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The Most Loved and Most Disliked Programming Languages Revealed in Stack Overflow Survey (stackoverflow.com)

Posted by msmash on from the closer-look dept.

angel'o'sphere shares a report: The annual Stack Overflow survey is one of the most comprehensive snapshots of how programmers work, with this year's poll being taken by almost 90,000 developers across the globe. This year's survey details which languages developers enjoy using, which are associated with the best paid jobs, which are most commonly used, as well as developers' preferred frameworks, databases, and integrated development environments.

Python's versatility continues to fuel its rise through Stack Overflow's rankings for the "most popular" languages, which lists the languages most widely used by developers. This year's survey finds Python to be the fastest-growing major programming language, with Python edging out Android and enterprise workhorse Java to become the fourth most commonly used language. [...] More importantly for developers, this popularity overlaps with demand for the language, with Julia Silge, data scientist at Stack Overflow, saying that jobs data gathered by Stack Overflow also shows Python to be one of the most in-demand languages sought by employers.

[...] Rust may not have as many users as Python or JavaScript but it has earned a lot of affection from those who use it. For the fourth year running, the language tops Stack Overflow's list of "most-loved" languages, which means the proportion of Rust developers who want to continue working with it is larger than that of any other language.[...] Go stands out as a language that is well paid, while also being sought after and where developers report high levels of job satisfaction. Full report here.

142 of 268 comments (clear)

  1. Self Selected Survey Participants .... by Troy+Roberts · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Always produce significant and valid results .... NOT!

    1. Re:Self Selected Survey Participants .... by rnturn · · Score: 1

      Exactly. Don't even waste your time squinting at these results in an effort to get anything useful from them.

      --
      CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
    2. Re:Self Selected Survey Participants .... by bobby · · Score: 1

      Absolutely agree, and it's a big factor in most surveys (which is why people should take them with many grains of salt).

      That said, the survey should show stats from and about those who have stronger interests / passions, and of course, those who are willing to take surveys, which I think is a big factor in and of itself.

    3. Re:Self Selected Survey Participants .... by omibus · · Score: 1

      But we are talking about programmers here...I don't think there is a way to produce significant and valid results with that demographic. So stuff like this is about as good as we are likely to get.

      --
      Bad User. No biscuit!
    4. Re: Self Selected Survey Participants .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      ... From stackoverflow.

      Next up: the most popular beers revealed in a walmart customer survey.

    5. Re:Self Selected Survey Participants .... by bobbied · · Score: 1

      Always produce significant and valid results .... NOT!

      Sure.. But they make for GREAT headlines...(Click bait for $$)

      You want to create some fake news narrative? Conduct a POLL and publish the results.. Don't have money to pay a pollster? Do an online poll...

      This technique comes right after quoting an "unnamed source" who is claiming some kind of malfeasance is taking place due to some conspiracy or something and writing a "news" story based only on the quote and a bunch of "we think it means..." logical leaps.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    6. Re:Self Selected Survey Participants .... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Red bowl - salted, blue bowl sweet. You know where the fridge is.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    7. Re:Self Selected Survey Participants .... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Don't have money to pay a pollster? Do an online poll...

      Should do bullshit yes or do bullshit no.

      Just make it all up.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  2. Android? by iggymanz · · Score: 1

    *pulls out moto x pure and stares at it.* There is an Android programming language? who knew?

    1. Re:Android? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Informative

      I looked at the survey and it demanded a lot of random personal information, I didn't fill it in. So the data from it is biased towards people who freely give up their personal data for no benefit to themselves.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:Android? by iggymanz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      the benefit was it gives megaphone to those who support cute niche flash-in-the-pan fad languages

    3. Re:Android? by chispito · · Score: 3, Informative

      *pulls out moto x pure and stares at it.* There is an Android programming language? who knew?

      Reread the sentence

      with Python edging out Android and enterprise workhorse Java

      It is not well constructed but a second glance clarifies things. It would be better written, if still clunk, thus

      with Python edging out Android-and-enterprise-workhorse Java

      --
      The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
    4. Re:Android? by Joce640k · · Score: 2

      +1 Insightful

      Everything about the list screamed "fashionable".

      --
      No sig today...
    5. Re:Android? by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

      the benefit was it gives megaphone to those who support cute niche flash-in-the-pan fad languages

      Python was released in 1991.

    6. Re:Android? by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

      +1 Insightful

      Everything about the list screamed "fashionable".

      Everything? Python was released in 1991.

      Guido is "fashionable"?

    7. Re:Android? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Clearly the parole terms weren't strict enough.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    8. Re:Android? by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

      Or simply "with Python edging out Java, the Android & enterprise workhorse".

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    9. Re: Android? by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

      I tip my hat to that joke sir. Well done.

    10. Re:Android? by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      wasn't speaking of python though (nor java even though i hate it)...further down the list

  3. Swift should be at the top by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    This survey is flawed and biased. Many people are saying that Swift is BY FAR the best language, and is now used by pretty much all actual pro developers worldwide. Many people say the vast majority of coding happening today happens exclusively for iPhone, and on that critical platform Swift is #1. Everything else is just lamestream noise (and shitty noise, at that).

    1. Re: Swift should be at the top by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      Swift is crap. The major complaint about Objective-C was that it had all the baggage of C. Well guess what? Swift has all the baggage of C *and* Objective-C. It's hard to be a language designer these days because you need to know all the language paradigms and good ideas in other languages, so I have sympathy for the Swift designers, but not the language. Oh, and while we're at it, Xcode looks like it was built by UX designers, not by people with domain knowledge of the programming ecosystem.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:Swift should be at the top by Megol · · Score: 1

      username or STFU.

      (shut the fuck up)

    3. Re: Swift should be at the top by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1

      The problem with Objective-C is not baggage, but what it lacks. Like easy to use constructs to handle asynchronous calls, e.g.: "Connect to this website, make this request when the connection is established, wait for an answer, and do this when it comes through, and in the meantime continue running the rest of the app", in other words the better part of control flow in typical apps. Doing this in a language like C# results in much cleaner code. Can't speak for Swift, though.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    4. Re:Swift should be at the top by Escogido · · Score: 1

      what the survey results actually say is that people who choose / have to to code in swift like it more than people who choose / have to code in some other language X. they don't say that everyone loves swift, or that swift IS the best language. self-selection.

    5. Re: Swift should be at the top by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      I'm on Slashdot, I'm using Linux. At least get the OS right.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    6. Re: Swift should be at the top by Viol8 · · Score: 1

      Perhaps it shouldve wiped your arse for you too? If you want async go learn about threading or multiprocess with IPC FFS instead of being a coding baby and expecting some plug and play lego brick solution to every basic problem you encounter.

