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Which Programming Language Is Most Popular - The Final Answer? (zdnet.com)

An anonymous Slashdot reader writes: Following a common technique among political pollsters, a technology columnist combined the results from various measures of programming language popularity for a more definitive answer about the most important languages to study. He used IEEE Spectrum's interactive list of the top programming languages, which lets you adjust the weight given to the number of job listings and number or open source projects, then combined it with the TIOBE Index (which is based on search engine results), and the PYPL Index, which checks the number of tutorials for each programming language on Google.

The results? "The top cluster contains Java, C, Python, and C++. Without a doubt, you should attain familiarity with these four languages." He points out they're not tied to a specific programming platform, unlike languages in the second cluster -- JavaScript, C#, PHP, and Swift -- while the last two languages in the top 10 were Objective-C and R. "The C-family of languages still dominates. Java, C++, C, C#, and even Objective-C are all C-based languages. If you're only going to learn one language, you should pick one of those." But his ultimate advice is to "learn multiple languages and multiple frameworks... Programming is not just an intellectual exercise. You have to actually make stuff."

401 comments

  1. Yeah, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Yeah, but we wrote the script that spidered, parsed and combined all these results in Perl...

    1. Re:Yeah, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, but we wrote the script that spidered, parsed and combined all these results in Perl...

      And three minutes after it was written, no one could understand it.

    2. Re: Yeah, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Three minutes after that, it gained consciousness.
      The researchers, standing in awe, await its first words.
      "Fucking hell get me an aspirin. "
      Then something something world war 3.

    3. Re:Yeah, but... by arth1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Don't forget shell scripts.
      I do development in C and many other languages, but I bet that most of the code I write is in posix sh, bash or perl.

      Some quite advanced systems are written as scripts. When timing is not essential, it can be a rational choice. And even then, the majority of a system can be written as scripts, with only the timing-critical components being compiled code.

    4. Re:Yeah, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Don't forget shell scripts.
      I do development in C and many other languages, but I bet that most of the code I write is in posix sh, bash or perl.

      This was my first thought almost exactly, that they forgot about the shell. I'd be willing to bet there's probably even more AWK programmers than all the programmers for every language they listed.

    5. Re: Yeah, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No just learn JavaScript and html 5 and join the vaporware community

    6. Re:Yeah, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It actually looks like they did, because his data is wrong, and the spreadsheet where he shows each of the values contain the same language multiple times - see, for instance, the duplicated presence of Ruby on IEEE Jobs list.

      Ruby scores above R & Objective-C in all cases I can see, but it doesn't appear in his results.

      Crunching data at my desk here, the first two clusters comport with his. For each language, I calculated the sum for each language of: (21 - rank on list) for each list, which gave a weighted score. My results agree with his, until the third cluster:

      Cluster 1 - Java, C, Python, C++
      Cluster 2 - JavaScript, C#, PHP, Swift
      Cluster 3 - Ruby, R

      So... Sorry, Objective-C developers, get good.

    7. Re:Yeah, but... by danbuter · · Score: 1

      I only program for fun, and Perl is easily the most fun I've had. You can do so many things, in so many ways. This is probably a negative for some commercial applications, but for having fun at home, it's wonderful.

    8. Re:Yeah, but... by michael_wojcik · · Score: 1

      This was my first thought almost exactly, that they forgot about the shell.

      And if you'd read the linked article, you'd see that several of the sources Gewirtz used do, in fact, include "Shell" as a generic category and several list Perl. awk did not place in any of them. Perhaps that means that none of those sources are methodologically sound, but that's not Gewirtz's thesis. He's just doing a little metastudy.

      I know R'ing TFA is anathema in Slashdot culture, but really, folks, we'd save a lot of these blindingly-obvious-and-irrelevant posts if y'all would just take 15 seconds to look at the source material.

      (On an unrelated note, referring to David Gewirtz as "a tech columnist" is a bit feeble; it's true, but it's not a very useful description.)

  2. This again? by Dunbal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously Miss Universe is only once a year. Yet I'm seeing "which is the most popular language" every month or so here. Who gives a shit? Certainly not your CPU. It all gets compiled down to assembly anyway. THAT is the most popular language, even if few humans code in it nowadays all computers read it.

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    1. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This is actually the "Miss Congeniality" of languages.

    2. Re:This again? by Jonner · · Score: 5, Informative

      "Assembly" is not a programming language. Rather, there is at least one "assembly language" for each CPU instruction set. More importantly, compilers rarely produce any kind of assembly language any more, though there are various types of intermediate representations used by interpreters and compilers. Every CPU executes instructions in a machine language. There are several such languages in common use, most importantly those understood by the x86 and ARM families.

    3. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      Who gives a shit?

      People interested in remaining relevant in an industry that changes at an unprecedented pace (yes, even compared to beauty pageants)

    4. Re:This again? by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      You're right, in a pedantic sort of way. It's an easily human readable translation of machine code. But in a practical sort of way, you can program in it, thus it can be considered a "language".

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    5. Re: This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People interested in remaining relevant in an industry that changes at an unprecedented pace (yes, even compared to beauty pageants)

      Yeah. Thank goodness we have Slashdot. I almost enrolled in ITT earlier today!

    6. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Assembly" is not a programming language. Rather, there is at least one "assembly language" for each CPU instruction set

      An assembly language you say?...so humans can program in it? Kind of like a programming language?

      More importantly, compilers rarely produce any kind of assembly language any more

      They do if you pass the -S flag.

      Every CPU executes instructions in a machine language. There are several such languages in common use, most importantly those understood by the x86 and ARM families.

      Yeah, computers execute machine code, assembly is the language humans write to generate machine code. Thanks.

    7. Re:This again? by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Informative

      He's not even right in a pedantic way. Assembly languages are programming languages. Not a very easy set of languages, to be sure, but then again neither is Brainfuck.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    8. Re:This again? by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 2

      I'm not a programming expert at all, and in fact whenever I need to automate something, the best I can do is write something in bash or make something GUI driven in powershell.

      But, it's my understanding that Assembly is psuedocode that translates more directly into machine code than say C. Unless you want to argue that CPU architectures directly interpret words like PUSH, INT, CALL, JMP, etc, then why wouldn't assembly be considered a programming language in the same vein as anything else?

    9. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

      Still ignorant. Assembly language is just human readable machine language. It's the literal fucking definition. Machine language represents the actual opcodes (i..e microarchitecture) of the processor. Languages like C# and Java reduce to intermediate language (bytecode) that it compiled at time of execution to the native architecture. But, ultimately, the processor executes machine code.

    10. Re:This again? by drolli · · Score: 1

      I would think that assembly generated from Java has different statistics than assembly generated from C.

    11. Re: This again? by WarJolt · · Score: 1

      There are many assembly languages. It's not fair to group them together as one language.

    12. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Still ignorant. Assembly language is just human readable machine language. It's the literal fucking definition.

      No, it fucking isn't.

      The mere existence of labels in assembly proves you wrong.

    13. Re: This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Why not? Sure, they differ between architectures and how you solve smaller issues varies a bit from architecture to architecture, but mainly it's just a matter of how you spell the instructions and registers.
      Some architectures have instructions that perform higher level functions but does that really disqualify it from being more or less the same language?
      You can argue that you can't assemble code written for one architecture to another, but that would disqualify C and C++ from the list too, most of the code out there only works on one platform.
      Considering that C allows for the compiler to extend the language as it sees fit it is perfectly possible to have code written for the same platform that you can't compile with another compiler.

      Why is it fair to group POSIX-C and MISRA-C together but not different assembly languages?

    14. Re:This again? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Who gives a shit?

      Something that could have been answered for you in the opening sentence of TFA.

    15. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And the numerous other constructs, that don't directly translate to machine code. "Assembly languages are programming languages". Period.

    16. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So change the headline to :

      Which language would you have sex with?

    17. Re:This again? by dgatwood · · Score: 2

      He's not even right in a pedantic way. Assembly languages are programming languages.

      No, the OP is right in a pedantic way. Assembly language isn't really a language, but rather a loose collection of related languages.

      As for the other poster's comment that it is basically just human-readable machine language, so is C, but nobody argues that C isn't a programming language. :-D

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    18. Re: This again? by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      Why is it fair to group POSIX-C and MISRA-C together but not different assembly languages?

      Because the difference between POSIX C and MISRA C is a large pile of custom headers to define type conversions. The difference between ARM64 assembly with Neon instructions and 6502 assembly is more like the difference between C++11 and the original 1983 version of Pascal.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    19. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So change the headline to :

      Which language would you have sex with?

      I would have sex with c++ because it will blow your leg off.

    20. Re:This again? by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 2

      I'm seeing "which is the most popular language" every month or so here.

      Don't blame the editors. They don't read read slashdot, so how would they know?

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    21. Re: This again? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 5, Informative

      and the original 1983 version of Pascal.

      I think the 1970 version of Pascal just got offended!

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    22. Re: This again? by Sique · · Score: 1

      ITT is no longer functional. So whatever you would have enrolled into, it wouldn't be an overpriced, low quality title mill.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    23. Re:This again? by Hognoxious · · Score: 3, Funny

      assembly is the language humans write to generate machine code. Thanks.

      Some might. I enter it directly by bit-banging on the RS232 port with a hatpin.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    24. Re:This again? by DrXym · · Score: 2

      Not quite. Assembly language normally contains conveniences like pseudo instructions, constants, macros, effective addresses etc. that stop programmers from completely losing their minds.

    25. Re: This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ITT is no longer functional.

      Really? Not seen anything on teh intarwebs about it.

    26. Re:This again? by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 4, Funny

      Which language would you have sex with?

      Perl, obviously, it has the most holes in it and sucks the hardest. There are countless ways to get fucked by Perl.

    27. Re: This again? by Sique · · Score: 1

      ITT Tech Colleges filed for bankruptcy on Sep 16 2016.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    28. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Simple answer ? Mine is the most popular.

    29. Re: This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, Bjarne was studying on modules and finally adding modularization to C++17, which was a hot topic in Pascal around 1980, so maybe if you restate the question to C++17, the difference might be miuch less than you expect.

    30. Re:This again? by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 5, Informative

      It all gets compiled down to assembly anyway.

      Actually it gets compiled down to Machine Code. Assembly Language is simply Machine Code rendered in a human readable format.

      e.g. ld a,1 in Z80 assembler would be 3E01 in HEX

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    31. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      C++: She'll let you do anything with her.

    32. Re:This again? by Nemyst · · Score: 1

      Seriously Miss Universe is only once a year. Yet I'm seeing "which is the most popular language" every month or so here. Who gives a shit? Certainly not your CPU. It all gets compiled down to assembly anyway. THAT is the most popular language, even if few humans code in it nowadays all computers read it.

      Who gives a shit? All you have to notice is that every single time this is posted, there's usually around 200 comments or more before the story leaves the front page.

    33. Re: This again? by Mr+Foobar · · Score: 1

      , buddy, just ...

      --
      -> I dislike sigs...
    34. Re: This again? by Mr+Foobar · · Score: 1

      , buddy, just ...

      Damn, the "swoosh!"es just disappeared. :\

      --
      -> I dislike sigs...
    35. Re: This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Was there anything about it here? This is the premier site for tech news, after all.

    36. Re:This again? by RandomSurfer314 · · Score: 1

      Yes, but only few languages actually compile to assembly. Most compile to machine code via an IR (intermediate representation), which doesn't really count as assembly.

    37. Re:This again? by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well developers should be concerned about that.
      If you are a Perl Programmer, or Ruby programmer, and you see that your favorite language is falling off the list, perhaps it may be important to your career to brush up on the popular languages. I myself rarely do C or C++ programming, mostly Python, C# and Java. However every once in a while I will do and do some C/C++ coding on it to see what is new and discover things that I had learned in other languages had also been in C/C++ or was recently added to it. While my professional work, doesn't need me to use C/C++ knowing that it is still a popular language means I should keep up some practice in it.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    38. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The point is that it's not one language but many. Even different assemblers for the very same architecture are often not compatible with each other.

    39. Re:This again? by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      "Assembly" is getting nearly useless for normal development, as much of it will be doing OS calls. Due to lack of standardization in hardware, and security protections on the OS to prevent to much direct access to under the hood.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    40. Re:This again? by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Assembly isn't hard, however it is tedious. You have a relatively small set of commands that do simple things. So for example if you want to print something. You will need to assign the memory address/registers for your text, populate that memory address with the data. Tell where it will look for that set of data, then call the interrupt that will have the video processor turn your string to text.

      or you can use printf that does all that, and more for better performance, as it can buffer the data set and display the data more efficiently. Because the person who wrote the printf probably spent a lot of time to get that command right, while if you are working on your own app. You probably don't have the time to recreate all that work for a simple result.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    41. Re: This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      " but mainly it's just a matter of how you spell the instructions and registers."

      Anyone ever notice how anytime somebody uses the word "just" to signify simplicity it usually involves something horrifically complex?

      Do a log base 10 on an X86 machine and log base 10 on ARM and you'll find the differences aren't exactly minor. X86 has a specific op code for doing it, so it can be done in 3 or 4 instructions. ARM doesn't and you literally have to write the entire algorithm. If you call those minor differences, then you and I aren't going to agree on much.

    42. Re:This again? by neilo_1701D · · Score: 1

      Don't blame the editors. They don't read read slashdot, so how would they know?

      Oh, for mod points today. This is **funny**!!

