, 680x0 assembler, Batch files, Pascal, C, C++, Shellscripts, Pike, ECMAscript, Java, Flash, ARM assembler, and Python. In that order. I have done ASN.1 in the form of SNMP, but I really don't think I would call it a programming language.)

Re:...now this again. Learning programming languag

[david_thornley]

If you know only C, you aren't going to be a good Lisp programmer in two weeks, or a good C++ programmer for that matter. Different languages work better with different ways of thinking about problems, and it's a lot harder to learn that than to learn syntax.

Sure, you can learn the basics in a couple of weeks, but that doesn't tell you how to use the language. You'll just keep writing C with funny syntax (or, in the case of C++, just keep writing C), and your programs are going to suck. In two or three weeks, you won't learn how to write good Lisp macros or when you should. You won't learn to use C++ exceptions safely. I went from C/Pascal/assembler/etc. to ARM C++, and it took me years to internalize everything I needed to consider about object orientation. I was able to do useful things pretty well from the start, but it took a long time to be fully functional.

Re: Not just flash in the pan

[Hognoxious]

my wife is better at sex than yours

Seconded.