    7. Re: Swift should be at the top by Viol8 · · Score: 1

      " It's the C programmer's Smalltalk."

      No, its smalltalk syntax nailed onto C in a hideous mashup that never really worked.

    8. Re: Swift should be at the top by Viol8 · · Score: 1

      Why not, its not that fucking hard. Perhaps learn your trade as you obviously have no idea how to do multi threaded programming and are lost without someone having done the hard work for you. Maybe web dev would be more your ability level.

  4. Stack Overflow/Exchange is garbage. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The site is pretty much controlled by the few with thousands of rep points. They can pretty much vote together to delete anything they disagree with.

  5. Loving a language? by pegdhcp · · Score: 4, Funny

    Once Frank Herbert had Gurney Halleck to tell Paul Atreides, thus to us as reader:
    "Mood? What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises — no matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for fighting."
    Similarly loving a language has nothing to do with its utilisation or benefits, it is for (well not cattle, but) cowboys who love to brag about last huge program they wrote, which contains 1.000 or more lines, even excluding whitespace that is...

    1. Re:Loving a language? by chispito · · Score: 1

      Once Frank Herbert had Gurney Halleck to tell Paul Atreides, thus to us as reader: "Mood? What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises — no matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for fighting." Similarly loving a language has nothing to do with its utilisation or benefits, it is for (well not cattle, but) cowboys who love to brag about last huge program they wrote, which contains 1.000 or more lines, even excluding whitespace that is...

      I'm pretty sure people who "love" a programming language really love not having to use other languages. It's not that complicated and not necessarily an ego thing.

      --
      The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
    2. Re:Loving a language? by Opyros · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The enjoyment of one's tools is an essential ingredient of successful work.

      --Donald Knuth, Seminumerical Algorithms

    3. Re:Loving a language? by iMadeGhostzilla · · Score: 1

      Of course -- to solve a problem you need an inspiration, whose appearance you cannot control, but is more likely to appear when you are relaxed and open for subtle voices in your mind. And you're more likely to be relaxed if you use a tool you love rather than one you are afraid of.

  6. Fuck Python by illiac_1962 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    All this Python popularity reminds me of the rise of BASIC's popularity. It won't be long before people think you can write serious, user facing applications with that steaming pile. I can defintitely get behind using it for infrastructure automation and analytics but fuck trying to build anything large. But alas, the non technical will hear buzz of its popularity and the inexperienced will be allowed to build shit with it. God help us all.

    1. Re:Fuck Python by sinij · · Score: 4, Funny

      A car analogy: You are complaining that your ride-on lawn mower doesn't get great highway gas mileage.

    2. Re:Fuck Python by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As I tell my Python-enamored son every day: "Python is just Perl with the curly bits rubbed off". What I don't say is Perl just a universal scripting language and little better than Shell Scripts on any system.

      No way. Perl is grossly better than shell scripts, at least where the job is better done with perl. Some very simple jobs are still best done with a shell script. If you have to do anything complicated, though, perl is going to use a lot less resources because you're not having to construct complex pipes to do simple things.

      Perl only ever made sense where there was a lot of string handling to do. Alas, people used it for other things as well because they understood perl, but not the languages they should have been using (Mostly C or C++, in Perl's heyday.)

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:Fuck Python by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      *Already* happened with JavaSchit, er, Javascript -- the BASIC of the new millennium! /me ducks /s =P

      When you have to use string literal HACKS like "use strict"; to catch typos -- the language is fucked.

      But that's what you get when a language was designed and implemented in 10 days by an amateur and learnt NOTHING about WHY professionals hated noob languages like BASIC.

    4. Re:Fuck Python by prunus.avium · · Score: 2

      Ummm....don't look at OpenStack then. It's all Python.

      Admittedly, it's all "infrastructure automation" interfacing with hypervisors and storage arrays. But it is a large project.

    5. Re:Fuck Python by prunus.avium · · Score: 2

      But that's the problem with almost every language. It's the old saying, "If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."

      Perl programmers extended Perl to be able to do stuff that it was not suited to doing.

      The same thing is happening now with JavaScript and Python.

      My personal problems with Perl are the hieroglyphics and the "default variable". There is an implied target variable that I don't ever actually see? Fuck that.

    6. Re:Fuck Python by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      In my last job I had to learn some Python.
      Python kinda gives me an icecream headache. When I spent an hour trying to figure out why the code blew it's brains out when I took a three-element array and put only ONE element in it, I wanted to grab the workstation and defenestrate it.
      So I started with something like: temp[-10, 50, 110]
      ..and needed it to be something like this: temp[50]
      ..which, in any sane language (like C/C++), would've been fine, but in Python? Oh, no no no!
      In Python, it had to be like this: temp[50,]
      Mind: BLOWN. *facepalm*

      The three main features of Python so far as I can see, are:
      1. You don't have to compile it to executable code, it's an interpreted language, everything is plaintext
      2. You more-or-less can't completely crash the whole computer running Python code
      3. It's more-or-less BASIC for the 21st Century, any fool can learn to code in it.
      Otherwise if I was writing something that needed speed, small size, direct hardware access, and so on? C/C++ or Assembly.

    7. Re:Fuck Python by dbrueck · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Language choice is fairly subjective, so if you don't like Python, that's cool. But there are a number of solid reasons why it has grown in popularity and it's not because it's something new - the language is almost 30 years old now. I've been using it for about 20 years now and for me it has been terrific for one-off utility scripts written by one person to huge projects with many developers at a couple of different Fortune 50 companies, and everything in between.

      Many of the alleged reasons why Python would be unusable for certain scenarios (e.g. large projects) tend to be fallacies or more theoretical problems than actual problems.

      The choice of programming language *always* involves tradeoffs. Python isn't the best tool for every job, but in many scenarios the benefits have outweighed the costs in a pretty lopsided manner. To each his own of course.

    8. Re:Fuck Python by Dragonslicer · · Score: 2

      Python kinda gives me an icecream headache. When I spent an hour trying to figure out why the code blew it's brains out when I took a three-element array and put only ONE element in it, I wanted to grab the workstation and defenestrate it. So I started with something like: temp[-10, 50, 110] ..and needed it to be something like this: temp[50] ..which, in any sane language (like C/C++), would've been fine, but in Python? Oh, no no no! In Python, it had to be like this: temp[50,] Mind: BLOWN. *facepalm*

      None of that is true about lists - foo = [50] works just fine.