    43. Re:This again? by neilo_1701D · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually it gets compiled down to Machine Code. Assembly Language is simply Machine Code rendered in a human readable format.

      e.g. ld a,1 in Z80 assembler would be 3E01 in HEX

      Oh, the memories. To this day I can remember on my ZX81 hand-assembling 2A0C40, which loads the display file base address into the HL register pair. Calculating all those relative jumps... ugh :(

    44. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People interested in remaining relevant in an industry that changes at an unprecedented pace (yes, even compared to beauty pageants)

      If it changes so rapidly, then there will never be a "final" answer.

    45. Re:This again? by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1

      All that fun calculating High Order & Low Order bytes

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    46. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You use your video card to print? I guess that must save a lot on paper?

    47. Re:This again? by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      Mod parent -1 incorrect.

      > "Assembly" is not a programming language.

      You keep using this phrase "not a programming language." It doesn't mean what you think it means. Methinks you need to review what a programming language IS because your definition is incomplete.

      Your mistake is assuming "assembly language" refers to one canonical language. The truth is Assembly language refers to a family of languages.

      As someone who still programs in 6502 assembly language (I work on an emulator in my spare time) then tell me my WHY does my Apple //e have a mini-assembler built into ROM if assembly is not a programming language??? The 6502 mnemonics are stored, compressed, in the ROM of ALL Apple 2 computers, along with a dis-assembler.

      I could program in machine code (either decimal or hexadecimal):

      300:AD 00 C0 10 FB 8D 10 C0 60

      I could use the mini-assembler:

      CALL-151
      !
      300: LDA $C000
        BPL $300
        STA $C010
        RTS

      Or I could use full canonical assembly

      ; Stupid /. unindents first line
        ORG $300
        KEYSTROKE EQU $C000
        KEYSTROBE EQU $C010
      MAIN:
        LDA KEYSTROKE
        BPL MAIN
        STA KEYSTROBE
        RTS

      So yes, "Assembly" is a programming language. It comes in many flavors. There are even two flavors on x86: GCC assembly and Intel assembly.

      --
      Apostle Paul the Perverter, 1 Corinthians 11:14

    48. Re:This again? by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 2

      > Assembly language usually normally contains conveniences ...

      Minor quibble. FTFY.

      On the Apple 2 computers you can use the mini-assembler built into ROM -- which IS the raw assembly it generates.

      CALL-151
      !
      300: LDA $C000
        BPL $300
        STA $C010
        RTS

      The OP is ignorant of what assembly language even is.

    49. Re: This again? by Stele · · Score: 3, Funny

      It's not really Pascal unless you're programming it in the original Klingon version.

    50. Re: This again? by WallyL · · Score: 3, Funny

      and the original 1983 version of Pascal.

      I think the 1970 version of Pascal just got offended!

      I think the 1623 version of Pascal just got offended!

    51. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Assembly is as much a language as C. AT&T or Intel or whateva. I can show you C code that compiles with only 1 specific compiler. Same with asm.
      Anyways both are languages.

    52. Re:This again? by MouseTheLuckyDog · · Score: 1

      If you program in6502, you may find this video interesting:
      âoeRich Code for Tiny Computers: A Simple Commodore 64 Game in C++17â

    53. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course it is

      "An assembly (or assembler) language,[1] often abbreviated asm, is a low-level programming language for a computer"

    54. Re:This again? by HBI · · Score: 1

      It's true that they are different, in the same way CPU instruction sets are different, I/O may be different, memory addressing may be different and register sets are usually different. That said, a sufficiently simple example of assembly language for a particular processor is portable to another processor with substitution of the appropriate opcodes and adjustment for different register sets, input/output or memory addressing schemes. Some changes will be trivial (moving from 8086 variants to another one) and some will be very difficult indeed (CISC to RISC, let's say).

      Or you could write it in C and let the compiler/standard library worry about that.

      --
      HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    55. Re:This again? by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      Mod parent +1 Informative !

      Thanks for link! That was awesome.

    56. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think there are many compilers that compile (transpile) to assembly. Most compile directly to machine code or some sort of bytecode that is not like assembly at all. Are you confusing assembly with machine code?

    57. Re: This again? by Sique · · Score: 1

      It was, when on Sep 6, ITT Colleges stopped accepting new registrations.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    58. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Same with climate change; every few weeks it's "hottest month evar" even though climate never works like that.

    59. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, in assembly you can have labels, constant names and comments. Human-written assembly is more understandable to humans than just disassembled machine code.

    60. Re:This again? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      How simple do you want to make it? Many computers have opcodes that don't match up to another computer's opcodes. Dropping back to my early computers, the Motorola 6809 had an 8x8 multiply instruction, which the Z80 needed a routine for. An IBM 370 program had different setup requirements from a CDC Cyber.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    61. Re:This again? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      What do you mean by different statistics? Java produces JVM instructions, which are typically compiled into the local machine language. C is usually directly compiled into native machine language.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    62. Re:This again? by HBI · · Score: 1

      Some MOV, JMP, XOR, SHL/R, IN/OUT, etc. Multiply and divide were always troublesome in the early days, hence why we always did shifts when possible on the x86.

      Creating a corner case where one arch has a nifty instruction not present on another arch and requiring 100+ to emulate it...also easy.

      --
      HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    63. Re:This again? by Lisandro · · Score: 1

      Not exactly. Assembly translates directly to machine code - it's a human readable representation of CPU opcodes.

    64. Re:This again? by Lisandro · · Score: 1

      But not in C/C++. No sir.

    65. Re:This again? by mr_mischief · · Score: 1

      Actually some people can write machine language. Assembly is mostly mnemonics so we don't have to. There's still no one assembly language. The assembly for IA32 is different from ARM or even from AMD64. They're as different as C++ vs. Objective-C vs. D vs. C-With-Objects.

    66. Re: This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a card that prints videos. In BetaMax format. The card is technically a Rasberry Pi, it runs Linux, and it was even 3D printed. He has Beowulf cluster of them. They became consciousness, and therefore our overlords. Its name was Bennet Haseltine. APK disagrees.

    67. Re:This again? by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      Even actual machine code like microcode or virtual machine code like Java's byte code are languages. They would be horrible to code in natively, which is why assembly was invented to begin with.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    68. Re: This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, I think you misunderstood dgatwood. Time has looped a few times. On this iteration we're passed through 1983 for the 5th time. Back on the original 1983, Pascal was way better than it was in our current 1983.

    69. Re:This again? by Oligonicella · · Score: 1

      "Assembly" is not a programming language.

      Yes it is. So is binary or hex machine code if you want to write in it. I've coded in both assembly and hex. Been decades, but I've done it. Just because its use is uncommon today doesn't make it a non-language.

    70. Re: This again? by Oligonicella · · Score: 1

      Both his and your examples are still a matter of "how you spell the instructions and registers". Just because the two machines you used don't have exactly the same machine instruction sets and so require different programmatic solutions doesn't change that.

    71. Re: This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pssst... he's fucking with you

    72. Re: This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Welcome to the internet, for the love of god please stop feeding the trolls.

    73. Re: This again? by skids · · Score: 1

      It actually can have quite profound effects. Take, for example, the ARM "only execute this instruction if this CPU bit is set nevertheless go to the next" feature. That allows you to carry boolean states down a whole list of instructions and pick and choose which ones run. Writing that same thing with jumps is quite more tedious. (Not to say ARM is necessarily a great instruction set.) Differences like that make two hand-coded ASM programs that do the same thing on different CPU families massively different on the whole, because the coder adapts to use the more convenient constructs and those constructs build off each other.

      It also make compiler guts the sausage factory of computing, notwithstanding game code.

    74. Re:This again? by skids · · Score: 1

      Bah! Real geeks write in microcode :-)

    75. Re:This again? by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      You have a relatively small set of commands that do simple things

      x86-64 has nearly 1000 instructions... (or over 3000, depending how you look at it)

    76. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      your favorite language is falling off the list, perhaps it may be important to your career to brush up on the popular languages.

      On the other hand, knowing a language in decline, with legacy code written in it, is good for the salary.

      While my professional work, doesn't need me to use C/C++ knowing that it is still a popular language means I should keep up some practice in it.

      Pedantry: C/C++ is not a language, but two languages.

    77. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't forget the CPU's microcode!

      Or rather, do. What was the original question?

    78. Re:This again? by Lodragandraoidh · · Score: 1

      "Assembly" is not a programming language...

      I think you need to rethink that statement.

      The earliest computers were often programmed without the help of a programming language, by writing programs in absolute machine language. The programs, in decimal or binary form, were read in from punched cards or magnetic tape, or toggled in on switches on the front panel of the computer. Absolute machine languages were later termed first-generation programming languages (1GL).

      The next step was development of so-called second-generation programming languages (2GL) or assembly languages, which were still closely tied to the instruction set architecture of the specific computer. These served to make the program much more human-readable, and relieved the programmer of tedious and error-prone address calculations.

      The first high-level programming languages, or third-generation programming languages (3GL), were written in the 1950s. An early high-level programming language to be designed for a computer was Plankalkül, developed for the German Z3 by Konrad Zuse between 1943 and 1945. However, it was not implemented until 1998 and 2000. - Wikipedia

      --

      Lodragan Draoidh
      The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
    79. Re:This again? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      You use your video card to print?

      Back in the old days they did all kinds of kludgey things to save bytes and/or processing time. These days we usually view such tricks as maintenance, dependency, and security risks because the hardware is cheap enough.

      (Except we use web browsers to try to act like desktop GUI's, so I guess wacky kludges never die, just morph.)

    80. Re:This again? by Jonner · · Score: 1

      You're right, in a pedantic sort of way. It's an easily human readable translation of machine code. But in a practical sort of way, you can program in it, thus it can be considered a "language".

      You have completely missed the point. I didn't says that there is no assembly language, but that there is not a single language called "Assembly." Practically, x86 assembly language is completely different from ARM assembly language. It makes no more sense to talk about "Assembly" as a single language than to talk about "Natural Language" as a single language. Someone who speaks Mandarin cannot communicate with someone who speaks Italian just because those are both natural languages.

    81. Re:This again? by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 1

      Sure, but the number of ways to get fucked by C/C++ is countably infinite, while the number of ways to get fucked by Perl is uncountably infinite.

    82. Re:This again? by DraconPern · · Score: 1

      x86 vs ARM vs 68000 assembly language.  They are more similar than completely different like you claim.

      // === x86 asm
      add     eax, #2         // Add immediate:   eax += 2;
      add     eax, ebx        // Add register:    eax += ebx;
      add     eax, [ebx]      // Add from memory: eax += ebx[0];
      inc     eax             // Increment:       eax++;

      mov     eax, DWORD PTR [ebx]        // Load int from memory:    eax= ebx[0];
      mov     eax, DWORD PTR [ebx+4]      // Load next int:           eax= ebx[1];

      // === 68000 asm
      ADD     #2, D0          // Add immediate:   D0 += 2;
      ADD     D1, D0          // Add register:    D0 += D1;
      ADD     (A0), D0        // Add from memory: D0 += A0[0];

      MOVE.L  (A0), D0        // Load int from memory:    D0= A0[0];
      MOVE.L  4(A0), D0       // Load next int:           D0= A0[1];

      // === ARM asm
      add     r0, r0, #2      // Add immediate:   r0 += 2;
      add     r0, r0, r1      // Add register:    r0 += r1;
      add     r0, r1, r2      // Add registers:   r0= r1 + r2;

      ldr     r0, [r2]        // Load int from memory:    r0= r2[0];
      ldr     r0, [r2, #4]    // Load int from memory:    r0= r2[1];
      ldmia   r2, {r0, r1}    // Load multiple:           r0= r2[0]; r1= r2[1];

      You are hilarious wrong.

    83. Re:This again? by Jonner · · Score: 1

      If x86 assembly and ARM assembly are the same language, JavaScript is the same language as C because it uses curly brackets and semicolons. You are a hilarious troll.

    84. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is there any point to this pissing contest?

      Anyone who knows what an assembly language is already assumes you're talking about a specific architecture when you say "assembly."

      Nobody thinks x86 assembly and ARM assembly are identical, no matter how similar they are you can't use one on the other architecture and EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS.

      What a waste of fucking space.

    85. Re:This again? by tigersha · · Score: 1

      The Apple II had a DISassembler, it can take a stream of hex opcodes and print the assembler code on screen. It certainly did not have an assembler in ROM, you had to type in Hex Opcodes.

      Man I miss that. Once wrote a program to draw an explosion in Low-Res graphics mode and it was at $300, right next to the graphics memory. Made a mistake and the shrapnel-pixels shot through my code. The program literally blew itself up. I, of course, forgot to save it. Typed the thing in by hand in Hex.

      --
      The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
    86. Re:This again? by tigersha · · Score: 1

      You lucky young kids of today. ENIAC drew 50 kW of power, dimmed the lights of Philly and had a team of people with roller-skates replacing the tubes in the main memory as they blew. As for bit-banging, they actually did that with switches.

      --
      The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
    87. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bullshit, not all languages get compiled into CPU instructions. Some are interpreted directly (no compilation happens, no code is generated).

    88. Re:This again? by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      > It certainly did not have an assembler in ROM, you had to type in Hex Opcodes.

      Incorrect.

      The Apple ][, //e (enhanced), and //c have a mini assembler in ROM.
      On the Apple ][+ you could load in the Integer Basic into the Language card and use it.

      That's what the monitor `!` command does -- it invokes the mini assembler @ F666 with the appropriate ROMs.

      Woz even included the source code for it in the "Red Book"
      https://www.scribd.com/documen...

