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sxmaxchine
March 23rd, 2010, 08:05 AM
just curious to know what programing language everyone is best at i am best at visual basic.net although i do know html and learning JavaScript.

PartisanEntity
March 23rd, 2010, 08:20 AM
HTML is not a programming language. It is a mark-up language, it allows you to describe pages.

And you missed the number one (IMO) web programming language, PHP.

So I voted "other".

Eisenwinter
March 23rd, 2010, 08:20 AM
Some will argue that HTML isn't actually a programming language.

EDIT: ninja'd by PartisanEntity
-----

As for me, I am best at Perl.

Psumi
March 23rd, 2010, 08:22 AM
HTML (Though not a Programming Language), CSS (Though not a programming language), javaScript, PHP2 and very little MySQL.

sxmaxchine
March 23rd, 2010, 08:33 AM
really i just assumed it was a language because the L stands for langauge, well at least this thread wasnt pointless because i did learn something new, and the sad part is that i actually know quite a bit of html

leg
March 23rd, 2010, 08:37 AM
Java for me. I really like the language as it seems to make some things very easy.

pbpersson
March 23rd, 2010, 08:41 AM
Java - write once, run everywhere. It was a special thrill for me the first time I took an application developed on Linux, ran it in Windows, and it worked perfectly. :guitar:

Paqman
March 23rd, 2010, 09:26 AM
Wot, no brainf*ck?

Nevon
March 23rd, 2010, 09:43 AM
While I'm most proficient with web markup languages, I also know my way around Python (which is what I voted for), Lua, and a tiny bit of both C# and Java (some university courses require that I use those languages).

NightwishFan
March 23rd, 2010, 09:53 AM
I only program in python now.

Tom.Gee
March 23rd, 2010, 10:11 AM
I'm adept in Z80 and 6809. I can do 6502 in a pinch. Of late I've been programming in DBase, FoxBase, and Visual FoxPro. Long story. Anyway, I know my way around SQL queries and joins and such. But when I'm programming for fun, my head is buried in Microchip datasheets. PIC microcontrollers are versatile, available to the hobbyist as well as the manufacturer, and are well documented and supported. That, and I'm still known to program something up using a soldering iron on occasion.

That said, what would be the best path to get started programming under Linux? I'd like to rewrite some FoxPro database apps, so I'm thinking MySQL as the backend, (not that I even know how to set it up yet,) but dunno what to use for the desktop frontend. Any gurus here want to chime in?

veko
March 23rd, 2010, 10:38 AM
Other = Fortran. Worked in 1977, works still. Designed to do what computers do best: calculations.

Most of you might not even know there's such a language or think that it's dead by now, but anyone who has been doing anything related to scientific computing knows that it's doing well. It's kept alive by thousands of physicist, chemists, mathematicians, huge number of mathematical libraries, lots of programs, etc, etc. Clumsy it might occasionally be, but it's optimizes better than C.

When it comes to MPP (massively parallel processing), Fortran, C and C++ rule, although Python does work too. But if you want to shave off the last fractions of second in a critical loop in C program, you either code it in Fortran or assembler. (Yes, you can link Fortran into C and vice versa.)

Actually, I might have voted for C too, but Fortran just deserves to be mentioned here.

Hetor
March 23rd, 2010, 11:07 AM
Python, C++, bash.

tica vun
March 23rd, 2010, 11:11 AM
I'm taking a Java course in uni now, other than that I know some perl and bash, and the very basics of html, css and mysql.


really i just assumed it was a language because the L stands for langaugeYes, but note the other letters, the "ML" in "HTML" stands for Markup Language, not programming language. ;)

matthew.ball
March 23rd, 2010, 11:19 AM
I have quite a bit of experience with C# and Python, but my knowledge of C trumps both of those.

Redache
March 23rd, 2010, 11:24 AM
Java.

I'd also point out that JavaScript is a scripting language, as is VB.Net. Python and Perl could be argued as either scripting languages or programming languages as well.

HTML is a markup language, it does't exist to do computation, it exits to specify the style of a document. The same goes for CSS.

tica vun
March 23rd, 2010, 11:41 AM
Java.