      Are you thinking of tuples, maybe? If you want to create a one-item tuple, you have to put in an extra comma so that the interpreter knows that you want a tuple instead of just using parentheses for something like forcing order of operations; you have to write (50,) instead of just (50). I agree that the syntax for that is somewhat annoying, but I would also question why you're creating a one-item tuple in the first place.

    9. Re:Fuck Python by fluffernutter · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When you write pseudo-code do you write all the brackets? The point of python is to be like pseudo-code but actually be functional. If you're writing something where speed doesn't matter that much but you need absolute flexibility in functionality Python will get you there quick. If you're writing a driver, use C for chrissakes.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    10. Re:Fuck Python by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      Assembly is like being in the Matrix.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    11. Re:Fuck Python by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      Like a web server? Isn't HTML all "string handling"?

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    12. Re:Fuck Python by fluffernutter · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If I could pick a language that does what I want and I could learn quickly (ie. any fool can learn it) then why wouldn't I use it? Are you saying I should spend extra months learning a horribly complex language that I only need 10% the capability of?

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    13. Re:Fuck Python by skids · · Score: 1

      Alas, people used it for other things as well because they understood perl, but not the languages they should have been using (Mostly C or C++, in Perl's heyday.)

      Beg to differ. I learned C and C++ way before Perl 5, and subsequently used a lot of Perl 5 (yes, also for things other than string handling.) One thing I liked the most about it was the error messages were way better than C was at the time... something I'm glad the Perl culture is taking great pains to carry forward into Perl 6.

      What people didn't understand and didn't want to use was autoconf and all the other glue necessary to make C/libc portable. Because no sane person wants to.

      --
      Someone had to do it.
    14. Re:Fuck Python by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

      It's my experience that large python projects tend to run like large java project- shit. absolutel shit.
      Though there must be some merit to the language, because there definitely seems to be a trend toward writing big projects in that shitpile of a language, even at the expense of them running within reasonable time/resource constraints.

    15. Re:Fuck Python by dbrueck · · Score: 2

      Some amount of that could be just the sucky nature to lots of large software projects - we've probably all seen big projects go bad in any number of different languages.

      Like I said to the other guy, if it's not for you, great. But there's really nothing in the language that makes it inherently bad for large projects (and lots of things that makes it good for them). We've used Python on a number of very large projects and it worked out well for us.

    16. Re:Fuck Python by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

      Sure, it works. I've just found that where it works, you simply accept the tradeoffs.
      I mean, I use Zenoss. It's an amazing product.
      The fact that it takes 5 minutes to start up on $4000 hardware, where Nagios does it in about 12 seconds is fine. We accept the trade-off.
      Personally, I wish we weren't making the performance trade-off required to use python. More and more aspects of Linux OS tooling runs slower and slower because of it.

    17. Re:Fuck Python by dbrueck · · Score: 2

      Sure, it works. I've just found that where it works, you simply accept the tradeoffs.

      Of course, but that's true of all languages. As an example: a good chunk of my career has been writing application servers, and years ago I stopped writing them in C/C++ because the development time was too long - with C I could squeeze out nearly every ounce of potential performance, but the cost of doing so was too high (time to dev as well as the resulting complexity). The Python versions were of course slower, but not drastically so (because the servers tended to be I/O bound anyway).

      When performance is the main problem, it's often easy to move a small portion of an app to a language closer to the metal, without having to port the whole thing. Last month I finished up a desktop app that takes 3D room models and generates CAD files. I wrote the app in Python but found the performance was not up to snuff (no surprise), so I moved the heavy lifting (maybe 2-3% of the functionality) to C. Performance still wasn't where I wanted it, so I moved that to the GPU.

      In terms of tradeoffs, I used Python to get the whole app working end-to-end much more quickly than I would have in some other languages (especially with the requirements changing out from under me a couple of times along the way), and then moved the little kernel of performance-critical stuff into something more suitable - paying the price for tradeoffs but doing it in a way where the cost-benefit ratio worked out pretty well.

      I mean, I use Zenoss. It's an amazing product. The fact that it takes 5 minutes to start up on $4000 hardware, where Nagios does it in about 12 seconds is fine. We accept the trade-off.

      Out of curiosity, is there any indication that the difference is actually due to Python?

    18. Re:Fuck Python by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      ..but I would also question why you're creating a one-item tuple in the first place.
      It was someone else's test script, and I needed it to run a single temperature test on a DUT, not multiple temperatures. It couldn't be rewritten just to avoid this it had to be run with minimal modifications.

    19. Re:Fuck Python by Dragonslicer · · Score: 1

      If that someone else was using a tuple to store a list of values, they were Doing It Wrong (TM). That's what lists (a.k.a. arrays in many other languages) are for. Tuples are more like structs.

      If the tuple was just being used as an iterable anyway (e.g. for temp in temps:), you could have replaced it with a list and it would have worked the same way.

    20. Re:Fuck Python by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      *shrug* whatev. I'm glad I don't get paid to code for a living and I'm glad I made that decision a long time ago. I'd rather work with hardware anyway. Also if I ever wanted to write anything serious I'd use C anyway not Python. Despite the legitimate business uses for it I take Python about as seriously as I'd take BASIC today.

    21. Re:Fuck Python by Dragonslicer · · Score: 2

      Would you blame C because some idiot used a struct instead of an array? Because that's basically what you're doing.

    22. Re:Fuck Python by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 2

      It won't be long before people think you can write serious, user facing applications with that steaming pile.
      No idea why you consider it a "steaming pile".
      a) the language is beautiful, you hardly can claim that about any other language
      b) the libraries are excellet
      c) you are simply wrong, there is plenty of large software written in Python, e.g. Eve Online, the MMO with the biggest concurrently online community in a single game world on the planet.
      d) the language is portable and has enough GUI bindings to deploy on all majour PC, unix and mobile platforms

      Probably you are not aware what desktop applications are actually on your PC written in Python ...

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    23. Re:Fuck Python by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      So you did not both to learn C++ just as an intellectual mind masturbation fun?
      What a shame!

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    24. Re:Fuck Python by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Then you should learn from your experience and avoid shops that are either run like shit or run their projects like shit.

      What the funk has the programming language to do with it? If it was a C++ project with unexperienced programmers, I would understand your grudge, but would still blame the shop hiring unexperienced people.

      shitpile of a language, even at the expense of them running within reasonable time/resource constraints.
      In the real world, no one considers it "shit" and the time / resource constraints hardly matter. Or they had chosen different ... it is not like that people don't know how to chose a suitable language.