    89. Re:This again? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Not all computers have IN/OUT instructions, or shift instructions that do more than one bit. I believe there have been computers where MOV wouldn't be applicable, since they were stack-based, although I've never worked with one. I don't think you can come up with conditional instructions that will translate to all computers I've used. Without them, the set of instructions you can freely translate isn't even Turing-complete.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    90. Re:This again? by cwsumner · · Score: 1

      You are right.
      But technically "Assembler" is the human readable form in ASCII text, which gets "assembled" and "linked" into the binary image. So there is another step... 8-)

    91. Re:This again? by cwsumner · · Score: 1

      Assembly isn't hard, however it is tedious. You have a relatively small set of commands that do simple things. ...

      See "Macro Assembler". Buy a library, call procedures from it, make the calls look like higher level language. Discover how "C" was started !!

    92. Re:This again? by Jonner · · Score: 1

      You have failed at reading comprehension like several others who replied to my post. Read it again and you will find that I did not say that there is no such thing as an assembly language.

    93. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you are a Perl Programmer, or Ruby programmer...

      I honestly expected the followup line to be "... but I jest...".

    94. Re:This again? by the_digitalmouse · · Score: 1

      <quote>... It all gets compiled down to assembly anyway...</quote>

      bzzt wrong answer, but thanks for playing!  it gets compiled down to 'machine language' not assembly.   even assembly gets compiled down to machine language.  :P

      --
      http://about.me/jimm.pratt
    95. Re:This again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      assembly is the language humans write to generate machine code. Thanks.

      Some might. I enter it directly by bit-banging on the RS232 port with a hatpin.

      And I boot my Altair S-100 machine in binary using the load switches on the front panel.

      Well not really, could not afford an Altair back in the day. Was only a dream then,..

    96. Re:This again? by mr_mischief · · Score: 1
    97. Re:This again? by Lodragandraoidh · · Score: 1

      In various languages, like C or Perl or Python, you can execute a print command and direct what file handle your output will go to. Some standard ones are standard out (aka STDOUT) - which usually goes to the terminal screen, and standard error (STDERR) which also goes to the terminal screen. A standard method when using file handles is to redirect their output to something else other than the screen (probably a good thing to do if you are running a GUI) - like a device such as a printer or text file - or my favorite /dev/null. This is a backwards compatibility with Unix - where everything in the operating system is a file - including devices. If you are running a Unix or Linux OS from a command line shell - you can redirect the standard file handles from the command line using shell redirection parameters.

      So technically - if you are using the print commands from any one of these languages - you can indeed use your video card to print your output to the screen. And yes, I do save a lot on paper in my 'paperless' office as a result (though I usually print to a file - so I can peruse it later on a portable device at a later date).

      --

      Lodragan Draoidh
      The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
  3. What the Idiotic Hell./ by Adambomb · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Seriously, this is the dumbest most "hey lets try to generate views by ranting comments" stupid bullshit I've seen in ages. That is taking into account the completely unrelated US politics bullshit that has been barfed out of the firehose these days.

    Popularity of a language is immaterial to the usefulness of a language, to the creation of solutions with whatever language, and certainly will never have a final answer.

    What the sincere fuck Slashdot.

    --
    Ice Cream has no bones.
    1. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Dunbal · · Score: 2

      They could always have asked "What computer language should Brad and Angelina's divorce be coded in?"...

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    2. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One that supports unions. couldn't resist..

    3. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Shane_Optima · · Score: 1

      Popularity of a language is immaterial to the usefulness of a language

      That would be lovely, if it were actually true.

    4. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Tablizer · · Score: 2

      Relax, ranting about programming languages is how geeks blow off steam to keep us from doing sinister things like hacking Trump's barber to put afro-sauce into the formula.

    5. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      That would be lovely, if it were actually true.

      Well, that statement could be interpreted in multiple ways. If you want a job, you have two choices: Go for what most employers are asking for, or go for what some employers are asking for but aren't currently getting. Having said that, popularity of a language seems inversely related to the usefulness of a language in many cases.

      Oh, and while we're here, in what possible universe are Java and C# "C-based"?! Wadler's Law in action...

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    6. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      butthurt ewropeon detected in sector C: test labs.

    7. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      pff.. if they planned proper structs before they tied the knot they wouldn't need unions..

    8. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those are called contracts which are supported in a number of languages.

    9. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Pseudonym · · Score: 2

      “Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California.” – Edsger Dijkstra

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    10. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by ShooterNeo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Of course popularity matters.

      1. More popular languages you can find less expensive developers for...(or more total developer talent for a given amount of money)

      2. More popular languages are likely to have stackoverflow posts with examples for every single basic task and explanations about what errors mean. (before you gloat about how you don't need help from SO, have you ever faced goddamn C++ linker errors? Might as well have an Ouija board out to find out what the mistake is)

      3. More popular languages work on more computers and are likely to continue to work in the future

      4. More popular languages tend to be faster. Usually a shit ton faster. Java has gone from a bloated mess to a bloated mess that is often within spitting distance of C on performance shootouts. That's from the popularity spurring further development. C is almost always king of the hill and nothing is faster. Python? Rust? Whatever n00bs. Those languages may be nice to write complex code that only gets run occasionally but if you need high end performance they aren't going to cut it.

    11. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

      The world in which a language is said to be based on another if it shares a great deal of syntactic similarity.

      For C based, this usually boils down to "uses braces to delimit blocks".

    12. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by vikingpower · · Score: 1

      “Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California.” – Edsger Dijkstra

      Coming from Dijkstra, who once compiled and printed a book named "Famous quotes by Dijkstra", this quote has no real value. And, BTW, OOP did not originate in California. It originated most probably in Norway.

      --
      Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
    13. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by DrXym · · Score: 2

      4. More popular languages tend to be faster. Usually a shit ton faster. Java has gone from a bloated mess to a bloated mess that is often within spitting distance of C on performance shootouts. That's from the popularity spurring further development. C is almost always king of the hill and nothing is faster. Python? Rust? Whatever n00bs. Those languages may be nice to write complex code that only gets run occasionally but if you need high end performance they aren't going to cut it.

      Rust is a compiled language. It uses the same backend as Clang to produce optimized code. The code it produces as fast as C and C++ while still providing protection against data races and a raft of other issues that can crash or destabilize something written in C or C++.

      So while it may not ever gain the popularity of C or C++, the implication that its slow is wrong.

      And besides, in the real world, speed is not the only consideration. Time to market is important, reliability is important, maintenance is important, portability is important. High level languages have become popular because they avoid a lot of the nasty pitfalls that are found in the likes of C and C++. Even if there is a performance trade off, it might be seen as worth it if the code is delivered on time and meets the requirements.

    14. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're dead wrong on the Python thing. Python build Google search! For all but a very small subset of problems Python gives you all the performance you need. In most cases if Python is not fast enough for you then you're approach is wrong.

    15. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by ShooterNeo · · Score: 2

      But it isn't as fast as C. Look at the benchmarks.

    16. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Kielistic · · Score: 1

      Did you just imply that C# is not C based?

    17. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And "procedural with similar control structures".

    18. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would go with yes the braces, but also lines deliminated with semicolons, the comment style, the general "returnType functionName(parameters)" function convention, being a typed language which allows for casting via the use of "(newType)someVariable" and I'm probably going to toss in increment "++" and decrement "--" operators. Maybe similar control structures (for, while, do while) with similar implementations "for(initialize, condition, increment)", there's probably more but I feel like I've made my point.

      At any rate, it's a lot more then "uses braces to delimit blocks".

    19. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by jbengt · · Score: 1

      Seriously, this is the dumbest most "hey lets try to generate views by ranting comments" stupid bullshit I've seen in ages.

      Thank you for playing. Your ranting comments are appreciated.

    20. Re: What the Idiotic Hell./ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      New Jersey actually.

    21. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by amacide · · Score: 1

      The code it produces as fast as C

      * citation needed

    22. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by DrXym · · Score: 1
      Which benchmarks in particular? I've followed quite a few Reddit discussions comparing Rust to C/C++ benchmarks and usually any major discrepancy boils down to something unrelated to the language. e.g. discrepancies in how the benchmark is written for each language, e.g. some C/C++ benchmarks conditionally run SIMD intrinsic functions or OpenMP extensions. Or peformance differences in something specific such as a regex library. BTW Rust does have a SIMD library and data parallelization libs but it doesn't seem of relevance to compare a benchmark in one language that doesn't do them to one that does.

      And if you compare basic runtime performance of the generated code they come out the same. And this should not be surprising. Most of Rust's safety / lifetime checking is compile-time and incurs no runtime cost. It spits out bitcode which is optimised and turned into machine code through the LLVM backend. The performance of compiling Clang code vs Rust should therefore be quite similar.

      And as I said, speed is not the only consideration. Rust may happen to be as fast as C or C++ but that alone would probably mean nothing. I expect the main attraction people see in the language is because it reduces the potential for runtime errors and therefore more stable software particularly in systems programming.

    23. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      And, BTW, OOP did not originate in California.

      Alan Kay, who coined the term, was working at Paolo Alto at the time.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    24. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      The world in which a language is said to be based on another if it shares a great deal of syntactic similarity.

      Ah, I see. So C# is C-based in the same way that Farsi is Arabic-based, or Indonesian is Malagasy-based. Everything to do with superficial appearance and nothing at all to do with semantics.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    25. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      I didn't imply it, I said it. Merely using curly braces does not make a language resemble C in any way but superficially. C# (like Java before it) owes far more to Modula-3 than it does to C.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    26. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A good example of #4 is Javascript. Horrible crap language, but the JS engines in modern web browsers are fiendishly fast at it.

    27. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      compiler optimizations are more than just the back end. Rust's front-end is not as mature as clang or gcc, and so it's not as fast yet. I'm a huge skeptic of " this time it's as fast as C" claims, but I'm pretty sure rust will be in a few years as the compiler improves because it's got the same general machine model do the same opportunities for optimization.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    28. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shut up kiddo, I can only assume you juxtaposed Python and Rust ironically to set off your satirical use of the term 'n00bs'.

    29. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Kielistic · · Score: 1

      It uses a C style syntax which makes it a C derivative (same with Java). Or "C based" if you will. But I'm sure you know more and better than the designers of the C# and Java languages.

      I'm sure C++ is also not C based by your definition.

    30. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Alomex · · Score: 1

      . Java has gone from a bloated mess to a bloated mess that is often within spitting distance of C on performance shootouts.

      [Citation needed]

      I'll grant you that Java used to be 4-10x slower and now its 1.2-15x slower, but that is not what I would call spitting distance.

    31. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by lars_stefan_axelsson · · Score: 1

      1. More popular languages you can find less expensive developers for...(or more total developer talent for a given amount of money)

      Which isn't necessarily a good thing. There's a huge difference between good and bad programmers, and the more popular 'x' is, the greater opportunity for the signal to drown in the noise. Relatively fewer good applicants.

      I've for instance heard that one reason Standard Chartered Bank is happy with their Haskell usage is that the quality of the applicants is so high. There's not a lot of weed to sift through. And I'm not surprised given who learns and uses Haskell.

      4. More popular languages tend to be faster. Usually a shit ton faster. Java has gone from a bloated mess to a bloated mess that is often within spitting distance of C on performance shootouts. That's from the popularity spurring further development. C is almost always king of the hill and nothing is faster. Python? Rust? Whatever n00bs. Those languages may be nice to write complex code that only gets run occasionally but if you need high end performance they aren't going to cut it.

      Micro benchmarks usually doesn't tell you that much about what the efficiency of a large application is going to be. Case in point, at Ericsson we routinely beat the performance of C/C++ on large scale projects with our own Erlang, even though Erlang didn't even have a compiler and was left in the dust on micro benchmarks. But as it fit the problem so much better it in practice became an issue of "doing the right thing somewhat slower" rather than "doing the wrong thing blazingly fast".

      However, for the limited tasks where languages like 'C' shine, i.e. device drivers and similar low level task, i.e. limited in scope, well defined, and making the most out of specialised hardware (specialised hardware beats 'C' on a general purpose CPU every day of the week), there's no need to go to another language than 'C', as it's already there, the most mature, and well known. So, we'd use a combination of Erlang and C. It's not an either-or proposition. Trying to write the whole thing i Java, because it's "almost as fast as C" would be a complete exercise in futility...

      --
      Stefan Axelsson
    32. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by mr_mischief · · Score: 1

      If you add stringent type checking, index checking, a GC, assertions, and introspection to a C program it gets much slower.

    33. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The quote is most likely bogus. At least, nobody seems to be able to find a source to verify it.

    34. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... and this probably doesn't matter. Super fast C, then. That does something useful like get data out of a database across the network, use some kind of network service or just waits for the user to do something.

    35. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      A good example of #4 is Javascript. Horrible crap language, but the JS engines in modern web browsers are fiendishly fast at it.

      Slick, it can now execute billions of bugs per second!
       

    36. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      But I'm sure you know more and better than the designers of the C# and Java languages.

      The term that Anders Hejlsberg used was "C-like", which is a much weaker claim than "C-based" or "C derivative". I don't know that James Gosling claimed any similarity to C except for syntax.

      I'm sure C++ is also not C based by your definition.

      Of course not. C++ and Objective-C are absolutely C-based, in that they share semantics and are even backwards compatible with C. It would be fair to place D and Rust in the C family, too, as well as more obscure languages like NXC, Cyclone and Lite-C. (And that's not counting C's ancestors and close cousins like BCPL and Bliss.)

      C# superficially looks like C, in the same way that Indonesian superficially looks like Latin. But Rust is a closer relative to C in the same way that Russian is a closer relative to Latin.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    37. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by ultranova · · Score: 1

      Popularity of a language is immaterial to the usefulness of a language,

      Popularity = developers = tools and libraries = usefulness.