I'd also point out that JavaScript is a scripting language, as is VB.Net. Python and Perl could be argued as either scripting languages or programming languages as well.

HTML is a markup language, it does't exist to do computation, it exits to specify the style of a document. The same goes for CSS.

Using that definition, aren't all interpreted languages actually scripting languages?

cb951303
March 23rd, 2010, 11:45 AM
my new favorite is lua. i'm amazed at how much I can do with a table.

gnomeuser
March 23rd, 2010, 12:19 PM
I have done some assembly and C++ coding in my day, but I have to proudly stand by C# as the most pleasant language to get work done in.

-grubby
March 23rd, 2010, 12:40 PM
The languages I can "do something useful" in are Python, PHP, and Ruby. I'm the best at Python and prefer to use it.

errrata
March 23rd, 2010, 12:42 PM
I've got to throw in for Java. Ease of use, community and industry support, flexibility. On a side note I recently discovered Google App Engine great free service for us Java coders who want to play online...the BigTable/Datastore access is just weird though.

velle frak
March 23rd, 2010, 12:47 PM
C++ here, altough I'm rusty, haven't done any decent programming project in 5 years :roll: .

dyingsun
March 23rd, 2010, 12:56 PM
Embarrassingly enough, it's probably Pascal :)

But these days, my most useful tool is PHP

madjr
March 23rd, 2010, 01:40 PM
php

i could probably do C, since they're so similar and clean

i just dont like object oriented that much

java i know some, but needs an IDE, since has lots of garbage u forget in the syntax

collinp
March 23rd, 2010, 01:43 PM
Perl > everything.

_h_
March 23rd, 2010, 01:46 PM
HTML is not a programming language. It is a mark-up language, it allows you to describe pages.

And you missed the number one (IMO) web programming language, PHP.

So I voted "other".

Even PHP isn't a programming language, it's a scripting language. xD

samjh
March 23rd, 2010, 01:58 PM
C, followed closely by Java.

ve4cib
March 23rd, 2010, 02:27 PM
Back in university I did everything in Java, C, and Python. But over the last year and a bit I've been doing C# and Javascript for 8 hours a day (with tiny amounts of Python and VB tossed in the mix).

At the moment I'd probably say that my best languages are:

1- Javascript
2- C#, Python (they're about equal)
3- C/++, Java
4- VB

Lately I've been finding myself wishing that there was a good way to use Javascript for general scripting purposes instead of Python. I know there are a few JS commandline interpreters, but they always feel like they're missing libraries (esp I/O libraries). *shrug* Maybe if I get enthusiastic enough over the summer I'll look harder and/or write my own libraries.

Dragonbite
March 23rd, 2010, 02:33 PM
I started off with Excel's VBA, followed by Access then VBScript (ASP Classic) in my previous job. My current job uses VB.NET (ASP.NET) and thankfully they sent me for training.

Although right now I'm working on some VBA to be used via Excel or Access.

Unfortunately, other than kBASIC and Gambas, VB is not supported very well in Linux so I've been trying to move to a more Linux-friendly language.

So my current focus, on the side, is to move to C# (Mono) and/or PHP plus Javascript. Moving to C# has the advantages of already being familiar with .NET, and being able to use Visual Studio at times to try things out. I'm starting out with trying to build simple pieces in Visual Studio in Windows before trying to move to Mono/Monodevelop at home.

Although, if I get a good book on shell scripting I may ignore the others. ;)

Zoot7
March 23rd, 2010, 02:53 PM
I'd pick C. I like it for its speed and low level efficiency particularly when it comes to hardware programming.

Simian Man
March 23rd, 2010, 03:01 PM
In terms of command of the language I'd have to say C and C++. I've worked with both for years, have written tens of thousands of lines of code in them and taught a C++ course a few times.

In terms of what language I'd choose to solve problems effectively, I wouldn't choose either of them, they both suck horribly. For that I'd choose Python, C# or Ocaml.


Even PHP isn't a programming language, it's a scripting language. xD

No. Scripting languages, though it's a debated term, are a subset of programming languages.

_h_
March 23rd, 2010, 03:05 PM
No. Scripting languages, though it's a debated term, are a subset of programming languages.

Thanks for the insightful correction, seems as though my teachers had lied to us when I was going to school many years ago.