      And then again: the biggest enemy of maintainable software is: success!! Because it is successful it gets extended, upgraded, transformed and so on ...

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    25. Re:Fuck Python by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      I don't remember when I used Perl the first time, probably around 1990, Perl 4.
      I started with C++ a little bit earlier.

      I just found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... I used C++ on Sun Solaris (cfront obviously, not sure when we had a g++ compiler), Think C was the first software I bought, well, cant remember what I bought for my Apple ][, probably I only used school licensed software.

      So I guess I started C++ around 1989, I started studying at the university 1987 ...

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    26. Re:Fuck Python by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

      Then you should learn from your experience and avoid shops that are either run like shit or run their projects like shit.

      Python has expensive procedure calls and encourages a highly layered class hierarchy, which it is particularly poor at doing quickly.
      The language itself isn't the problem, it's that the reference implementation of the language, when used with large projects with large working sets, performs worse in terms of speed, and memory usage, than projects written in other languages, using different VMs/interpreters.
      Perhaps you should learn the difference.

      What the funk has the programming language to do with it?

      See above. Come back when you have actually worked with the subject material, because you've made it quite clear that you don't.

      In the real world, no one considers it "shit"

      I suspect my professional world involves a lot more people who are a lot more important to the ecosystem as a whole than yours does. And my world tells me quite clearly that you're wrong.

      and the time / resource constraints hardly matter.

      Now only a fucktard completely unhinged with reality would say something so fucking stupid.

      Or they had chosen different ...

      More braindead logic from the armchair brigade.
      Or are you now prepared to argue that popularity equates with quality?

      it is not like that people don't know how to chose a suitable language.

      Armies of PHP5 programmers would like to proselytize their language to you.

      Bad news. I think you're going to be stuck in the minors for a while longer.

    27. Re:Fuck Python by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      I think you need to drop this or I might get the idea you're Just Another Internet Troll, because you're going on about it well beyond what I consider reasonable.

    28. Re:Fuck Python by DamnOregonian · · Score: 2

      Of course, but that's true of all languages. As an example: a good chunk of my career has been writing application servers, and years ago I stopped writing them in C/C++ because the development time was too long - with C I could squeeze out nearly every ounce of potential performance, but the cost of doing so was too high (time to dev as well as the resulting complexity). The Python versions were of course slower, but not drastically so (because the servers tended to be I/O bound anyway).

      No doubt about it. The development cost of using C makes it unattractive where it isn't strictly needed.

      When performance is the main problem, it's often easy to move a small portion of an app to a language closer to the metal, without having to port the whole thing. Last month I finished up a desktop app that takes 3D room models and generates CAD files. I wrote the app in Python but found the performance was not up to snuff (no surprise), so I moved the heavy lifting (maybe 2-3% of the functionality) to C. Performance still wasn't where I wanted it, so I moved that to the GPU.

      Agreed. I do the same thing.

      In terms of tradeoffs, I used Python to get the whole app working end-to-end much more quickly than I would have in some other languages (especially with the requirements changing out from under me a couple of times along the way), and then moved the little kernel of performance-critical stuff into something more suitable - paying the price for tradeoffs but doing it in a way where the cost-benefit ratio worked out pretty well.

      Also no argument here.

      Out of curiosity, is there any indication that the difference is actually due to Python?

      The language? Na.
      The implementation? Absolutely.
      Python is a memory hog. Even basic benchmarks show that.
      I've found that python isn't bad at all for smaller jobs, but larger ones, particularly resident ones, very often become problematic and need to be restarted, as they get slower and slower (memory fragmentation?)
      I also know I'm not alone in noticing this. Pick any large python project, go to its bugs list. You'll find it there.
      I'm not arguing that Python is not without its utility. I'm simply saying that it has been used in places where it shouldn't have been. In places where someone failed when they did the cost benefit analysis. Or- as an alternative hypothesis, we have simply decided that producing code is more important than how well the code runs. Perhaps we have just entered an era where quantity is more important than quality.

    29. Re:Fuck Python by Dragonslicer · · Score: 1

      You're the one that wrote a rant that is factually incorrect. That seems more like trolling than my correction of your misunderstanding.

    30. Re: Fuck Python by sin_vraal · · Score: 1

      Perl is still the best by far. Itâ(TM)s not hard to write. But itâ(TM)s hard for junior devs and sweat shop devs to write well. Oh, itâ(TM)s slow? Uh 1, we live in the distrusted age, extra servers covers for that when itâ(TM)s important and 2, since when was it ever an issue, or visibly causing slow downs anyhow? 3, when Iâ(TM)m doing something intensive Iâ(TM)d just c(+) anyhow. Python is great when you want your devs to be hammers in a world of nails. Itâ(TM)s painfully useless for readability in complex apps. God forbid you move code inside a new block

    31. Re:Fuck Python by dbrueck · · Score: 1

      I've found that python isn't bad at all for smaller jobs, but larger ones, particularly resident ones, very often become problematic and need to be restarted, as they get slower and slower (memory fragmentation?)

      I also know I'm not alone in noticing this. Pick any large python project, go to its bugs list. You'll find it there.

      I'm not arguing that Python is not without its utility. I'm simply saying that it has been used in places where it shouldn't have been. In places where someone failed when they did the cost benefit analysis. Or- as an alternative hypothesis, we have simply decided that producing code is more important than how well the code runs. Perhaps we have just entered an era where quantity is more important than quality.

      I hear ya, and I know we're just swapping anecdotes, but I've run into the opposite - one area where it has really shined for us is in the really big projects. These were projects that probably wouldn't have ever made it out in the door in a lower level language but Python helped us keep the complexity manageable, which in turn made ongoing maintenance manageable. One large project in particular is nearing the decade mark since it's first release and it has really aged well - it's been solidly plugging along all that time and we've been able to expand the feature set significantly throughout that time. Obviously Python isn't the only factor here, but it's been a huge positive factor.

      Anyway, thanks for the discussion, have a great day!

    32. Re:Fuck Python by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      Unless you mean that you're still thinking of Perl as a glorified sed/awk? It hasn't been that for over 25 years.