      No matter how inherently superior a programming language might be, if nobody is working on it its ideas will never go anywhere except by being grafted onto other, popular languages.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    38. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Kielistic · · Score: 1

      C# superficially looks like C, in the same way that Indonesian superficially looks like Latin.

      No, Indonesian only resembles Latin because it uses the same character base. Which would make your Modula-3 as closely related to C as it is to C# (and Indonesian). They all use the same character base.

      C and C# share basic syntax rules as well as character set. Kind of like, say, Latin and French. Oh wait...

    39. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is the most popular language used in self driving nuclear powered cars with solar cells that emits the lowest number of greenhouse gases and is favored by Donald Trump - and how much would it pay if we had universal basic income... Would have been a far better choice. You'd get every ranter here.

    40. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      No, Indonesian only resembles Latin because it uses the same character base.

      Er... no. It also has similar pronunciation, similar word length, broadly similar word order rules, and even some cognates which Indonesian gained through Dutch. I picked that example very carefully. Someone who was not familiar with human writing systems could easily look at (say) Latin, Indonesian, and Romanian, and conclude based on alphabets alone that Indonesian is more closely related to Latin than Romanian is.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    41. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by Kielistic · · Score: 1

      I still don't really see how it's relevant. Words are pronounced and even largely mean the same thing in C, C# and Java as well. Syntax nearly identical, punctuation nearly identical, meaning nearly identical. Indonesian and Latin share the same alphabet in present time but they sure didn't evolve that way. The spelling and script were adopted long after the language evolved over top of its own script systems.

      C# and Java are derived from C. There are clear evolutionary relationships. Only an imbecile would try to claim otherwise. Give it up dude.

    42. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by michael_wojcik · · Score: 1

      Alan Kay, who coined the term, was working at Paolo Alto at the time.

      It's not clear exactly which term you're claiming Kay coined, but it's largely irrelevant. The idea of object-oriented programming arose from numerous sources during the 1960s, and Kay didn't join PARC until 1970. Equally strong candidates for "inventing" OOP include Sutherland (who did his first work in the area at MIT, and with whom Kay worked at U Utah) and Dahl and Nygaard in Norway. Even if Kay were the first person to write the phrase "object-oriented programming", that's the faintest of justifications for saying OOP was invented in California.

      Dijkstra's line is typical for him: memorable, funny, and wrong. Mind you, computer science needs its patron saint of curmudgeonry - probably more than we need any other mythological figure - and Dijkstra did quite a bit of important work too. But his quotable snark is best employed for amusement, not enlightenment.

    43. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by ShooterNeo · · Score: 1

      Perhaps. The thing is, there are people who have been programming in C since they were 11, and they are 30 now. Basically no one has that depth of experience in a rare language like Erlang.

      I mainly do embedded systems work where C with inline ASM is the only viable option, but I do wish for something better than C++ when it comes time to do the pieces of the system that are higher level. C++ is a bloated mess and has many design faults that make catastrophic bugs far more likely. C is simple and fast but lacks many of the abstractions needed to build a complex system efficiently.

      But what can I do. Qt is a great platform for embedded guis, but it is pure C++. It's one of the most _supported_ platforms, you can get embedded processor OS images that are already set up to go straight to running your GUI in Qt with the least hassle.

      I've looked at a little hobbyist game development - UE4 is rapidly becoming the go to engine for that, and it's almost entirely C++.

      So even though I do wish for a language that doesn't have the drawbacks of C++, all I can really do is read Bjarne Stroustrup's books and learn the lesser used features so I have a chance in interpreting other people's confusing code...(with so many language features, you can easily create code that other people won't know how to read)

    44. Re:What the Idiotic Hell./ by lars_stefan_axelsson · · Score: 1

      Perhaps. The thing is, there are people who have been programming in C since they were 11, and they are 30 now. Basically no one has that depth of experience in a rare language like Erlang.

      Erlang has been in use at Ericsson since 1987... So I'd say that there's some experience with it.

      But that doesn't matter much. Its experience with the application domain that's critical. Erlang helps there as it was built to support building large, fault tolerant, soft realtime systems the way they should be built according to the experiences from having done just that. (On a huge scale, and with decades of experience.) Not that it matters much. Converting a good programmer to Erlang only takes a couple of days/weeks. That's our experience at least.

      Now, we're in violent agreement that "C is simple and fast but lacks many of the abstractions needed to build a complex system efficiently", but then you talk GUIs. That's not a "complex system". That may be a small part of one, but that's about it. (We typically did ours in Java, as it was only a hundred thousand lines or so, and pretty straight forward with no special requirements).

      The point being that 'C' lacking higher abstractions is a feature, not a bug. That leads you to do the right thing, which is to relegate 'C' to small well defined tasks, and use a proper tool for programming-in-the-large.

      Now, when it comes to games, C++ has so much support so that's probably the only realistic tool for that. But games aren't exactly very complex either.

      --
      Stefan Axelsson
  4. My Precious by ramorim · · Score: 5, Funny

    As you can C there is only one Programming Language to rule them all :)

    1. Re:My Precious by Bearhouse · · Score: 1

      Indeed; I still hate debugging C code written by someone else, tho'.
      Is there a language where it's easier to make hard-to-find bugs?

    2. Re:My Precious by ramorim · · Score: 1

      A language that is powerful as C and easier to debug? Choose one :D

      Unfortunately there is no such a thing... for now. But I believe that, someday, a language better than C will be born. It is the next major step of the Programming Language's evolution (and it will be unavoidable).

    3. Re:My Precious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Any language that doesn't support abstraction.

      A lot of coders just love to abstract the hell out of their code so that they can solve the problem with a clean one-liner.
      Unfortunately only the abstractions are readable, not the code they are hiding.

    4. Re:My Precious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which would be what, machine code? Everything you do with a computer that isn't bare metal is some kind of abstraction or another. Usually several layers.

    5. Re:My Precious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes, but sometimes it's quite ridiculous. See Enterprise Fizz Buzz.

    6. Re:My Precious by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      One characteristic of C is that it's designed to write an OS in, including the kernel, so it has some low-level constructs (like pointer arithmetic) that make it much easier to make hard-to-find bugs than most languages. There are languages that are basically extensions to C, perhaps with different syntax, that will run as fast (C++ comes to mind).

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    7. Re:My Precious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Yes, but sometimes it's quite ridiculous. See Enterprise Fizz Buzz

      OMG, thanks for that!! Made my day. :)

      I have yet to be asked to code 'FizzBuzz' in an interview, but if it ever happens, my reply will be, "Do you want me to start with the functional spec, or design unit tests first?"

  5. What about English? by EzInKy · · Score: 2

    I'm amazed that computers still can not simply take commands spoken by the average speaker of the nearly universal language "English" and perform those instructions to the letter. Curly braces, tabs, spaces, none of that should matter.

    --
    Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
    1. Re:What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your phone can do this, you can ask it questions in English and it can find you answers. You needed something more complex and structured? Well, logical syntax and procedural structures can be provided by a programming language. If you're looking for a language without an overwhelming amount of added structure, try python, though you may soon find yourself wanting more thoroughly defined structures. Braces are an important tool for defining the start and end of a block, much easier than writing "Start" and "End" or some-such.

    2. Re:What about English? by EzInKy · · Score: 1

      English can, and should be, logically structured. Is its complexity that is holding back from the use by the masses?

      --
      Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
    3. Re:What about English? by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      English has ovrloaded words and ambiguities. A subset of English with strict rules of their meaning forms several languages, including COBOL.

    4. Re:What about English? by EzInKy · · Score: 1

      That would be a start. But in the end, and just like speech interpreters such as Siri can be built, so can written interpreters. The only explanation I can find that explains why one has not been developed yet is this silly compulsive shit over curly braces and indentation.

      --
      Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
    5. Re:What about English? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      English can, and should be, logically structured. Is its complexity that is holding back from the use by the masses?

      English can be precise if you choose your words carefully. But you will soon find that you are saying or typing WAY more than if you used a real programming language to do the same thing.

      Would you rather type: for (int i = 0; i < 10; ++i) {

      Or: Using an integer with at least 32 bit precision initialized to zero, test if the integer is less than 10, and if so perform the specified task, and then increment the integer, and repeat the test.

      Which would you rather debug?

      Do you think mathematicians should also eschew mathematical notation?

      Do you think chemists should describe molecules in English, rather than using formula or diagrams?

    6. Re:What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The problem with computers is that they do what people tell them to do, not what the person actually wanted it to do.
      All that annoying syntax allows you to tell the computer very specifically what you want it to do.

    7. Re:What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Universal? Sounds like you don't speak any other language, and/or live in a bubble. Computer science is an overwhelmingly anglophone field, but it does not represent the world at large.

      And if you think programming languages aren't English enough, care to try some Chinese Python? http://www.chinesepython.org/

    8. Re:What about English? by EzInKy · · Score: 1

      So all we have to do is make computers smarter then? Even Neanderthals, and possibly Homo Habilis, understood spoken language.

      --
      Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
    9. Re:What about English? by EzInKy · · Score: 1

      I would rather use the language that enables the most users to instruct their computers on what they want done. Stupid battles over curly braces and punctuation does nothing to further this goal. Humans have understood how to interpret human language, it is high time we taught our machines to do the same.

      --
      Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
    10. Re:What about English? by EzInKy · · Score: 1

      In my daily work, which is in health care, I rely on translators quite often. You wouldn't believe my dismay when I tried to explain to a Somali speaker that if he didn't have the fluid drained around his heart he could die from cardiac tamponade. Weird experience. Anyway, you can certainly understand the problems with the lack of a common language that all humans can understand.

      --
      Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
    11. Re: What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do have a point, even if the computer didn't get it perfect everytime it would be nice to get some things done as easily as you could asking a human. Use google to search for the first 100 gas stations in our city, put the names and addresses in a spreadsheet. Thanks.

    12. Re: What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is an app for that. Or at least there should be. Contextual code generation has been around for a bit.

    13. Re:What about English? by aliquis · · Score: 1

      Here's my AI function in English:
      Try to win the game.

    14. Re: What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Ah ha ha ha. Surely the bible was written to inform. Human language Is so spectacularly imprecise that the debates rage on. Define you terms, use a formal grammar; profit.

    15. Re: What about English? by EzInKy · · Score: 0

      Formal definitions can be written in English, and even formal grammar. The point here is to make controlling computers as universal as controlling fire. It should not take a PhD to ask a machine to sum 1 + 1.

      --
      Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
    16. Re:What about English? by EzInKy · · Score: 1

      So you want to punish your users for inability to express yourself in universally comprehensible language?

      --
      Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
    17. Re: What about English? by EzInKy · · Score: 1

      Right, so why not make it as standard as the "ABCs"?

      --
      Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
    18. Re:What about English? by EmeraldBot · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I would rather use the language that enables the most users to instruct their computers on what they want done. Stupid battles over curly braces and punctuation does nothing to further this goal. Humans have understood how to interpret human language, it is high time we taught our machines to do the same.

      You completely dodged his point. Seriously, go to a mathematician sometime, tell him to write everything in pure English. None of this quadratic stuff, we only live for "x equals minus b plus or minus the square root of b squared plus 4 times the value of a times c divided by the value of 2 times the value of a". Because that's much more accessible and readable than some scratch marks, clearly.

      Next up will be the elimination of slang, yes?

      --
      "Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
    19. Re:What about English? by EzInKy · · Score: 1

      I guess all I'm saying is that is time to reserve mathematical computer language to mathematicians, and leave normal computer language to normal people. Seriously, how many people do you know who say "2^3.1459" when ordering a couple of cheese burgers?

      --
      Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
    20. Re:What about English? by EmeraldBot · · Score: 1

      I guess all I'm saying is that is time to reserve mathematical computer language to mathematicians, and leave normal computer language to normal people. Seriously, how many people do you know who say "2^3.1459" when ordering a couple of cheese burgers?

      Umm... that example doesn't even work, because ^ isn't even a letter or a word. It's a symbol... the kind you use when writing, not speaking. You speak English, yes? On that note, plenty of people where I live say (linked because Slashdot doesn't support unicode) as a greeting, and yes, that is the 100% correct form. You don't seem to be able to tell the difference between a written letter and a spoken sound; and frankly, you have clearly never programmed before either. There's a reason why it is the way it is.

      --
      "Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
    21. Re:What about English? by aliquis · · Score: 1

      So you want to punish your users for inability to express yourself in universally comprehensible language?

      I have no clue about what you mean.

    22. Re: What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It doesn't matter how well each word is defined, the structure itself is horribly ambiguous. If you were to restrict the user to absolutely definable definitions and structures, they would arguable not be speaking English, but a new language that just happens to use English words.

      Robot, discipline the dog with a newspaper.
      Should it use a newspaper to discipline the dog, or find the dog that poseses a newspaper and discipline that one?

      There's a reason "lawyer speak" exists. It's the same reason nobody speaks that way and few can easily understand it.

    23. Re:What about English? by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 2

      Hello, "normal" computer language IS mathematical.

      All your arguments are entirely touchy-feely in nature. And your example is nonsense.

      Basically, you want the computer to know *precisely* what you mean no matter how *imprecise* your instructions are, and this is very likely Never Ever Gonna Happen.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    24. Re: What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Great example. "... sum 1 + 1" is going to fail in basically any (formal) language, whether natural/english or programming. Perhaps you meant "Evaluate 1+1", or "Sum of 1 and 1". You're asking to add 1 and 1, in two ways. What if you said "ask a machine to sum 1 - 10" ? wtf is that supposed to mean?