BrokenKingpin
March 23rd, 2010, 03:12 PM
I am a professional programmer, so I am pretty good in a few languages. I write in C# for the most part at my job, and I would say that is the language I am best at. C++ is a close second, but haven't really been writing much in it the last year.

dinamic1
March 23rd, 2010, 03:24 PM
object pascal X-)

forrestcupp
March 23rd, 2010, 04:24 PM
I've messed around with Python, C#, C++, Visual Basic, a little C, a little javascript & html, Commodore BASIC, 8-bit Assembly.

C++ is by far my favorite to work with. I'm being persuaded to check out Java, though.

Meep3D
March 23rd, 2010, 05:01 PM
Even PHP isn't a programming language, it's a scripting language. xD

There isn't any real difference - Java compiles to bytecode, not native code, and you can compile PHP. You get basic compilers as well - I remember oldschool QBasic had a compiler.

I think the test for 'programming language' is Turing completeness:\
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_completeness

BramWillemsen
March 23rd, 2010, 06:37 PM
Other = Fortran. Worked in 1977, works still. Designed to do what computers do best: calculations.

Most of you might not even know there's such a language or think that it's dead by now, but anyone who has been doing anything related to scientific computing knows that it's doing well. It's kept alive by thousands of physicist, chemists, mathematicians, huge number of mathematical libraries, lots of programs, etc, etc. Clumsy it might occasionally be, but it's optimizes better than C.

When it comes to MPP (massively parallel processing), Fortran, C and C++ rule, although Python does work too. But if you want to shave off the last fractions of second in a critical loop in C program, you either code it in Fortran or assembler. (Yes, you can link Fortran into C and vice versa.)

Actually, I might have voted for C too, but Fortran just deserves to be mentioned here.

Interesting post, i used fortran for my bachelor thesis (earth sciences). I heard many people say c/c++ produces code just as good as fortran with respect to scientific calculations. From your post i get the impression fortran is slightly more optimal. Are you sure about this?

About linking fortran into c and vice versa, I was not aware of this option. Thanks for mentioning this, gonna try and find some more info about this :)

hessiess
March 23rd, 2010, 06:40 PM
C++, PHP and common lisp (I use all 3 for different things).

Dragonbite
March 23rd, 2010, 06:55 PM
Other = Fortran. Worked in 1977, works still. Designed to do what computers do best: calculations.

Most of you might not even know there's such a language or think that it's dead by now, but anyone who has been doing anything related to scientific computing knows that it's doing well. It's kept alive by thousands of physicist, chemists, mathematicians, huge number of mathematical libraries, lots of programs, etc, etc. Clumsy it might occasionally be, but it's optimizes better than C.

When it comes to MPP (massively parallel processing), Fortran, C and C++ rule, although Python does work too. But if you want to shave off the last fractions of second in a critical loop in C program, you either code it in Fortran or assembler. (Yes, you can link Fortran into C and vice versa.)

Actually, I might have voted for C too, but Fortran just deserves to be mentioned here.

The last company I worked for was runing PICK (has anybody heard of it, or the language PICK BASIC?) but it was bought out by another company, running Cobol! They may be old, but that doesn't mean they're dead!

MichealH
March 23rd, 2010, 08:50 PM
VB.NET but I have some experience with HTML and Python

schauerlich
March 23rd, 2010, 09:25 PM
I am most experienced with C++, but I'm also competent with C and Python.

aaaantoine
March 23rd, 2010, 09:37 PM
Though ASP/VBscript is the language I use at my current job, I have made some interesting programs using pure HTML/CSS/JavaScript.

GermanGiant
March 23rd, 2010, 10:34 PM
I think Javascript will be exceedingly important to master as time goes on for most programmers. With nodejs and other neat server side technologies, even back-end programming will be done in JS in the future.

GermanGiant
March 23rd, 2010, 10:37 PM
And I forgot to mention.

Even though CSS isn't a programming language, there are so many cool animation tricks you'll be able to pull off now and in the future through pure CSS that requires really crazy smart levels of thinking and understanding.

* You can do hacks to create all kinds of shapes with various transforms and combinations of divs, negating the need for many images and eliminating excessive website load times.