      Personally, I think of perl as glue. It's good at tying things together. There are modules for many things. In fact, that's one of the many things that annoys me about Python. We had perl already, and its massive library of modules, and then Python came along and had to start all over. What a waste of effort. Perl was perfectly fine for all the things being done with Python now.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    33. Re:Fuck Python by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      You seem to mix up hobbyists with professionals Armies of PHP5 programmers would like to proselytize their language to you.
      The rest is just an insulting rant and hardly even correct, except for the function call speed. Good luck with that attitude.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    34. Re:Fuck Python by Rich.Miller.6 · · Score: 2

      I'll disagree with this. Perl lets you write beautiful code: clear, efficient, and about as close to bug-free as we can achieve with current technology. I was responsible for a suite of 600 tools written in about 160,000 lines of Perl. We had a release of new and improved code every three weeks, typically with no known bugs. The principal documentation writer told us to stop providing release documentation because the code was so clear that she (a non-programmer!) could just read it. The tools produced log files that let us fix about 95% of bugs without having to reproduce the, because the logs showed precisely what had gone wrong and where. If there's another programming language that supports this kind of work and productivity I'd like to hear about it.

    35. Re:Fuck Python by Waccoon · · Score: 1

      The problem is not indentation or beauty, but termination.

      I find if fascinating how many people will curse Javascipt's tendency to automatically (and wrongly) terminate lines when you don't use semicolons, which is why you should always use semicolons even if the language lets you cheat. Yet these same people love using whitespace to both start and terminate a block of logic in Python.

      You know, it's okay to admit a mistake was made. It's idiotic to promote it as a major feature.

  7. Worst Software Site Survey Says? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    Worst Software Site: Stackoverflow

    If you post one dumb question or unpopular opinion, you are essentially banned from the site for a year.

    They should have a ranking system similar to Slashdot. If it's a bad question or statement, then let the rankings effectively hide it. If one wants to see low-ranked content, they can change their filter settings.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
    1. Re:Worst Software Site Survey Says? by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 1

      They should have a ranking system similar to Slashdot.

      If they did that, then the results of this survey would be determined solely by the the code-of-conduct on each language's homepage.

    2. Re:Worst Software Site Survey Says? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      The words "false" and "equivalence" spring to mind.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    3. Re:Worst Software Site Survey Says? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      So, StackOverflow reflects reality? Where stupidity gets punished? And you can't handle that?

      Hey, every now and then I ask a dumb question, such as not noticing something obvious (obvious after the fact). Humans do that. If you are near perfect, slap a gold star on your forehead for being a rare specimen. Part of helping is filling in others' blind spots.

      And again, if one doesn't want to see low-ranked messages, just set your filter level higher.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  8. I know what I like ... and what I hate. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I like languages that let me get paid, be efficient, have unlimited control over the resulting program.
    I had languages that restrict my capabilities, have obnoxious fanbois, and are slow.

    Like list:
    * C
    * C++
    * Perl
    * Go
    * Ruby (though it is slow, sometimes)

    Hate list:
    * Java
    * Javascript
    * Rust - hate the fans.
    * C# and any other "managed" language
    * ObjectiveC - sometimes hate just comes from the platform
    * Php
    * Cobol

    Don't care list:
    * python
    * Pascal
    * Whatever apple is pushing today.
    * Whatever google is pushing today.
    * Whatever MSFT is pushing today.

    I've coded for almost 3 decades, using about 40 different languages. If you are a noob, stick with noob-friendly languages, please. BTW, that does NOT include php.

    1. Re:I know what I like ... and what I hate. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Mostly agree, except I'd swap out Obj-C and C++. The only bad thing about Objective-C is its association with Apple (andAlsoSome:people dontLikeThe:syntax butWho:cares), while C++ is only good if you define some sort of sane subset of C++ for your project.

    2. Re:I know what I like ... and what I hate. by pauljlucas · · Score: 1

      You realize that Go is the language that "Google is pushing today," right? Go was developed by Rob Pike, Ken Thompson, et al, at Google.

      --
      If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
    3. Re:I know what I like ... and what I hate. by whatUsay · · Score: 1

      I don’t quite understand how did this comment get rated 5. An anonymous user rants about what languages they hate, without any explanation. Maybe start a conversation by diving a little deeper into reasons why a given language is not your tool of choice, then acknowledge that there are possibly cases where the given language would be a good choice. Or something along these lines.

  9. Hate for Java? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I don't understand the hate for Java.

    Java is fast, secure, and compact.

    With only a few cores, a few GB of disk space, and a few GB of ram, "hello world" compiles and runs in just minutes!

    And it gets faster every time it's run!

    Find me a language more secure.

    Find me a language more compact.

    Find me a language that's faster.

    C is full of security holes, and slow.

    ASSembly is slow, full of holes, and slow.

    The minimum specs are there for a reason. If you don't have at least a few cores, and a few GB of RAM, and say 100GB of disk space, go back to your speak and spell.

    1. Re:Hate for Java? by PCM2 · · Score: 1

      Find me a language more compact.

      I take it you're not talking about source code.

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
    2. Re:Hate for Java? by bobbied · · Score: 1

      I don't understand the hate for Java.

      Java is fast, secure, and compact.

      With only a few cores, a few GB of disk space, and a few GB of ram, "hello world" compiles and runs in just minutes!

      And it gets faster every time it's run!

      Find me a language more secure.

      Find me a language more compact.

      Find me a language that's faster.

      C is full of security holes, and slow.

      ASSembly is slow, full of holes, and slow.

      The minimum specs are there for a reason. If you don't have at least a few cores, and a few GB of RAM, and say 100GB of disk space, go back to your speak and spell.

      Shesh.. I don't know if this is a joke or not...

      So wrong on every level.. Java is none of the things you claim and just about *any* compiled language will be faster than Java on the same hardware.

      But.. Then there is the security thing.... C isn't full of security holes per say, nor is Assembly.. Neither language enforces the strict type checking that the Java compiler gives you I suppose, but that doesn't mean they are insecure. It just means the programmer needs to mind his P's and Q's and be careful to avoid getting off in the weeds... But you PAY dearly for all that "security" that Java gives you in performance and complexity...

      So was this an attempt at humor that failed? Or just stupidity on parade?

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    3. Re:Hate for Java? by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 2

      The thing about C is that it assumes you know what you're doing. Total control, no training wheels.

      --
      Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
    4. Re:Hate for Java? by bobbied · · Score: 1

      My point is that it fails even to be sarcastic, because on one hand the author is right, then on the other hand they are wrong...

      I would expect that a sarcastic post to be 100% sarcastic, not actually valid some times and at other times not.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    5. Re:Hate for Java? by bobbied · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yup, exactly this...

      The compiler doesn't really care if you want to multiply the letter "A" by "5" and then use the result as a pointer to a data structure. Of course, there have been improvements in the compilers over the years, where they will at least complain about type mismatches, and the ever valuable LINT program to help keep you out of the weeds. But in the end, you are free to do as you please, as fast as the machine will chew though the assembly code the compiler wrote for you (or as I've done in the past, the assembly you wrote for the compiler).

