Dysmey Blog Archives > languages (the computer kind)

languages (the computer kind)

The monthly cycle of magazines has come and past. One of the mags had a list of the most popular languages, with Java being first.

Do I care about lists? Really, though, I care more about what programming language that I am most familiar with and that is most suitable for a given project.

The languages that I am most familiar with are C (low-level work), C# (Web stuff at work), Ruby (personal stuff and what needs scripting fast) and PHP (Web stuff at work and at home). As for other languages:

• I have left Visual Basic behind; and although I have spent a lot of time with it, I just don't care. The long road from GW-BASIC to Visual Basic .NET has come to an end for me.
• I sadly leave Icon behind. I spent a lot of hours hacking Icon on my DOS box back in the early 1990's. And it has been a big help in learning Ruby, which it resembles. It was regrettable that when Icon seemed to peter out before the end of the decade.
• I learn JavaScript/DOM rather relucantly. I have always felt that it is the responsibility of the Web server, not of the browser, to make Web sites dance and sing for users.
• I never had the time or the enthusiasm to learn Perl; and Python looks too much like FORTRAN for my taste.

None of these languages (except maybe C) even existed when I first started computer science at Ball State. It was FORTRAN, COBOL, PL/I and the crudest form of BASIC. And programs were punched into cards with typewriter-like machines, or typed into terminals that were little more than cable TV screens with keyboards.

Yeah, I'm that old.