* Animations that are possible are crazy.

* You can tilt and rotate stuff and make unique interfaces that aren't easily possible in recent years.

CSS isn't a programming language but also exciting.

lykwydchykyn
March 23rd, 2010, 10:40 PM
I'm happiest working in Python.

But I can get it done in PHP if the situation calls for it.

For the life of me, I just can't grok c++, no matter how many times I try.

aaaantoine
March 23rd, 2010, 10:58 PM
To add to my previous post...

In my life time I've written maybe 2,000 or 3,000 lines of code in C++. However, most of those lines were written before the standard was finalized, so I now have a tainted understanding of the language. :(

I've also written some C. I made a cheap icons-only task bar to work with Gnome, and the code I was... uh, forking... was written in C.

I've also played with PHP and ASP.NET, not really getting deep into either one.

qalimas
March 24th, 2010, 12:30 AM
Ruby and Ruby on Rails.

I can't tell if you mean overall or not (including web languages?), but I think Ruby and Ruby on Rails are pretty much awesome to code in.

So I vote Ruby.

Meep3D
March 24th, 2010, 12:36 AM
And I forgot to mention.

Even though CSS isn't a programming language, there are so many cool animation tricks you'll be able to pull off now and in the future through pure CSS that requires really crazy smart levels of thinking and understanding.

I think the 'crazy smart' required in CSS these days is the requirement to know how it'll look in the various flavours of IE (mainly 6) and being aware of all the gotchas - you can't even put in a left margin without being acutely aware of IE's little foibles.

I fear clever CSS trickery will be irrelevant for many years more simply because IE doesn't support it. You're limited to a subset of CSS 1 and it looks like it'll be that way for a while.

:(

Pub0r
March 24th, 2010, 12:36 AM
My favourite is Scala but Java is what I'm best at. Still loads to learn in both languages :D

Shining Arcanine
March 24th, 2010, 01:19 AM
Java - write once, run everywhere. It was a special thrill for me the first time I took an application developed on Linux, ran it in Windows, and it worked perfectly. :guitar:

If you do enough Java programming, you will learn that Java does not work the same way across all platforms, despite it being intended to do that.

Anyway, I voted for C++. My favorite language is C, but C++ is my second favorite and I find myself writing code in it more than C because the STL tends to abstract out much of the drudge work that is needed to do to write programs.

NovaAesa
March 24th, 2010, 01:21 AM
I am most proficient at Java. The reason for this is that it's the main language we use at uni, so I have a large amount of experience with it. C is quite close up there with proficiency though :P

Shining Arcanine
March 24th, 2010, 01:27 AM
I am most proficient at Java. The reason for this is that it's the main language we use at uni, so I have a large amount of experience with it. C is quite close up there with proficiency though :P

They use Java at my university too. I have tried complaining to the department that they should teach things in C/C++, but it has not helped, despite a more professors agreeing with me than disagreeing.

Letrazzrot
March 24th, 2010, 01:34 AM
What? No one's mentioned C++ Template Meta-programming yet?:D

I have the most experience, and largest built-up personal codebase, in C and C++. However, I've gotten too old and/or lazy to try to do much in either of those languages.

So: C#, followed by perhaps Java. I'm also learning bits and pieces of Python, but I have yet to do much with it.

p.s. since it hasn't been mentioned, there is always LISP, which I only use when I have to...

RandomJoe
March 24th, 2010, 02:38 AM
"Real" programming for me is primarily a hobby, with the occasional small "scratch an itch" project at work. I do a fair amount of "programming" at work, but most of it is with crippled pseudo-languages for various embedded controllers. Enough to make me want to scream sometimes, what I wouldn't give for a more fully functional language there!

My best "real" language is Python. I absolutely love it, even the whitespace which most people complain about! :D

I'm also working on Java - one of the systems I use at work is based on it, and extensible with it. A nice change from the other proprietary abominations.

I'd be hard pressed to write my own C program from scratch (without much help from reference material) but know enough to be highly dangerous with existing source code! ;) I just don't use it enough to keep things fresh in my mind...

sxmaxchine
March 24th, 2010, 08:55 AM
i lovewhitespace in my code it lets me set it out in an easy to read way without affecting functionality. and the one thing i hate most is the ; im used to it now but when i started it anoyed me so much

veko
March 24th, 2010, 09:46 AM
From your post i get the impression fortran is slightly more optimal. Are you sure about this?