      The issue most of these surveys don't take into account is which tool is suited for which job. My favorite language depends on the task at hand and the suitable tools in the my tool box. Writing a device driver? C or assembly.. Writing some GUI to run locally? C++/Java... Need to interface with some specific Java library? Then Java.... It all depends.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    6. Re:Hate for Java? by Travelsonic · · Score: 1

      You sound like a recent graduate.

      You sound like someone who likes to blindly assume, no matter how silly you may look.
      I am a recent college grad, and both recognize, and embrace the benefits of assembly AND C where it makes sense (merely that I wouldn't necessarily use assembly for some things, and would use it for others) - not all people are the same.

      --
      If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
    7. Re:Hate for Java? by tommeke100 · · Score: 1

      This is ridiculous. I just wrote a java program handling gigs and no problems ajava.lang.OutOfMemoryError

    8. Re:Hate for Java? by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

      The compiler doesn't really care if you want to multiply the letter "A" by "5" and then use the result as a pointer to a data structure.

      Of course the compiler does- unless you know of a magical flag to disable type checking.
      It's the CPU that doesn't care, and the compiler that allows you to tell it to pretend "A" and "5" are of the same type.

    9. Re:Hate for Java? by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

      Java can be fast if you just include what you need and don't pull in the entire swing.

      But after 20 years, I have yet to see it. Not even once.

    10. Re:Hate for Java? by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

      Crap. You tried to run tommeke100.web.curlPost on a machine with less than 64GB.

    11. Re:Hate for Java? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Your previous ranting about Python was already extremely ignorant, if not even dumb.

      and the compiler that allows you to tell it to pretend "A" and "5" are of the same type.
      You made typo. If you want to multiply A with 5, you write 'A' * 5. And most (old school) C compilers happily compile it. Hint 'A' is a char, which is promoted to int. 5 is in an int. multiplying to ints is fine.

      Even writing a * in front of it and dereferencing it is fine .... perhaps you need some casts, though.

      Perhaps you should actually learn some programming languages instead of bashing them.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    12. Re:Hate for Java? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      No. Just no. Java can be fast if you just include what you need and don't pull in the entire swing.
      A program does not get slow just because it uses a certain GUI library, your post is nonsense.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    13. Re:Hate for Java? by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

      Your previous ranting about Python was already extremely ignorant, if not even dumb.

      You're the toolshed who tried to act like a language is independent of its implementation, and I'm the one who's ignorant? Spare me. Back to debate class with you.

      And most (old school) C compilers happily compile it.

      I can see you don't use C normally. I do.
      All compilers will compile that, as a char and an int are compatible types.
      Obviously however, those were stand-ins for dissimilar types.
      So, in the case where he was referring to the ASCII representation of an integer, and another integer, he should forgive my criticism, and accept my new criticism: Why would you misstate those as dissimilar types?

      Perhaps you should actually learn some programming languages instead of bashing them.

      This is hilariously ridiculous.
      I average about 60k LOC a month. Perhaps the armchair nerd should quit trying to talk down to the professionals.

    14. Re:Hate for Java? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      If you get paid for LOCs, does your shop hire?

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    15. Re:Hate for Java? by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

      I don't get paid for LOC.
      My CEO is largely unaware of my LOC output.
      He's just happy that our ~12,000 customers are happy.

    16. Re:Hate for Java? by bobbied · · Score: 1

      The compiler doesn't really care if you want to multiply the letter "A" by "5" and then use the result as a pointer to a data structure.

      Of course the compiler does- unless you know of a magical flag to disable type checking. It's the CPU that doesn't care, and the compiler that allows you to tell it to pretend "A" and "5" are of the same type.

      The C compiler doesn't care (though some may warn you), that you are combining different types doing some operation. The ANSI-C compiler is a bit more rigorous in it's type checking, but still really only is going to warn you and keep compiling unless you tell it to stop on warnings. C isn't a strongly typed language, and it's this way for a reason, well two reasons. First, It's easier, faster, cheaper to write a compiler that doesn't care about such stuff and when C was getting started, hardware speed and memory sizes where a major consideration, so we left off the bells and whistles and let the programmer deal with keeping up with the jots and tittles like type checking. Second, all the data types generally took up the same amount of space, 8 bits or 16 bits and that's all the compiler really needed to care about. You got all sorts of flexibility, and when you are interacting directly with hardware, this is a huge advantage. Sometimes all that type checking is really just a PIA and having to worry with a cast is just making the source code harder to read.

      Of course, now days, with processing power and memory space limitations largely a ting of the past, we've "moved on" to highly typed languages. Languages where the compiler is always harping at you about things. I get why it's important and the kinds of errors it prevents, but it's like having a really fast and powerful motorcycle which won't start w/o the training wheels attached to me. I personally don't like the added type checking, it keeps my code from being as efficient as I'd like, but OK, I'm willing to live within the constraints of the language. Just don't get me stared on the memory management in languages like Java.... I think we pay too high a performance price for that myself.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  10. ReXX is the Most-loved language. by Wargames · · Score: 1

    After 35 years my love for this language (and its KeXX and ooReXX variants) has only grown deeper and more profound. Python is a funny language with white space issues.
     

    --
    -- Each tock of the Planck clock is a new world and here we are still life. --
  11. What happened to Perl? by damn_registrars · · Score: 3, Funny

    I don't see Perl anywhere on the list. Not popular, not hated, not paid, not used. I can't be the only person still regularly using it.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    1. Re:What happened to Perl? by hugetoon · · Score: 3, Informative

      Count the number of times Perl is mentioned in the comments here, it will give You a hint on what it has become: irrelevant.
      I am probably as sad as You are about this fact of life, let's mourn our beloved programming language together, fellow Perlist.

    2. Re:What happened to Perl? by TimMD909 · · Score: 1

      I don't see Perl anywhere on the list. Not popular, not hated, not paid, not used. I can't be the only person still regularly using it.

      Perl is presumably in the list, however the list is too obfuscated to comprehend and check.

    3. Re:What happened to Perl? by kackle · · Score: 2

      I wondered the same about Perl: An easy check is a job search. It doesn't look good.

    4. Re:What happened to Perl? by prunus.avium · · Score: 1

      Nobody wants to admit they still use it. It's sliding into COBOL territory...

    5. Re:What happened to Perl? by SmSlDoo · · Score: 1

      I was also surprised to not see it on the list, seeing as there were so many niche languages listed.