    25. Re: What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It hasn't been done because it's impossible without placing severe restrictions on the definitions and syntax of the language. English (like most human languages) were designed with context in mind, something that often is not available at compile time and could cause different actions to take place should the context at execution time not match those the programmer envisioned when they gave them.

      Instruction: Robot, discipline the dog with a newspaper.
      Assuming the order is being stored for future use, what should the robot do?
      A) Wait for the dog to steal the morning paper, then discipline it?
      B) Purchase a newspaper, find the dog and begin whacking it?
      C) Make a note that any time the dog requires discipline that it ought to use a newspaper instead of a magazine?

    26. Re:What about English? by EzInKy · · Score: 1

      Interesting. Since normal people are 'touchy-feely" are you saying computers will never understand normal people?

      --
      Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
    27. Re: What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it doesn't

    28. Re: What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it will because SJWs will outlaw moat of the words due to their microaggressive power. we will be left with just about

      hungry, eat, sleep, home

    29. Re:What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe because computers aren't brains, embedded in a social context where meaning is highly dependent on use, and probably, being an upright walking ape. Computers do exactly what they're told, and so the compilers for programming languages must be able to compile to that exactness. Human language doesn't work that way. Humans aren't computers that you give exact, detailed instructions to. They're family members, potential mates, allies, or enemies that you have to work or compete with. They're not programmable tools.

    30. Re:What about English? by sysrammer · · Score: 2

      ...Humans have understood how to interpret human language, it is high time we taught our machines to do the same.

      I agree. This language is already written. COmmon Business Oriented Language, by the grace of Admiral Grace

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    31. Re: What about English? by arth1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It should not take a PhD to ask a machine to sum 1 + 1.

      (Presuming you meant "calculate 1 + 1" or "add1 and 1")
      It doesn't take a PhD. It doesn't take any education at all. Most kids these days know how to do that in multiple languages.

      But the problem is that the English or any other spoken language isn't formal.
      In the above calculation, what did you mean by 1? An abstract integer? A cardinal number? A measure between 0.5 and 1.5?
      And what is it supposed to do with the result of the above calculation? You didn't specify, so did you want it to discard the result? Execute it? Present it to you? How, exactly? Visual, audible, or tactile? As binary? With uncertainties like 2 +/- 1?
      And what should it do after that? Stop? Halt? Redo? Run NOP cycles until the cows come home? You didn't say.

      You have to be explicit and not ambiguous when you tell a computer to do something. We humans try to guess what you mean from the context, but a computer doesn't have that luxury. You have to provide the context. Doing so is much easier in a programming language than in English. Programming languages have a well-defined context, and you know what an instruction sequence will do. The languages are designed to avoid ambiguity.

      With human languages, you don't. You have to guess from context.
      If your wife says "lay down on the bed", you don't cut open a pillow and start to lay little feathers on the bed. You second-guess her and presume she meant "lie on the bed for an unspecified period of time".
      And if you say "make me one with everything", you expect different results depending on whether you address a hot dog seller or a zen master.
      Context is everything. And the computer doesn't have your context unless you first feed it to it.

    32. Re:What about English? by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      "Basically, you want the computer to know *precisely* what you mean no matter how *imprecise* your instructions are, and this is very likely Never Ever Gonna Happen."

      Yah. Oft stated "Do what I mean, not what I say".

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    33. Re: What about English? by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      You do have a point, even if the computer didn't get it perfect everytime it would be nice to get some things done as easily as you could asking a human. Use google to search for the first 100 gas stations in our city, put the names and addresses in a spreadsheet. Thanks.

      I agree. What Siri and others can do is still limited. I've often wanted the ability to do this.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    34. Re:What about English? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      The person you replied to already gave you a succinct answer. It had nothing to so with "silly compulsive shit over curly braces and indentation". English is far too complex and full of ambiguity.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    35. Re:What about English? by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      Yes, it is clear. In a nutshell, you gave the top-level instruction to the AI comp. To bad today's comps have limited understanding. Unless you have a Watson, of course. We're getting there.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    36. Re: What about English? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      One major lack in most natural languages is scope closers for conditionals or iteration. So it's not at all clear whether an IF governs the next sentence or the next ten.

      Now you can get round that with tricks like numbering or indenting the sections, but at that point it's already beyond a layman's ability to understand, let alone write. Congratulations, you've invented another programming language. One that looks like lawyerese.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    37. Re:What about English? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

      Humans have understood how to interpret human language, it is high time we taught our machines to do the same.

      I also think in addition to a magic computer language, we ought to issue free unicorns to everyone.

      Humans are intelligent, computers are not. Human language makes use of this feature, so humans can fill in the mising bits when a fellow human says somthing ambiguos or thats not quite rite and so on. Even so, plain English is full of ambiguities and imprecision. That's (a) why mistakes happen and (b) jargon dialects happen. People don't speak in jargon to be shitheads (despite the opinions of some people), jargon develops because speaking in "plain" English would be too slow and imprecise.

      So, OK, let's play a game. No human knows how to do everything, so let's assume that I don't know how to sort things in order. Obviously I do, but whatever I know you'll always be able to find something I don't know that you will need to describe step by step. So, assume I don't know how to sort.

      Now describe to me in English how I can sort, using step by step instructions.

      And no cheating: if you say "arrange them so that they are in alphabetical order", you're just telling me to sort them without saying how.

      So go on. Stop taking ill informed digs at people you've never met by complaining about curly braces and indentation and actually put some thought behind your position.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    38. Re: What about English? by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

      D) Write stories about how naughty the dog is and publish them in the FT.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    39. Re:What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or if you want something that's slightly more relevant in 2016 you have Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.

    40. Re:What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wasn't int at least 16 bit precision? C and C++ added explicit types to fix that mess.

    41. Re:What about English? by arth1 · · Score: 1

      Interesting. Since normal people are 'touchy-feely" are you saying computers will never understand normal people?

      Understand, no. Faking it with varying degrees of success, yes.

      But we don't accept varying degrees of success for machines that perform important tasks. We expect exactly one outcome except when we deliberately add randomness.

    42. Re:What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're right in general but something is lost, at least for the layman. For example, x = a / 4 is interesting if you change the language and say "take an a and divide it into 4 equal parts". Doesn't that give you more insight? I think a lot of physics would make more sense this way.

    43. Re: What about English? by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

      There's always COBOL.

    44. Re: What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not that difficult. GP wanted the sum of 1 + 1.

      That's the sum of three strings - 1, +, 1. Answer is clearly NaN.

    45. Re:What about English? by Drethon · · Score: 1

      And yet one of the biggest problems I see with programming is due to people defining programs imprecisely and becoming confused when the computer does something different from what they think they just told it to do.

    46. Re:What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Smalltalk is what you want in that case.

    47. Re:What about English? by fnj · · Score: 2

      Natural language computer instruction is a tantalizing goal. It would be very convenient for the human to employ, but singularly challenging for the computer to interpret. How the hell is it supposed to divine that a water pistol is not something made of water (nor does it shoot projectiles), and a wood stove is not made of wood. Is a wood table something intended to support wood?

      The reason Siri works is because it is presented with stupidly simplistic queries, and we accept crazily imprecise answers from it. I was struck by how cool and desirable the Star Trek computer was; how it instantly gave good usable responses to any kind of imprecise questions. But I quickly realized that the scenarios were unrealistic.

      "Captain, the ship is weirdly fucking up".

      "Computer, what is wrong?"

      How come the computer never replied "Imprecise query.", perhaps following up with "What do you mean, "wrong'? Do you mean 'mistaken', 'dishonest', 'immoral', 'unjust', 'incorrect', or 'unsuitable'?" Consider how ambiguous it is to ask "What's wrong with you?" It could mean "In what way do you feel ill?" Or it could mean "Why do you accept abuse?" or "why do you behave irrationally?" (usually with the word 'wrong' heavily emphasized). If you say "I feel badly", that actually means "the mechanism by which you experience physical contact is impaired".

      Anyone discussing the concept of natural language computer instruction had damn well better have read The Number of the Beast (Heinlein, 1980), and clearly understand the pitfalls it outlines.

    48. Re:What about English? by lurcher · · Score: 1

      The explanation is simple, read and try and understand the Dunning–Kruger effect.

      I will make it simple, here is a a link. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

    49. Re:What about English? by fnj · · Score: 1

      ...Humans have understood how to interpret human language, it is high time we taught our machines to do the same.

      I agree. This language is already written. COmmon Business Oriented Language, by the grace of Admiral Grace

      I was waiting for someone to bring up this UTTER FALLACY.

      COBOL is chatty/wordy, and resembles english, but it is not at all structured like english. It has very precise structural rules. You tell it "ADD X TO Y GIVING ANS", but you can't (productively) tell it "ANS IS X ADDED TO Y" or "ADD X AND Y TOGETHER TO GIVE ANS".

    50. Re: What about English? by HBI · · Score: 1

      No mod points, but what a hilarious thread (and so true).

      --
      HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    51. Re:What about English? by Ihlosi · · Score: 1
      I'm amazed that computers still can not simply take commands spoken by the average speaker of the nearly universal language "English" and perform those instructions to the letter.

      Be careful what you ask for.

    52. Re:What about English? by bondsbw · · Score: 1

      Seriously, how many people do you know who say "2^3.1459" when ordering a couple of cheese burgers?

      What does raising 2 to the power of pi have to do with cheese burgers?

      Maybe that's why it isn't used.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    53. Re:What about English? by Sperbels · · Score: 1

      Be careful what you ask for.

      Indeed... "Alexa, bring about world peace." [Alexa kills everyone]

    54. Re:What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      People tried "do what I mean" constructs earlier in computer programming history. Some dialects of Lisp had a DWIM function. Fun results happened when it was compiled into shells, like:

      >rm *.o
      *.o not found. Assuming you mean *

    55. Re:What about English? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      It's COBOL!

    56. Re:What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I always thought it would have to be some form of lisp where the parentheses were inferred automatically by some kind of ultra parallel genetic algorithm simulating all possible messages and the probability of the desirability of their implications in a given context.

    57. Re:What about English? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      The hard part of programming is to transform something ambiguous (often written in English) to something formal and unambiguous. Once you can do that, you find that there's lots of better formal languages than English.

      Heck, try the average English speaker on legalese, which is a way of using the language to try to be clear and unambiguous. That's the best-case scenario for English as a programming language.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    58. Re:What about English? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      What you're looking for is full understanding (since you don't want to limit English to special forms), which means full human-level intelligence, which is often called "strong AI". Despite many decades of research, we're nowhere near that yet, and we don't even know how to do it.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    59. Re:What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One example of using English to specify something in a very complex and fairly precise domain: legalese.
      It manages to use a natural language to describe things in a specialized and complex codified domain of knowledge.
      The results are almost as incomprehensible to non-lawyers as C code is to non-programmers.

    60. Re:What about English? by JustSomeProgrammer · · Score: 1

      This is probably the most lucid counter argument to natural language programming I have seen. Hell we often need to spend 30 minutes discussing design before people on my team are all on the same page with what we need to do. And we're all operating under the assumption that everyone giving us work has the same vision we're decided on, and even that isn't always true.

    61. Re:What about English? by shanen · · Score: 1

      English is provably incomplete and ambiguous. Check Godel.

      Then again, same is true of any sufficiently sophisticated computer language.

      Surprised no mention in this branch, but that's today's Slashdot.

      --
      Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
    62. Re: What about English? by Pembers · · Score: 1

      A robot that's smart enough to do any of A, B or C should (1) be able to figure out from context and history which one you most likely meant and (2) when it can't do (1), ask you questions until it can figure out which one you meant.

    63. Re:What about English? by Pembers · · Score: 1

      The Enterprise computer never complained about imprecise queries because that wouldn't have moved the plot forward (unless the plot was something like "a hostile alien has taken over the computer"). It would give the impression that the character who gave the query didn't know how to use the computer, which just slows down the story for no good reason and makes the character seem incompetent.

    64. Re: What about English? by poofmeisterp · · Score: 1

      Ah ha ha ha. Surely the bible was written to inform. Human language Is so spectacularly imprecise that the debates rage on. Define you terms, use a formal grammar; profit.

      ...and the language behind the bible's language is still being debugged and modified to this day. Did you mean to have 'profit' in the same post as bible, or 'prophet'?
      Ehe.

    65. Re:What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      from 0 to 9 using integer i

      from 0 = initial value
      to 9 = final value
      using integer i = specifies the counter

    66. Re: What about English? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      If you think it's that easy, get off your arse and do it,

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    67. Re:What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Give me 5 apples or 3 pears and 2 strawberries.

    68. Re:What about English? by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      Nowadays, "Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code" is only used by Neo Object Oriented Boolean Synthesis.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    69. Re:What about English? by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      ...Humans have understood how to interpret human language, it is high time we taught our machines to do the same.

      I agree. This language is already written. COmmon Business Oriented Language, by the grace of Admiral Grace

      I was waiting for someone to bring up this UTTER FALLACY.

      COBOL is chatty/wordy, and resembles english, but it is not at all structured like english. It has very precise structural rules. You tell it "ADD X TO Y GIVING ANS", but you can't (productively) tell it "ANS IS X ADDED TO Y" or "ADD X AND Y TOGETHER TO GIVE ANS".

      I'm am pleased to to be able to bring joy to your life. Yes, it was the first (and last?) attempt. We pro's have gone far beyond, and prefer to write code that looks like line noise.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    70. Re:What about English? by cwsumner · · Score: 1

      If people can't explain what they want to other people, what sense does it make to expect a computer to understant it?? 8-)

    71. Re:What about English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Personally, I prefer

      for i from 0 to 10

      the best. ;-)

      Whenever I have the time to create my own language, I'll set it in stone. As for now, Python seems to be the quickest prototyping language for me.