There are lots of web pages about whether Fortran really has any advantage over C, see e.g.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/146159/is-fortran-faster-than-c. The main conclusion seems to be that Fortran's arrays are easier to optimize than those of C. C utilizes pointers heavily and this might make it tricky to preload requested arrays into cache in advance.

Further, Fortran 95 has efficient and optimized default routines to do array arithmetics. E.g. functions, like sin(), cos(), etc, can take array arguments. This also makes memory optimization easier.

However, I think that with proper optimization there's no reason why C couldn't be as fast.

And I should add that it all depends on compiler and its options. There can actually be quite a large difference between different compilers.



About linking fortran into c and vice versa, I was not aware of this option. Thanks for mentioning this, gonna try and find some more info about this :)Generally I'd advice you to write your code either in C or in Fortran. But if you already have a nice library you want to use, then go ahead. Passing parameters is the (only) difficult thing.

If you are interested, check gcc and gfortran. They work nicely together.

Sorry about not being much Ubuntu stuff here.

Dragonbite
March 24th, 2010, 02:14 PM
If you do enough Java programming, you will learn that Java does not work the same way across all platforms, despite it being intended to do that.

Does that depend on how deep you go with the system, or how technical does it have to become before it is noticeable?

samjh
March 24th, 2010, 02:33 PM
Both, but it's most noticeable when one begins to use platform-dependent functions.

red_Marvin
March 24th, 2010, 03:02 PM
Where is the befunge option?

forrestcupp
March 24th, 2010, 03:21 PM
C utilizes pointers heavily and this might make it tricky to preload requested arrays into cache in advance.

Pointers are powerful, but one of my pet peeves is when people use pointers unnecessarily. It seems like there are a lot of people who use pointers for everything just because they think that's how it should be done. All that does is complicate things and set you up for problems.

The only reason I brought that up is because there is a general misconception that C & C++ is all pointers, and it's not. But they are powerful when used correctly.

samalex
March 24th, 2010, 03:37 PM
Just as being multilingual in speech is becoming a worthy trait to have, being multilingual in software languages carries some wait as well. For this I can't say I have a preference, though I've dabbled in MANY languages over the years.

For example I work in a Microsoft shop so I'm doing some projects in C# and VB. Off the clock I use Linux full time, so I'm working on some side projects using Qt, which is a framework around C++.

And for the websites I write and/or maintain I like to stick with PHP.

Personally above all languages I think anyone who codes needs to pick-up a strong understanding of Object Oriented Programming and various development methods, which I'm still having a hard time grasping at times. I did mainly procedural coding, even in PHP, until I came to where I'm at now and started learning VB and C#.

Take care --

Sam

BramWillemsen
March 24th, 2010, 04:09 PM
There are lots of web pages about whether Fortran really has any advantage over C, see e.g.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/146159/is-fortran-faster-than-c. The main conclusion seems to be that Fortran's arrays are easier to optimize than those of C. C utilizes pointers heavily and this might make it tricky to preload requested arrays into cache in advance.

Further, Fortran 95 has efficient and optimized default routines to do array arithmetics. E.g. functions, like sin(), cos(), etc, can take array arguments. This also makes memory optimization easier.

However, I think that with proper optimization there's no reason why C couldn't be as fast.

And I should add that it all depends on compiler and its options. There can actually be quite a large difference between different compilers.

Generally I'd advice you to write your code either in C or in Fortran. But if you already have a nice library you want to use, then go ahead. Passing parameters is the (only) difficult thing.

If you are interested, check gcc and gfortran. They work nicely together.

Sorry about not being much Ubuntu stuff here.

Thanks for the information! Its appreciated.

EarthMind
March 24th, 2010, 07:53 PM
No Perl?? What the..??? You're a disgrace!

donkyhotay
March 24th, 2010, 08:24 PM
Currently python, I used to use primarily C++ about 3-5 years ago and variations of basic (visual basic,Qbasic, C64 basic) before that.