Actions
Forum Thread Details
  • State Not Answered
  • Replies 24 replies
  • Subscribers 495 subscribers
  • Views 1973 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Related

What are you programming in?

Catwell

What are you programming in these days? For me it's Assembly and some C/C++. But it seems that it's becoming time to move past all the old tried and true languages for the new. Now you have to know C#.net, Java, and whatever syntax you need for whatever new processor you have to work with. For example, you can't be a straight HTML programmer anymore, you need to know Flash, SQL scripting, CSS, Shockwave, HTML5, and whatever the flavour of the month is, to a high degree of proficiency. It's a lot to know. So, how do you choose what to learn? A few people I knew several years ago were learning Python and Fortran from some reason or other, boasting it's where Engineers have to migrate. Neither of them used those languages. Now they are studying Java and Objective C. To avoid this cycle of learn then learn another, what should we all program in?

 

Cabe

Parents Reply Children
  • 0 in reply to Catwell

    The evolution of computer languages seems to have been, PhD in math -> Grace Hooper creates a compiler -> Fortran and Cobol coexist and work well.  Basic is invented at Dartmouth in 1965 as a teaching language.  Several paths shot out in all directions after that with Pascal, the pseudo-code project and C, the low level building block needed to create UNIX coming in 1970.  Everything that has survived since was based on one or the other of these two languages.  Boutique aside, C is still the most used language in most surveys, the most powerful, the fastest, and the most abused by those using something else.  For a big project I like C, with a few hours spent creating a library of powerful subroutines for a project and a good make file it can be extended with Lua50 and GTK+ to build most anything.  That said however TCL is the fastest to learn, quickest to network and a wonderful TK toolkit with wish.  Php has stood the test of time as the Server Side language for web hosting and JavaScript holds its own for client side processing.  So, with all of that behind me, 10 years ago I still chose Fortran for my first CGI script.  Beauty is a very personal thing.  If you can live with "malocate" then I recommend C and if not Java seems the most popular cup of ... 

  • 0 in reply to Former Member

    As far as evolution is concerned your history seems to omit the impact of the UK, unfortunatley like most history US based. What about Algol, Coral 66, Atlas Autocode (used to program the first machine with virtual memory) etc..

    R

  • 0 in reply to Former Member

    Roger;

         I stand corrected.  Alan Turing not only broke the German Submarine code while in England but also asked the question, "Can machines think?" in 1950.  Algol 60 was the boutique language when I started programming.  It took a special keyboard, offered extreme speed, and introduced block structuring.  Algol added the backslash to ASCII and was the origin of the construct descriptive language, Backus-Naur form.  BNF was used to describe Pascal which was heavily based on Algol-W.  Algol should definitely have been included in my history.  Algol was the basis for B from which sprang C.  I could use some help with the others however, early European programming developments were often shouded in secrecy.