2021 survey data reveals the most hated and loved programming languages

RE: 2021 survey data reveals the most hated and loved programming languages

genebren — Fri, 13 Aug 2021 19:51:47 GMT

What! No Squirrel programming language.

I was surprised to see Erlang (4th from the bottom, with a score of 0.79%) on the list. A buddy of mine, wrote a program in Erlang to act as an intelligent router for our Zigbee network. He barely got the program to work (which he did in a surprisingly short amount of time, while learning the language) and then left the company. He walked me through the code and instructed me on how to build and install the software, but try as I might, I could never understand how it worked or how to successfully add, delete or modify functionality. I hammered on it for days, trying to add trace/debug messages, make small tweaks, just about anything. But, it just would not sink in (and I have mastered many different languages). Mind you, this all occurred within a year of my retirement, as my brain started having troubles learning anything. I was so glad to finally be told by my boss to let it go, I don't think I have ever given up on something so quickly in my life.

RE: 2021 survey data reveals the most hated and loved programming languages

14rhb — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 21:25:54 GMT

COBOL programming might be hated but it came with a hefty pay packet in recent years due to its obsolence.

I actually like VBA - escpecially in Excel where you have full access to all the chart functions but can automate your analysis or run other scripts to manipulate the data as required.

I've never tried programming in Rust...might have a closer look at that now [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-747dd14e-3948-4707-bbde-adae76081fac/0572.contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]

RE: 2021 survey data reveals the most hated and loved programming languages

dubbie — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 10:04:33 GMT

I started with Fortran but it was mostly restricted to mechanical engineers so I moved on to Basic (the mainframe kind). I never learned COBOL although it was close at one point. Then mostly assembly (8085 and then 8088), taught myself Pascal (which I liked but it is a bit wordy) and then moved onto C (TurboC was a revelation! A pity it is no longer with us). Piddled about with LISP, VHDL, Z (there's one you don't hear much about now), more Basic. Java (couldn't get the hand of that, C++ (ditto) and now I've relaxed into Arduino. After all, most of what I want to do is just turning a few LEDs on and off, with some motors.

I am getting a bit concerned that some companies supplying sensor/actuator/display modules are starting to only supply Python examples on their websites. If this happens too much I might have to give up. Gardening just doesn't have these problems.

Dubbie

RE: 2021 survey data reveals the most hated and loved programming languages

michaelkellett — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 08:24:35 GMT

Happy to see at least one supporter of VB (I hope Doglas didn't mean VB.net [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-747dd14e-3948-4707-bbde-adae76081fac/contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]) - to my mind VB6 was the best quick and simple Windows programming langauge ever - 20 years out of support now - and still nothing else lets you stop at an error, tweak the code and go back a a few lines to continue. But it was a true compiler as well, with a seemless interface between debugging and compiling. I'm using Xojo now, not as nice to use but up to date and multi platform, and so far looks about as good as you can buy today.

VB6 and Xojo are great for quick-to-code Windows stuff, but for embedded I use C.

For Maths I use MATLAB and Maple. MATLAB has a messy langauage but overall it's great tool.

For FPGAs I use VHDL (I get as close to really disliking Verilog as I do to any language.)

I spend more time doing C than any of the others.

For my work it's positioned perfectly at the optimum level of abstraction for hard real time embedded programming on small systems.

RE: 2021 survey data reveals the most hated and loved programming languages

baldengineer — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 01:37:35 GMT

Love that VBA is just lightly less dreaded compared to COBOL.

I don't know what the top 5 loved languages are. I'd be willing to bet one of them is a made-up word.

RE: 2021 survey data reveals the most hated and loved programming languages

genebren — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 22:08:38 GMT

I have written code in many different languages and for many different purposes. Each language has a time and a place and a reason to be used. I find it kind of silly to try and rank them. You should focus on using the right language for the right job. Programming languages are sort of like tools. You should not drive a screw with a hammer or tighten a hex-head bolt with a screwdriver. That does not mean a hammer or a screwdriver is a better tool.

RE: 2021 survey data reveals the most hated and loved programming languages

dougw — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 21:51:44 GMT

I've programmed in at least 21 languages, although I am not a programmer, and all of them had their merits.

I didn't like APL or LISP much but they were never mainstream languages.

I grew up on FORTRAN - the language used by engineers and I still like it better than C.

I kind of like assembly languages, but they aren't all that productive.

For all out productivity (slapping together small powerful applications) I like Visual Basic.

I have not tried RUST or TypeScript and I don't write big programs that take months or years to write.

RE: 2021 survey data reveals the most hated and loved programming languages

Andrew J — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 19:40:20 GMT

Worst; Lisp; best: Smalltalk