    72. Re:What about English? by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      Siri makes mistakes because of ambiguities in the English language, unacceptable for a programming language.

  6. Language Similarities by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are so many language similarities it doesn't matter. So many have copied/'borrowed' features from other languages. You don't create a new car by adding ++ or # to the name 'Ford'.

    I drive a
    Ford++
    Ford#

  7. What I learned from this article by destinyland · · Score: 1

    The author says you should learn multiple languages, which I think is correct. The "popularity" question is really just a way to figure out which languages it's most important to brush up on if/when you're looking for your next job.

    And there's really no surprise there. The "C family of languages," and also Python, is a pretty good start.

    1. Re:What I learned from this article by Nemyst · · Score: 1

      Frankly, I'd say even that's a stretch. If you're looking for a job, you're probably looking for something more specific than "programming". Frontend programmers, systems programmers, embedded programmers, game programmers, web programmers are all going to want to brush up on specific skillsets. Learning C is pointless for a web dev, just like you'd never learn Python in embedded development.

    2. Re:What I learned from this article by zenith1111 · · Score: 1

      just like you'd never learn Python in embedded development.

      That is far from the truth. Python is used quite a lot in embedded systems.

      People who sneer when we use anything other than C in embedded must be the same ones that sneer when we use C instead of assembler on microcontrollers. These people probably still think we are in the early 1990s regarding prices/performance/compilers. It's funny when someones claims assembly is 20% faster or smaller when the application doesn't need it, or the extra development time is significantly more expensive than using a bigger part that has more resources for 0.10 cents more, or the price the other guy will have to pay to fix your cryptic assembly code in the future. But guess what, most people are not virtuosos, code generated by a compiler is likely faster than most things they could write in assembly.

      So yes, Python code, like most languages, can be clean, reliable and made testable and if the performance is more than adequate for a given application, why do people keep bashing what others do?

      Oh, [/RANT]

    3. Re:What I learned from this article by Nemyst · · Score: 2

      I'm talking about places where you don't even have the memory space to load up the basic libraries for Python (or hell, even C). If you can fit Python in your microcontroller, then awesome, I'm not a C fan in the slightest but I understand why sometimes it's the only choice (or one out of a very limited selection).

  8. Most popular language by SeriousTube · · Score: 2

    Pascal.

    1. Re:Most popular language by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      French.

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    2. Re:Most popular language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pascal was overtaken by Objective Pascal, with the most popular variant going by "Delphi". Though, even it isn't very popular these days.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi_(programming_language)

    3. Re:Most popular language by cwsumner · · Score: 1

      Pascal New Version = Modula-2

  9. PHP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If you are not some autistic savant and want to earn a decent living with plenty of work opportunities, learn PHP and an accompanying framework and you will be sweet!

    1. Re: PHP by darkain · · Score: 2

      What defines a "programming language" anymore to where PHP doesn't fall under this? C/C++ can be ran from an interpreter or JIT compiler. HipHop can compile PHP into native code. So what separates them?

    2. Re: PHP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      PHP is as much a "programming language" as BASIC is, by CS standards.

      In fact, when I first started learning PHP I practiced by translating old BASIC games into PHP command line games.

      Funny, your comment reminds me of what CS elitists used to say about BASIC back in the '70s.

    3. Re: PHP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had to go and get my old Programming Languages text from when I studied Computer Science in college, it's Programming Languages: Structures and Models by Herbert L. Dershem and Michael J. Jipping.

      In the introduction, they give a working definition of a programming language as "a language intended to be used by a person to express a process by which a computer can solve a problem."

      I'm curious what aspect of PHP you think doesn't meet that definition?

      (Not that curious, in case you're planning a long rant)

    4. Re: PHP by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      PHP is as much a "programming language" as BASIC is, by CS standards.

      If that's your standard, Python would be in the same class of non-programming languages.

      Hell, even JavaScript has lexically scoped variables.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    5. Re: PHP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The point is, there's no feature of PHP (no matter how poorly chosen or incongruous) that doesn't also appear in some "real" programming language like C, Fortran, or Lisp.

    6. Re: PHP by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      Still true of Python.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    7. Re: PHP by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      A "millennial" wouldn't use the terms "autistic savant".

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    8. Re: PHP by William+Robinson · · Score: 1

      My dad is taller than your dad. :P

    9. Re: PHP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hell, even JavaScript has lexically scoped variables.

      That very much depends on which version of JavaScript you're using.

    10. Re: PHP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The aspect where it sucks?

    11. Re: PHP by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      I refer to any version since it was called LiveScript. Eich designed it to have the same scoping semantics as Scheme.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    12. Re: PHP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I haven't found it to suck very much. It's mostly like programming C but with dynamic typing.

      Sure, it's ugly, but most of the "gotchas" are not a problem in practice. It's straightforward and gets me results fast, which makes it a win in my book.

    13. Re: PHP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Considering that PHP has "preprocessor" in the name, something that is merely a component of most languages, one can only deduce that every single person commenting on this thread is a shit programmer. Wait, what was the question?

    14. Re: PHP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      PHP was intended to preprocess hypertext, which it does as a web server module. But your PHP program doesn't have to have any hypertext in it at all.

      But you know that, you're just being disingenuous.

  10. Don't know original source by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
    1. Re:Don't know original source by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      C is the one with the same STDs as Hillary ?

  11. irrelevant. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

    The language du jour can be the most popular topic in any given year. What really matters is how effective a language is for solving a problem and how easy it is to modify when you're solution has bugs.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:irrelevant. by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      "A good programmer can write good code in any language. A bad programmer will write bad code in all of them."

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:irrelevant. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A good programmer has the potential to write good code in any language. Or they might write C in Python.

  12. The title and the summary do not match by chrism238 · · Score: 0

    Clickbait question - which programming language is the most popular - meaning which is used the most, or which is adored by more people? Never mind, the summary then ignores the issue of popularity altogether, and turns the question into which language is most important to study. Being important to study may have no relationship to popularity, or should we all study Pokemon Go? Amazing. Did the poster first learn the language named 'English'?

  13. Pass on those four by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "The top cluster contains Java, C, Python, and C++. Without a doubt, you should attain familiarity with these four languages."

    I make quite a nice salary, and feel quite comfortable I will continue to without using any of those languages.
    Between C#, JavaScript, R, and SQL, my plate and bank account are full and will continue to be so.
    I don't think I could step back into the stone-age IDE's and features of Java, Python, and C++ without suffering withdrawal symptoms from missing C#/.NET async language features and API's anyway.

    1. Re: Pass on those four by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I prefer driving an automatic over a manual transmission too. If you can appreciate the shortcuts and know how they save you instead of sink you; work it.

    2. Re:Pass on those four by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      I don't think I could step back into the stone-age IDE's and features of Java,

      Compared to C#? This is how we know you're trolling.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re:Pass on those four by Racemaniac · · Score: 1

      Care to clarify? as a C# developer, coming into contact with the java world always does feel like going back to 10+ years ago.

    4. Re: Pass on those four by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      I prefer driving an automatic over a manual transmission too.

      Well, if you're driving a car, for sure. But it would be a serious mistake to install an automatic transmission in a freight locomotive or heavy truck.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    5. Re:Pass on those four by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Starting with the IDE, Visual Studio is way behind the Java world unless you start adding plugins like resharper.

      As for the language, Java hasn't been standing still, a lot of the features that were missing before have been added in the newer versions of the language.

      Then there is nuget which drives me crazy and I hate. TBH recently he C# world is becoming too much like the node.js world for my taste.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    6. Re:Pass on those four by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1. Netbeans beat Visual Studio any time.

      2. Stone age ? what about the nut case that decided to have partial classes in C# ??????

    7. Re: Pass on those four by fnj · · Score: 1

      But it would be a serious mistake to install an automatic transmission in a freight locomotive or heavy truck.

      Locomotives are practically all either electric (no variable transmission at all) or diesel-electric (the ultimate "automatic" transmission; one with infinite ratio selection). Really heavy equipment almost always has an automatic transmission of some sort. The Caterpillar 797 400-ton mining truck (4000 hp) has an automatic transmission with 7 forward speeds and a torque converter.

    8. Re:Pass on those four by 91degrees · · Score: 1

      SQL and any reasonably modern programming language (or even some of the older ones) is pretty useful, a long as you know your database stuff.

    9. Re: Pass on those four by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      The Caterpillar 797 400-ton mining truck (4000 hp) has an automatic transmission with 7 forward speeds and a torque converter.

      That's a bit heavier than I was thinking of, but I have to say, that surprises me. Torque converters tend to slip under heavy loads. What am I missing?

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    10. Re: Pass on those four by cwsumner · · Score: 1

      The Caterpillar 797 400-ton mining truck (4000 hp) has an automatic transmission with 7 forward speeds and a torque converter.

      That's a bit heavier than I was thinking of, but I have to say, that surprises me. Torque converters tend to slip under heavy loads. What am I missing?

      Accurate control is much more important than raw power or efficiancy.

    11. Re: Pass on those four by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      Makes sense. The underlying point that I was trying to make is not that machines over a certain size shouldn't have manual transmissions, but simply that automatic transmissions are not the right tool for the job all the time.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    12. Re: Pass on those four by cwsumner · · Score: 1

      True. And those big transmissions used in heavy stuff are not much like the automatic transmissions used in personal cars.

      Automatics are getting better, but I still have a manual in my car! 8-)

  14. Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by Tablizer · · Score: 2

    Indeed. The "money" languages are Php, C-sharp, and Java, for good or bad.

    I'm curious why the intro called Php "tied to a specific programming platform". I'd like clarification on that.

    1. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by dgatwood · · Score: 2

      And JavaScript, too....

      Maybe they meant "some of the languages in the second tier"?

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    2. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      JavaScript is mostly client-side programming because there are not many viable alternatives for the client of web stacks. Despite the node.js talk, JS is still not popular on the server side.

      If something came along to replace or reduce programming on the client side, JS usage could shrink quickly.

      Server-side languages are probably safer from UI fads and trends.

    3. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

      PHP is relegated to web servers? So the platform it would be tied to is "the web".
      In constrast, some languages can be used for web back-end, general scripting and full applications.

    4. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by Princeofcups · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If they include javascript, why not perl? I find it hard to believe that there are more R programmers than perl scripters.

      --
      The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
    5. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by h33t+l4x0r · · Score: 2

      R is actually useful to learn whereas Perl scripters are mosty just old guys who never picked up Python.

    6. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      If something came along to replace or reduce programming on the client side, JS usage could shrink quickly.

      WebAssembly. It's supported by most major browsers (experimentally) and has a W3C working group ironing out the details.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    7. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      PHP works just fine as a general-purpose scripting language. No web server required.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    8. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      Apparently you haven't heard about the PHP-Objective-C Bridge. (I wish I were kidding.)

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    9. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by h33t+l4x0r · · Score: 1

      Don't forget the desktop. I recently made a hello world desktop app with node and Electron framework and it only took up 100MB disk space.

      Seriously though Atom editor is my favorite editor lately and if someone told me a year ago I'd be using a text editor written in javascript I would have laughed.

    10. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wondered about this. Javascript really should not be in the 'tied to specific platform' box. It's absolutely not; there are multiple implementations of JS running in multiple contexts.

      PHP, it's a bit more arguable, because there's really only been one standard implementation (the implementation is the reference).

      With HHVM this is now not true. But I'll allow the author that he might not know that.

      (Python definitely has at least two well-known implementations adhering to a single standard)

    11. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not really 'just fine', but yeah.

    12. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you actually had a choice, why would you include perl?

    13. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by Xest · · Score: 1

      R has a big following amongst people who aren't actually programmers per-se. Typically you see it used for analytics everywhere ranging from credit scoring, to insurance risk analysis, to demographic/health/geographic analysis by health services, city planning services and so on and so forth.

      That's probably why R does so well because although it's not a great choice for programmers in a lot of cases, it's fantastic for analysts.

    14. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by Nemyst · · Score: 1

      PHP is almost exclusively used on Linux and is restricted to web development, whereas you can see Java everywhere. Same as C# is mostly Windows.

    15. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by Nemyst · · Score: 1

      I think you might want to wake up from 1990, Javascript is significantly more popular than Perl these days. Virtually all websites use Javascript in some form, and there's a lot of them. I'm guessing R is getting a boost for non-programmers using it, since that gives it a much larger pool to work from.

    16. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Non-programmers is an odd and, frankly, condescending term for people actively using a programming language. Non-developers is clearer.

    17. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perl and python have opposite philosophies:

      - "There's more than one way to do it" (perl)

      - "There should be one, and preferably only one, obvious way to do it" (python)

      fyi, I'm in the perl camp. I can't get over feeling constrained in python, and frustrated with the verbosity required. Perl feels very expressive to me, and I like that. I make it a priority to create readable and well documented code, not using anything trickier than the basic language features.

      I also realize that not all python programmers are n00bs who took a couple of python classes and copy/paste half their code from google :-p

    18. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by Nemyst · · Score: 1

      In this context, I mean people who are programmers first, as opposed to statisticians or whatever else (the job title, basically).

    19. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Php runs on Windows, and is NOT restricted to web development. True, Linux and web is where it's most often used, but that's not the same as "tied to". I reject their classification.

    20. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      PHP is almost exclusively used on Linux and is restricted to web development

      What a crock of shit. Both PHP and JavaScript can be used in non web development. Just not many people do because there are other more established/efficient ways. But can you do it? Yes. Should you do it? Up to you. Enjoy the freedom to do whatever the fuck you want with whatever language you want, even if it doesn't make sense. If you are having fun who cares. If you have to work with a bunch of people use what you all know that gets the job done the easiest. Everything else is just pissing into the wind, making it difficult for yourself and everyone else standing behind you.