      It gets a lot of flack for being "old" or "irrelevant". I use a modern framework and have found it is faster, more stable and works better than many of the new fad languages.

    6. Re:What happened to Perl? by whoever57 · · Score: 2

      I don't see Perl anywhere on the list. Not popular, not hated, not paid, not used. I can't be the only person still regularly using it.

      The Perl programmers are too busy constructing that perfect recursive regex (with look-ahead and look-behind) to be able to take part in a survey.

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    7. Re:What happened to Perl? by damn_registrars · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I wondered the same about Perl: An easy check is a job search. It doesn't look good.

      I generally advise nobody ever apply to a job that lists a specific programming language as an absolute requirement, it is usually just a pathway to obsolescence. Find a posting instead that describes the types of problems they are looking to solve and then present to them why you are the best person to help solve them. The language choice is not critical, and never should be.

      Just because it isn't listed as a job requirement doesn't mean it's not used, either. This shitty website still runs primarily on Perl.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    8. Re:What happened to Perl? by Ecuador · · Score: 2

      That's a weird thing to say, I'm in the UK and the Perl job market is very competitive. Decent perl devs get snapped up immediately. My company had to offer about 20% more than we'd offer to a swift/obj-c dev of similar experience to lure our latest hire...
      But I am pretty sure no Perl dev would be filling out a stack overflow questionnaire.

      --
      Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
    9. Re:What happened to Perl? by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

      It's definitely irrelevant in the scope of software engineering.
      In the world of internet infrastructure, it's a requirement.
      Some guy, somewhere, with perl has to make sure you can run your python scripts. That's an immutable fact.

    10. Re:What happened to Perl? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Nope.
      All big shops I worked for, use Shell (bash or ksh) over Perl, I did actually only once meet a company that had a small set of Perl scripts and they needed a decade to replace them with Phython.

      I'm not a ware that my mac or any linux box I used recently has any init scripts or other infrastructure scripts or anything network related that is based on Perl.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    11. Re:What happened to Perl? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Good luck then ...

      How would you apply to a job that "needs Perl" because all the code base is in Perl? I mean: if you can not write Perl (yet) obviously you could apply anyway. The requirement is for the _job_ not for you as a _person_

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    12. Re:What happened to Perl? by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

      All big shops I worked for, use Shell (bash or ksh) over Perl,

      You're so full of shit it's leaking onto the burgers you're flipping.

      I did actually only once meet a company that had a small set of Perl scripts and they needed a decade to replace them with Phython.

      You're not fooling anyone dude. It's quite obvious to everyone here that you're trying to defend something you are enamored with, even if you don't understand it, against any and all criticism at the cost of your credibility. The internet is held together with perl. I have worked at Fortune 500s, I have worked at startups, and I have never been in a "shop" that didn't use Perl. For good reason. It outperforms nearly every other tool in existence for the processing of large textual data sets (mostly on account of its first-class regex language constructs)

      I'm not a ware that my mac or any linux box I used recently has any init scripts or other infrastructure scripts or anything network related that is based on Perl.

      This is almost too stupid to respond to, but I'll do it anyways for everyone's benefit. Init scripts? Of course they're not written in perl. Talk about wrong tool for the job. You see a lot of init scripts written in Python, Commander Linux Guru?
      Infrastructure scripts? Swing and a miss. You can grep for \#/usr/bin/perl in /bin;/sbin;/usr/bin;/usr/sbin as well as I can.

      Seriously, quit arguing with your betters. Go back to playing on your Mac and thinking you know some shit without botherig the big kids.

    13. Re: What happened to Perl? by sin_vraal · · Score: 1

      Filter your comments, and all the sudden Perl is mentioned A LOT here

    14. Re:What happened to Perl? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      For good reason. It outperforms nearly every other tool in existence for the processing of large textual data sets (mostly on account of its first-class regex language constructs)
      And where e.g. in the banking industry would such a dartaset exist?

      I don't know if I ever worked for a fortune 500, as i don't know who actually is considered one :P
      Your argument that you work(ed) for some and use Perl does not change the fact hat no one in my environment uses it.

      No idea why you want to insult me/other people about that.

      Good luck with your career ... you might need it with your fucked upped attitude.

      You can grep for \#/usr/bin/perl in /bin;/sbin;/usr/bin;/usr/sbin as well as I can.
      And why would I do that?

      "find / -name "*.pl" | wc" is enough ... idiot. Oh, you have so much Perl affinity that you know that moronic programmers hide perl scripts in mere text files ... hi hi hi, as I said good luck.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  12. Folks like Python because by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    You have to properly indent, making the code more readable and better organized. If you get stuck maintaining somebody else's code it's a Godsend. But for me it drives me nuts since I hate worrying about space counting.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  13. My Claw Hammer by Carcass666 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I love my claw hammer. It works for anything I want to build, and I never need other tools. People who use ball-peen hammers or malletts obviously don't know how to use hammers properly. Anybody who uses screwdrivers or wrenches is obviously an idiot, who doesn't really understand how to build things.

    1. Re:My Claw Hammer by Thelasko · · Score: 1

      I love my claw hammer. It works for anything I want to build, and I never need other tools. People who use ball-peen hammers or malletts obviously don't know how to use hammers properly. Anybody who uses screwdrivers or wrenches is obviously an idiot, who doesn't really understand how to build things.

      Clarkson, is that you?

      --
      One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
  14. SQL #3?????? by MikeDataLink · · Score: 3, Informative

    "Do I think that more people will start using Python than SQL? That would be tough, SQL plays a role in huge swathes of the economy. I'd be surprised if next year Python overtakes SQL, just because SQL is so dominant."

    SQL is #3 on the list. Since when did SQL become a programming language SQL us a a QUERY language.

    --
    Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
    1. Re:SQL #3?????? by N1AK · · Score: 2

      Trust me that there are plenty of people who use SQL like a programming language. We have dozens of 3,000+ line stored procedures and job steps (queries) that we have to keep ticking over; just because SQL "shouldn't" be a programming language doesn't mean everyone got that memo!

    2. Re:SQL #3?????? by geek · · Score: 1

      It has syntax, stores variables, instructs a system to do things. Not seeing an issue. Especially when the "L" in SQL is for LANGUAGE.

    3. Re:SQL #3?????? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      in the 1980s SQL was a QUERY language.
      Fixed that for you.

      Every SQL dialect has a full fledged programming language built in ... behind what moon did you live the last 40 years?

      And your base statement way wrong anyway. Old school SQL is two languages: data manipulation language and data definition language ... go figure, nitpicking with no clue is worth than nitpicking ...

