Favorite Programming Language

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What's your favorite computer programming/scripting language?

Cobol (I think thats how you spell it) just because my stepdad teaches it (not that I know it at all.)

What about standard ANSI C (C89)?

I was going to answer this seriously, but after all the geek hostility I decided that my favorite is Befunge (wikipedia)

I've used Basic, C, C++, Obj-C, Forth, Fortran, Java, Pascal, Perl, Python, Scheme, SmallTalk, various shell scripts, and various forms of assembler (6502, 68k, VAX, ARM and others). Which is the favorite depends on what problem I'm trying to solve...

I should try to score 'geek points' and say C++ - or I could try to score 'Hacker points' and say anything in Hex.

To tell the truth though, I think that although each language has its strengths and weaknesses, it often depends on what you are trying to do in terms of the problem domain one is trying to address.

I am by no means a particularly 'good' programmer, I just enjoy it for the sake of it mostly and because I am trying to solve a problem sometimes too.

I have heard about a kind of 'manageriat class', who often earn far more than coders and programmers, yet I have never felt inclined to join their ranks. To be honest, I often question the value of the 'manageriat class', especially as they seem to be the ones making the false promises, while it is the coders who are battling to deliver on them.

I still believe that arguably the only real way of 'staying in touch' with the IT world is to be coding and that all the 'manageriat' flim-flam is just so much rubbish.

I may never be hired by the likes of Sun, IBM, Microsoft, Apple, etc (or any other halfway decent software house), but I still like to dabble on an amateur/hobbyist basis.

The thing about programming is that you never stop learning and that has to be one of the great attractions about it to me.

Interestingly, no mention was made of Prolog, LISP/Scheme or Smalltalk. I suppose it is impossible to list every specific language, though a breakdown into types, or 'genres' might prove interesting.

Python is da bomb. Its practically a scripting language, yet you can do amazing stuff with it, including use modules from other languages, like C and C++. One of my friends started designing a MUD engine using Python.

One problem is that it is almost expected that you will transition in to 'management' if you are good at coding regardless if you don't want to get in to management. To be a good manager you generally need to be good with people and good with basic organisational skills - not a typical AS skill profile. However, if you are like me, you'll probably be pissed off at the thought that you are not in charge and that someone else is making all these idiotic ill-informed and stupid decisions that screw up what you were trying to do...


Technically, I am a manager (one of the reasons why I question if I have AS). However, I don't have any people who report to me and effectively I spend my time learning about interesting bits of technology and writing snippets of code to try out ideas. I think my ideal job would be working quietly on my own and publishing software via the internet.


I like coding because good code to me looks and feels elegant and simple and does something unusual. The downside is that I easily get sufficiently absorbed that the problem I'm solving dominates all my thoughts - I guess a bit like the kind of escapism people get from reading a book. I think many programmers experience this as 'being in the flow' - a meditative state so in tune with the programming process than mundane things like eating get ignored...

Hmm... My father was project manager until recently, and he is definitively AS, as I am. He was very successful in organizing, but he neither is very strong in conventional conversational skills. His strengthes are in technical things, and, as he works very systematically, organisation.

The languages I like most, are Scheme and Forth for their simplicity and power. I still am not strong in them, it seems, they are difficult to enter. For practical things that need not to be calculated fast, I really love Python. For fast, machine oriented tasks, I still would use ANSI C.

Greetz,
Burx.

Does HTML count? Or is that more of a code rather than a language? Unlike most other Aspies, I am not so computer-savvy.

I'll count it as a language, but not one to do programming/scripting -- as you can't run real programs. It just describes content. But when going to PHP, you can mix HTML and real programming, so you can do everything any other programming language could do.

Okay. I'm currently enjoying learning HTML and want to learn one of the real programming languages once I get done with the intro to web pages class I'm taking right now.

Python. It is the most versitile language for me.

check this page out, its bloody great for web dev

http://www.tizag.com/

takes you from the very basics to more advanced (and fun) stuff - php/mysql/javascript.

I confess. I love the feel of the machine responding to my every whim as I caress and coerce it in Assembly.

I wouldn't call HTML a real "language" It's just a markup code.
A language should have some sort of flow control, if/then/else statements and switch/case

I love assembly language but haven't had time to do much in it in years.

In the 1970s, one of the best assembly language programmers I have ever met was required to take a course in assembly language from a prof who really wasn't very impressive.

One Friday someone asked the prof how you would do some specific task in assembly and the prof wrote the code for it on the board. The friend of mine told him that would never work, walked up to the board, grabbed the chalk, and wrote some code to do it.

Over the weekend, the prof tried his own code and it didn't work, so on Monday he told the class that there was no way to do the specific task in assembly language!

I remember one time I needed a routine to convert a floating point value to EBCDIC for output (this was on an IBM 360/370 computer). I was trying to figure out how to do it when the friend of mine asked what I was doing and when I told him, he sat down and wrote down what turned out to be the best and most efficient code I ever saw for that task.