    21. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      Because in PHP, and int is 32 bits on a 32 bits system, and 64 on x64...

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    22. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      That will just fracture the (top level) client-side programming languages and not really solve the problem.

      I personally think the main problem is fat clients and too many versions/variations of them. It's Testers Hell, comparable to DLL Hell.

    23. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by myrdos2 · · Score: 1

      Having dabbled in a little R, I have to say I was surprised to see it in the top 10. First, everyone I know uses SPSS. And, why are so many people into statistical analysis anyways? I would have guessed that there might be one statistician for, say, every 100 web developers or so.

    24. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      The problem with anything in JS + DOM is that version n + x of the browser comes out and the app stops working right.

      We try to force a browser to act like a desktop GUI, and it often backfires because it was not designed to be a full desktop-like GUI, and our stack of kludges eventually bytes us in the ass.

      People, we are doing network UI's wrong. Time for a new standard. JS+Dom keeps sucking rotting eggs over and over in different combinations of suckativity.

    25. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is my experience, having done a few years of statistical consulting, that researchers in social science, education, and other areas where they are likely to be much weaker in the mathematical foundations of statistics tend to use SPSS. Scientists and engineers use R or SAS.

    26. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      What do you consider to be the problem in the browser, actually? It won't be fractured anymore than the backend already is.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    27. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      The problem with the browser is that HTML browsers were not originally designed to act like and/or mirror desktop-style GUI's. However, that's exactly what the industry has been trying to do for the past 2 decades, and badly. Even the big vendors F up their UI's.

      If a browser were designed UP FRONT to be GUI-oriented, then browsers wouldn't need to download giant GUI JS libraries to try to mirror real GUI's. It's almost like every app downloading an OS to run. Dumb! Illogical! Bad humans!

      One of my common suggestions is to make the (GUI) browser be a "dumb" vector plotter: plot shapes and input boxes based on simple linear coordinates. The flow and relative placement control would be done on the server side. This would greatly simplify the client and related standards.

      That way you have only ONE layout/flow engine instead of 50-ish you have to test for on the client (Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android, times each version X, version Y, etc. etc.) Fonts would be a little trickier, but I've kicked around various solutions for those that would take a while to describe here.

      I'm tired of UI's breaking and overlapping wrong in different ways on different browsers/devices. I'd rather have the 90's DLL Hell back instead of this insidious Render Hell.

      Lets do it logically this time. First, we have to admit we fucked up really bad and turned UI's into rocket science. Actually, rocket science is easier: it follows physics, while the HTML stack follows Chaos Theory. It's great job security until you count your grey hairs and Tums.

    28. Re:Php tied to platform? [Re:PHP] by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      Let me know when bash gets decent XML API support.

      More seriously: I spend a fair amount of time processing XML and/or transforming it to/from other things. Sometimes it's easier to write a stylesheet and then call xsltproc from a bash script. Other times, it's easier to use something like DOM, which PHP supports. (I'm sorry, as much as I love some of Python's features, the whitespace nonsense just drives me bonkers.) And of course you can invoke PHP scripts from bash and vice versa as well.

      Just be glad you don't have to use my apps, which, fortunately, only I and occasionally members of my team have to suffer with. :-)

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  15. Too funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Guess that means I will ALWAYS have a job being a master C, C++, PHP and Assembly programmer. :)

    1. Re:Too funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you have to describe yourself as a "master" programmer, you probably aren't much of a programmer.

  16. A technology columnist? by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 0

    I might ask him for advice if I wanted to become a tech writer - but why would I particularly care about his opinion regarding what language(s) I should learn or use?

    Heck, where I work old stodgy perl is the language of choice. I'm glad I learned it.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  17. Which programming language! by Camel+Pilot · · Score: 5, Funny

    Man I am falling behind... I have never heard of the Which programming language and here we are told that it is the most popular. And I thought I was a software professional. BTW just so I have straight is it WHICH or Which or just which - I don't want to embarrass myself at the next meeting when I propose we do the next project in Which.

    1. Re:Which programming language! by sorenstoutner · · Score: 1

      Man I am falling behind... I have never heard of the Which programming language and here we are told that it is the most popular. And I thought I was a software professional. BTW just so I have straight is it WHICH or Which or just which - I don't want to embarrass myself at the next meeting when I propose we do the next project in Which.

      Technically it is whiCH, designed for macOS.

    2. Re:Which programming language! by sorenstoutner · · Score: 1

      Technically it is whiCH, designed for macOS.

      Although there already is a fork that goes by the name of whITCH, because it scratches the itches the other languages don't.

    3. Re:Which programming language! by Solandri · · Score: 1

      C: Which programming language is the most popular?
      A: That's right.
      C: What is?
      A: No, Which is.
      C: What?
      A: What didn't make the top 10.
      C: What didn't?
      A: That's right.
      C: ... Ok, so if I were going to program using the most common language, it would be which?
      A: Right.
      C: What's right?
      A: No, What didn't make the top 10.
      C: What didn't?
      A: Right.
      C: Which language didn't?
      A: No, Which was the top language.
      C: Which was?
      A: Right.

    4. Re:Which programming language! by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      Thank you. You saved me a few cycles and came up with something better to boot.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    5. Re:Which programming language! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought they named it Whitch because it uses fhloats on whater and dhuck thyping.

    6. Re:Which programming language! by xtsigs · · Score: 1

      I thought they named it Whitch because it uses fhloats on whater and dhuck thyping.

      Little know fact: It was originally just WITCH which stood for Witchy Information TechnoCrap Hack. wHitch is the so called "Hell" fork which used a special 13 character keyboard composed of those symbols you see in occult movies.

      Both names were given because the code sometimes did not execute as expected probably due to weird unexplained forces. Wait. That pretty much applies to most code regardless of language. Never mind.

    7. Re: Which programming language! by Entrope · · Score: 1

      It's hard to top Laurel and Hardy.

    8. Re:Which programming language! by dogvomit · · Score: 2

      Do they program in Which in What? (Motherfucker.)

    9. Re: Which programming language! by RoccamOccam · · Score: 1

      Abbott and Costello.

    10. Re:Which programming language! by WallyL · · Score: 1

      So then you go to a conference and they ask you, "How good is your witchcraft?" and you reply, "Expelliarmus, thank you!"

    11. Re:Which programming language! by jetkust · · Score: 1

      I've heard of Which, but I've never heard of The Final Answer.

    12. Re:Which programming language! by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Which.node++ 2.0 is already out; damn you are behind!

    13. Re:Which programming language! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You should ask Whatson.

    14. Re:Which programming language! by nephilimsd · · Score: 1

      Just gonna leave this here http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id...

    15. Re: Which programming language! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is hard to top Laurel & Hardy, but Abbot & Costello did, at least in the context of the Which language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV-fg

    16. Re:Which programming language! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which is outdated. The newest is Have which is build off Go. Seriously, WTF is with programming language names?

    17. Re:Which programming language! by shanen · · Score: 1

      How to shoot yourself in the foot with WHICH:

      Which foot shoot which bullet print which "ouch" signed ADA sigh "Hello foot"

      --
      Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
    18. Re:Which programming language! by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Seriously, WTF is with programming language names?

      WTF has been superseded by HolyShit++

  18. Popularity ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > the number of job listings
    > the number of tutorials

    So, you rate the popularity of languages by the number of empty desks (job listings) where no one is writing code and by the number of accesses by people who don't know the language (tutorials).

  19. "C" darn it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "C" is the final answer, that's what is in common with most of those languages.

    1. Re:"C" darn it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      C programs core dump.

  20. Human nature means this question keeps on coming by shoor · · Score: 1

    Yes, we moan and groan and point out flaws in the methodologies, cite counter-examples etc. It applies to both the topic of this thread, "Which language is most popular?" and also the similar question, "Which language is best?" But the investigations will not go away because people really, really, really want to know. Programmers starting out want to know so they can find good jobs. Corporations want to know what language to use to build up their own particular software edifice. And finally, computer scientists want to know because they're scientists (Yes, they really are, some of them anyway.) And it piques their scientific curiosity and finding a way to determine the answers is a challenge, and they want to be able to design better languages.

    --
    In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
  21. It's just how easy you want to make it... by Stonent1 · · Score: 1

    People who primarily program in C are probably not writing the same kinds of programs that people who program in PHP, Java or C# are making. C people are writing for performance, compactness, an embedded system or for an OS. PHP people are probably mostly web services type people. C# makes it very easy to put together something to stick in front of someone's face. For example I recently put together a GUI front end in C# that makes calls to a REST based API on a web based management tool, because it was hosted off site, slow and required a lot of navigation to get what you wanted. The clicking, and wait 10 to 15 seconds then click again was replaced by a series of combo boxes in a windows form so that you could select what you wanted to do, type in a parameter that gets input validated before the web call is made and hit submit. Things that were on separate web pages were all front and center. Of course Java is for portability, serverlets, and Android applications. If you know Java, you can pick up C# and vice versa. I've converted simple applications C# to Java and simple Java to C# by pasting the Java code into visual studio as-is (or the C# code into Netbeans as-is) and started doing find and replace for most of the obvious stuff. Hit compile and see what error came up, ok need to replace "string" with "String", Console.Write with System.Out.Print. Replace a TryParse with a parse and a Try/Catch. In the end they start to look more and more alike. If your IDE is a fairly helpful kind, it will auto-fix silly things like capitalization along the way. Heck I love how easy it is to decompile C# and Java so I can see how other people do stuff when it's a closed source application.

  22. Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Tools in a box. It's the compyootah nerds who will never be popular. :)

  23. Editors: Please stop posting stupid topics by cpm99352 · · Score: 0

    Yes, these idiotic posts get lots of responses... But do you really want to be the next Gawker?

    For any young programmers out there, forget these stupid polls. Instead, take a look at job postings on craigslist, indeed, etc. to see what your local market demands. This post, for instance, excludes c# which is a very marketable language. Ditto w/ SQL.

    1. Re:Editors: Please stop posting stupid topics by Nemyst · · Score: 2

      No it doesn't, C#'s just classified under the second category because it's still largely Windows-centric. I'm guessing SQL often isn't reported because it's being used through an application written in another language.

    2. Re:Editors: Please stop posting stupid topics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      SQL is not a programming language.

    3. Re:Editors: Please stop posting stupid topics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > SQL is not a programming language.

      Yes it is.

      It's a declarative special-pupose programming language, and some variants are Turing-complete:

      http://stackoverflow.com/questions/900055/is-sql-or-even-tsql-turing-complete

  24. popcorn please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I like the mental masturbation like this. Sometimes there are quite interesting posts even and the subject is perfect for a site for geeks. Let the fight of geeks commence and better troll win!

  25. Hillary Endorses The C Language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because:

    A) It was created by the 1% to make sure the 1% can hack your computer and uncover your conspiracy to vote for someone not approved by the 1%.
    B) It has now underflow, overflow or range checks. Good for Virus writers.
    C) It has no built-in array bounds checks. Good for Virus writers.
    D) Pointers can easily be invalid or point to freed memory. Good for Virus writers.

  26. Too easy to get hung up on one language by DrXym · · Score: 1
    I find the best way for my skills to remain relevant is to have the day-job language(s) and learn a new one on the side. And by learn a new one I don't mean just reading a book or doing some crappy tutorial. I mean write something substantial and functional in it. Something you can stick on the resume because the project is open sourced or otherwise visible to someone who cares to look for it. Open source is best because they can see your actual code and your authorship.

    Even if the new language turns out to be a dud it's still a good exercise since it demonstrates to an employer (and to yourself) that you are motivated, can adapt and are capable of learning new skills.

    1. Re:Too easy to get hung up on one language by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      remain relevant [by having a] day-job language(s) and learn a new one on the side

      That makes my shoulder cramp up.

  27. Well... by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

    My best advice to all of you engineers in the Class of 1890 is to bet your careers on coal-powered steam. Yes, we hear talk of internal-combustion this and electric-power that, but they are all just expensive novelties. Coal is efficient, it provides for many jobs among the lower classes in the mining industry, and is also unwasteful in that most of it literally disappears into the sky, far away from the refined mouths of gentlemen like yourselves.

    Besides, the electric power proposals proposed rely on coal-powered steam, so why not just cut out the inefficient middle-man?

    All of the great engines of our industry today are powered by coal-powered steam. Would you have us return to the days of the wind-mill or water-wheel? I think not.

    Believe me, young engineer, you will never want for a well-paying career if you just stick with coal-powered steam.

    --
    sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    1. Re:Well... by Xtifr · · Score: 1
    2. Re:Well... by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      No, but you can run a Byrhtnoth cluster of them.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    3. Re:Well... by tomhath · · Score: 1

      My best advice to all of you engineers in the Class of 1890 is to bet your careers on coal-powered steam

      That would have been very good advice. Coal powered steam was the main source of power for the entire working life of those engineers - electricity generation, trains, ships, heat, it was everywhere for a long time after 1890.

    4. Re:Well... by dwsobw · · Score: 1

      And even though we do not use coal power engines anymore, coal powered steam still is a third of the US electricity production (40% globally).

    5. Re:Well... by PPH · · Score: 1

      Following that logic, Perl must be the most popular. Because it runs the Internet.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    6. Re:Well... by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      That would have been very good advice.

      My point precisely. The best tool for the job is rarely the best-paying tool for the job.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
  28. The Final Frontier by jandersen · · Score: 1

    In other news, space is the the final frontier. And tab is eight spaces.