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  15. AC is hilarious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    > I suppose, but I fucking am incompetent in Python and have no idea how to write good code.

    FTFY

    1. Re:AC is hilarious by fluffernutter · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If anything knock Python because of the GIL issue. Maybe on large projects, dynamic typing is problematic if you are lazy with variable names and documentation. Don't knock it because you can't accept 'something different'. The indentation helps in a lot of cases; and it quickly starts to feel redundant doing { } everywhere. Neither is really better than the other.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  16. Raspberry Pi caused the rise of Python by MikeDataLink · · Score: 1

    I feel like the beloved Raspberry Pi has caused the rise of Python. All these school kids are learning Python in school and they just think its the best language for everything after that.

    It's why Steve Jobs gave Apple's to schools. ;-) It works.

    --
    Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
    1. Re:Raspberry Pi caused the rise of Python by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

      I feel like the beloved Raspberry Pi has caused the rise of Python. All these school kids are learning Python in school and they just think its the best language for everything after that.

      It's why Steve Jobs gave Apple's to schools. ;-) It works.

      Python has been around since 1991. It has stood the test of time. Well, some time, anyway ..

    2. Re:Raspberry Pi caused the rise of Python by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

      It has been around, in obscurity, since 1991. That's true.
      It didn't blow up and get splattered everywhere, reducing the performance of our machines faster than the fixes for Intel's architectural mistakes, until recent history.

    3. Re:Raspberry Pi caused the rise of Python by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      You obviously never have been at a university that stayed at the edge of "der Puls der Zeit".

      In my university everyone and his dog jumped on Python the day it "went viral" in the usenet/news.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    4. Re:Raspberry Pi caused the rise of Python by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

      Christ, you will literally make any shit you can think of up.
      Python never "went viral".
      Python wasn't even a standardized install on any of the common enterprise Linuxes until the 2000s.
      You're like a nerd Trump.

    5. Re:Raspberry Pi caused the rise of Python by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Python never "went viral".

      Yes it did. You are probably to young to know what "usenet/news" is.

      Python wasn't even a standardized install on any of the common enterprise Linuxes until the 2000s.

      Python went viral around 1991 ... my first linux distro was slackware 0.8x ... mid 1993.

      No idea if it had Python ... I programmed exclusively in C++ that time ...

      What actually is your point? That you have no clue about anything? We noticed, no need to further embarrass yourself.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  17. Re:Erlang by TimMD909 · · Score: 1

    I love Erlang so I guess I am just a masochist.

    Answer: Yes, you are a masochist. Seek treatment immediately.

    Source: Me (I know Erlang)

  18. Well, my favorite language. by cellocgw · · Score: 1

    MFL is any language that lets me talk to it and have it produce code, or hardware, just the way I want it.

    Enterprise NCC1701-D's Food Replicator comes to mind. I bet you could tell it to generate the software you need to deliver tomorrow.

    --
    https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
    1. Re:Well, my favorite language. by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Enterprise NCC1701-D's Food Replicator comes to mind. I bet you could tell it to generate the software you need to deliver tomorrow.

      The food replicators could only make stuff that was programmed in.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  19. Compiled vs. Interpreted by RogueWarrior65 · · Score: 1

    IMHO, this survey should separate languages that are compiled versus those that are interpreted.

    1. Re:Compiled vs. Interpreted by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      That is a bit tricky issue as many languages are:
      a) compiled to a bytecode - the bytecode is interpreted
      b) jit compiled from bytecode to machine code
      c) have a subset that compiles to machine code (CPython e.g. or the SmallTalk Cog engine): http://www.mirandabanda.org/co...

      Even old school basic is "tokenized" and then interpreted.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  20. SQL and R? by AxisOfPleasure · · Score: 1

    JS and HTML are at the top of a list of programming languages? Why don't we list Batch, shell script, powershell, and R as programm...oh wait! R and SQL as fully fledged programming languages? Hmmm, I was a DBA for 25 years, so I lived and breathed SQL and procedural SQL in all it's whacky disguises, but when it came to automation, coding interfaces or anything outside the DB there's wasn't much SQL was going to for you when all you had was a stack of libraries written in C or Java. Even as a non-developer, working in Infrastructure you still need at least one "proper language" under your belt if you want to stand a hope in hell of keeping up with the dev teams or getting decent hooks into the array of software you have to work with. Yes, I'll admit I still like mashochistic coding in C++ and Java, nothing beats using a "chainsaw to slice bread"! ha ha!

  21. No it was windows by goombah99 · · Score: 1

    Poor windows folks lacked a decent Perl. So they used Python.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:No it was windows by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

      Which blows my mind, because they had VB, which is basically Python with more understandable syntax and better performance.

  22. Gamification by Martin+S. · · Score: 1

    The root problem is that SO gamification system rewards the lowest common denominator not the highest or even just professional level

  23. Re:career advice by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    not many of recent graduation have a grasp of relational databases

    They use joins so they aren't webscale.

    No, the databases. Don't be silly.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  24. Rubbish by Martin+S. · · Score: 1

    Hoare logic is apparent off-topic, so is advocating declarative BDD over imperative BDD, quoting JUnit's documentation on Assume semantic 'proves nothing', getter and setter are not evil and 'tell don't ask' is claptrap and the java language specification is not an authoritative on parameter semantics, or even just fixing poor English grammar.

    Those are all examples where I've reference recognised experts in the respective fields and had unwarranted locks and restrictions at the hands of moderation who've own profiles show they game their reputation by camping trivial questions.

  25. How exciting! by cyber-vandal · · Score: 2

    A Slashdot snobfest!

  26. to some of the commenters ... by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

    ... Python was released in 1991. I don't think we can call it a fad anymore.

    1. Re:to some of the commenters ... by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

      Your logic is terminally broken.

      A bandwagon can be jumped on long after it leaves its origin. That doesn't make it not a bandwagon.
      See: Linux.

  27. Warning: autoplay video by themusicgod1 · · Score: 1

    fucking autoplay.

    --
    GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
  28. Use the right tool by pdxtabs · · Score: 1

    Python is a great replacement for bash with much better library and testing support. How many horrible bash scripts have you seen? I promise that with Python they can be far better. However, I'm not actually a huge fan of dynamic languages, because there are a whole class of bugs that the compiler can't catch. So, I love Python, but I don't use it for anything too large.

  29. editors by someoneOtherThanMe · · Score: 1

    Most popular development environments: vim 5th (25.4%), emacs 15th (4.5%). So that's settled.