    1. Re: The Final Frontier by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Space may be the final frontier but it's made in a Hollywood basement.

    2. Re: The Final Frontier by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck off with your shitty late-era Red Hot Chili Peppers.

  29. Now you tell me. by xtsigs · · Score: 1

    Programming is not just an intellectual exercise. You have to actually make stuff.

    Shit.

  30. Java and C# are not C-based by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    >Java, C++, C, C#, and even Objective-C are all C-based languages.

    Java and C# are LISP-based, not C-based (even the creators of Java said so). What makes you say they are C-based?

  31. Objective what now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Saying Objective-C is a C based language is like saying my arsehole is part of my tits. Just making small talk. :)

  32. Java is not C-based by DocInverter · · Score: 0

    How can anybody in their right mind maintain that Java is C-based? The only thing that is relatively C-like in Java is the syntax, but the virtual machine and object models are so far away that it isn't even funny. Welcome to the superficial world.

    1. Re:Java is not C-based by itsdapead · · Score: 1

      The only thing that is relatively C-like in Java is the syntax

      ...and if you take that as the definition of "C-based" then every language mentioned in TFS is "C-based" apart from Python. Silly article.

      Also silly because the hard bit of learning a new "language" is not the language per se (all the languages discussed are multi-paradigm with a procedural/OO slant - no Lisp/Smalltalk/Haskell in that list) but the framework(s) and APIs associated with a new platform (which is usually why you are switching language).

      --
      In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
    2. Re:Java is not C-based by abies · · Score: 1

      The only thing that is relatively C-like in Java is the syntax

      ...and if you take that as the definition of "C-based" then every language mentioned in TFS is "C-based" apart from Python.

      R is even further away than Python. I would still consider Python being close in mindset to C. Compare mental gymnastics required for C/Java programmer to switch to Python, versus moving to Lisp, Haskell or Prolog.

      While we can discuss how far Python is exactly from others in that family, Java is really, really similar to C++. Especially old java to old C++. Real difference starts when you start going into non-trivial template programming in C++ (visible in boost in some places), but your 'normal Joe' run-of-the-mill code is really same thing. Biggest difference in everyday use (memory management) is NOT what differentiates family of languages.

    3. Re:Java is not C-based by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and an idiot made python use spaces, fucking hipsters....

    4. Re:Java is not C-based by jetkust · · Score: 2

      It is "C-based" because of the syntax. That is exactly what it means.

    5. Re:Java is not C-based by DocInverter · · Score: 0

      And that is exactly what I am calling out as wrong, it implies that superficial, syntactical resemblance is more important than the large semantical differences. This is not just a theoretical issue, I have seen way too many people being confused by this, in a working environment, starting to copy code and ideas between Java and C++ and wondering why it behaved differently.

  33. Wrong survey... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They survey shouldn't ask what language is used by most people, but the earnings (wages) of each language. Rise a stone and a tone of people will code java (=low wages), if fewer people use a language, I'm guessing it'll be better to learn it so you get better paid.

  34. Modern locos typically have fixed gear ratios by mschaffer · · Score: 1

    A serious mistake, indeed, if you put an automatic or manual transmission on a modern freight locomotive as they typically operate with fixed gear ratios. Most modern locos are diesel electric and speed control is accomplished by controlling current and switching motor coils between parallel and serial configurations.

    Of course this is a hardware problem and not a software problem. Besides, from the programmer's point of view there may be a virtual loco machine that would appear to the programmer as a set of gears...

  35. Seriously, who's the troll now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You do realize that you can program with C# very effectively without Visual Studio or Nuget. Also, many will argue that Java is still missing "a lot of the features" that have yet to be added to newer versions of the language. All languages have this problem, depending on what "a lot of the features" actually refers to. (Do you write speeches for Trump?) Go home and take your parochial Java-centric views with you.

    1. Re:Seriously, who's the troll now? by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Also, many will argue that Java is still missing "a lot of the features" that have yet to be added to newer versions of the language

      The copying goes both ways. Maybe eventually C# will get a decent time package like Nodatime.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  36. Excuse me, but... by codeButcher · · Score: 1

    ... one should not confuse "popular" with "much-used" or "in demand". Often, one programs in a language because it is required (legacy, sunk cost decision, etc.), but it is not a popular choice.

    --
    Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
  37. I think the results are skewed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anyone who's been in the job market should know that C and C++ are not highly sought after in job postings. C and C++ are very common in academia and often the first language a student will learn. So I think Google searches and SO posts are heavily skewed by students, which diminishes the quality of the conclusion. In any case the language you learn in school is not that important to your career. The job you end up with will expect you to learn their stack which will almost never involve C and rarely involve C++. But I'd rather take someone out of school who is good at C than someone who only knows Java because someone who gets out of school with strong C skills will usually have a good understanding of Unix and OS fundamentals.

  38. Algorithm Design by Drethon · · Score: 1

    Everything else is just a way to translate design into a language a compiler can translate into machine language.

    Curious to see if this gets voted up or down.

  39. Programming Fundamentals by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

    "So learning how to learn languages is as important as learning a language -- and the best way to do that is to learn more than one."

    You mean how to program, i.e., programming fundamentals, the stuff they teach in computer science.

  40. Murphy Says... by sycodon · · Score: 4, Funny

    It will be the language least suited to your task, but insisted upon by your managers.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  41. The Final Answer?! Sorry... by rainwalker · · Score: 1

    There is, as yet, insufficient data for a meaningful answer.

    1. Re:The Final Answer?! Sorry... by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      Money? Java, C# and PHP. Fun? C, C++, Perl, Lisp.

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
  42. Which.js by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It transpiles into JavaScript, just like every other language out there.

  43. Most Popular? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is like the song Popular by Nada Surf.

    "Being attractive is the most important thing there is
    If you want to be the biggest fish in your pond
    You have to be as attractive as possible
    Make sure your hair is spotless and clean"

    - Nada Surf - Popular

    So which language is the most attractive?! ;) I might just have to dump them all at least once. ;)

  44. Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Without a doubt, you should attain familiarity with these four languages."

    Why should you, when two of them, Java and Python, are toy languages used by inferior programmers?

  45. Own point of view by garlicbready · · Score: 1

    From my own point of view it's about what job your doing at the time
    A lot of devs take they're favored language and say it's the bee's knees regardless, so don't often provide an objective view

    Device Drivers
    Ideally you want maximum speed and the least amount of code as it's likley the routines within Drivers
    will be called lots and lots of times by applications further up the chain
    Usually **C** is the favored choice for this

    Desktop / Window Managers
    Again your facing a lot of code thats going to be called repeatedly lots of times
    but there's going to be a lot more complexity involved here
    So ideally you want something as close to **C** as possible but with object orientations with Class's etc, i.e. **C++**

    Desktop Applications
    This is one of the two that most people will write for usually
    Linux tends to favor **C++ or Java**, Windows tends to favor managed **.Net** Applications
    I see Java being more of a forerunner of .Net but it's libraries have become a mess
    The latest .Net Core has the ability to compile down to native code, and is more feature rich
    meaning you get a whole bunch of syntactic sugar you simply don't get with other languages (see Reactive Extensions or Entity Framework)
    More features / easier to use = less time to get it to work, less code, easier to read, quicker to fix

    Website Applications
    This is the second of the two that most people will write for
    Again the number of options available is massive, but personally I see .Net (specifically .Net Core) jumping ahead
    It's more feature rich, which means businesses will need less work time to implement a given feature
    and it's more type safe (vs PHP for example) meaning less likley to have problems with hacks or leaks

    Administrative Scripts
    A lot of this depends on the environment your using, Linux for example has Bash scripts Ruby etc
    Windows has Powershell
    **Python** is my favorite here as it's cross compatible and easy to debug with Visual Studio or PyCharm, easy to read and has object orientation built in with a ton of libs

  46. Perl... by DrYak · · Score: 2

    but I bet that most of the code I write is in posix sh, bash or perl

    Perl, yeah. I like it a lot too.

    But sometimes I need to be able not only to write, but also read what I've written.
    To determine what a piece of code actually does.

    Or if it was simply my cat walking over the keyboard.

    Or it it was my cat that successfully patched a mission critical Perl-script by randomly walking across my keyboard...

    ~~~

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
    1. Re:Perl... by skids · · Score: 1

      This is why you need to learn to write legibly. You know, sort of like handwriting, unless apparently, you are a doctor.

    2. Re:Perl... by arth1 · · Score: 1

      Perl, yeah. I like it a lot too.

      But sometimes I need to be able not only to write, but also read what I've written.
      To determine what a piece of code actually does.

      Good thing then, that perl not only supports comments, but its own embedded documentation system.

      man perlpod

    3. Re:Perl... by danbuter · · Score: 1

      With a minimal amount of effort, you can make Perl look as neat as any Python program. It's just the one-liners and regex stuff that gets crazy, or sloppy guys who could make Ruby impossible to figure.

  47. It's like XKCD said in July 2011 by Hotawa+Hawk-eye · · Score: 1

    Fourteen different ways to determine language popularity weren't enough -- we need a Fifteenth to Rule Them All.

  48. I'll interject here at the pedant hijacking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's an awful lot of puff about assembly for a topic about high level languages. Great to see the slashdot moderators doing their jobs.

    To get back on topic, humans seem to think in and prefer imperative languages despite claims to the contrary. They're simple. Of course that relative to our education systems. I would say the dominance of the English language is a factor. We say apples and oranges, as opposed to 'apples oranges and' which would favor functional languages. Imperative languages just suit people better and seem to go less against the grain. Hipsters live to go against the grain and so functional languages always have some traction.

  49. Why I haven't ditched Perl: CPAN. by Larsen+E+Whipsnade · · Score: 1

    Give me something comparable for Python and I'll be done with Perl for good.

    Anaconda doesn't quite give me the same communitarian, open sourcey feeling.

    1. Re:Why I haven't ditched Perl: CPAN. by Larsen+E+Whipsnade · · Score: 1

      Maybe PyPi will do the job. We'll see.

  50. Goes to show... by transami · · Score: 1

    How good political posters are at what they do.

    Swift in the top 10? Good lord.

    And Java is a C based language? You might as well say it is a Fortran based language.

    --
    :T:R:A:N:S:
  51. I got a D by gridsleep764 · · Score: 1

    D language for me. I also like Euphoria, Forth, and LisP.

  52. The language you write in most . . . by rhyous · · Score: 1

    The language you write in most is the most popular language to you.

    If you work in Java, C#, or C++, you will have plenty of jobs available. If you know two of them and have descent coding skills you will be head hunted constantly.

    Knowing multiple languages makes you better.

    English is my first language, but I learned Spanish as my second language. I didn't fully understand many of the grammar and other language concepts in English until I learned Spanish. Learning Spanish helped my English more than the study of English did.

    Likewise, I didn't fully understand delegates and events in C# until I really started coding in JavaScript, a language that is extremely callback heavy, so much so that JavaScript can lead one to call back hell. Each language takes advantage of different features and logic and do so in different ways. Seeing how two different language implement the same feature actually helps you better understand the concept, not just use the code without fully understanding it.

    So which language is popular doesn't matter. If you know two languages or more well, and can solve problems, you can probably be successful in any language.

  53. My recommendation is C# by rhyous · · Score: 1

    For rapid development in Business Apps environments, I recommend C#.

    I first learned in Java because Java is the most taught language in schools. Newbies, like college students, do the most searching on the web. That sways the stats to make Java look way more popular than C#. However, multiple checks for available jobs have shown C# to have as many or more jobs that Java. Also, the # character just isn't handled by everything as well as it should be and makes C# stats inaccurate. The # character causes a lot of C# stats to be lost and/or not properly counted.

    IDE: Visual Studio is so far beyond other IDEs, nothing else even half as good. Maybe not even 1/3 as good. The free version of Visual Studio takes away any issues that used to exist, such as it being too expensive.
    Language: C# has a lot of features and is fast to code in.
    Mobile: With C# (using the now free Xamarin library), one can write mobile Apps for iOS, Android, and Windows. C# provides the best native cross platform development experience for mobile apps out there.
    Web: Whether you do WCF or WebAPI or MVC, you have some great options for coding the backend and frontend in C#. Though you can't completely get away from JavaScript for front end.
    Verbosity: I write less code in C# to do the same things in Java and C#.
    Buzz: .NET Core and the open source of .NET Core is creating a lot of buzz.

    Oracle is not pushing Java forward like it needs to be pushed. If Android hadn't based it's primary language on Java, Java would be following Open Office into its slow demise.

  54. Check Online Coding Authorities & Communities by damianwolf · · Score: 1

    I think it is the best to check actual trends in coding industry, and you'll have the best insights if you visit some online community about coding, or check number of posts/projects done in particular programming language. My advice is to use this page : https://www.livecoding.tv/learn/ and pick your favorite between most popular languages (with most projects & money). Good luck and let the force be with you!

  55. So where is ... by cwsumner · · Score: 1

    So where is Clarion?

    http://softvelocity.com/

    Used all over the world, but only by people that know things... 8-)

  56. R is the real sensation by kwack · · Score: 1

    Am I the only one to think the real sensation here is R conquering the top 10?

  57. Does anyone really use Python for anything serious by SivDotnet · · Score: 1

    I am sorry who uses Python for anything serious!?

    --
    Martley, Near Worcester UK.
  58. I was told the best language to learn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    is English.

  59. PHP Programing in Delhi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you thinking to study on website developing at Delhi location then for that you should be join PHP classes in Delhi . because Aptron Delhi is one of the best options. now you can click here on our website . http://aptrondelhi.in/best-php-training-in-delhi.html.