Your languages?

Not many at all... English, and I get by in php/mysql though I'm not fluent. I was very good with Pascal last century but haven't really programmed since I dropped out of uni in 2002. Well, until I got my arduino a couple of weeks ago.

I think finishing school to discover virtually nobody actually used pascal, and certainly not the DOS based version I was used to, put me off a bit.

Doublet:

I'm also wanting to learn some programming languages, any suggestions ^^?

I think most universities predominantly use Java (or at least start with it). It depends what you want to do, really.
Some languages are great for teaching, like pascal, as they have a very rigid format so you get used to good style.

I'm still trying to convince my linguist wife that programming languages count!

my last year of German, we read a mystery novel.

The great thing about German grammar is you know who did it, but not what they did until the very end!

English and Gibberish.

As to programming, I agree its the algorithm and process thats important. The rest is syntax.
Keep swapping and changing programming languages and you will get new insights on how to solve a problem.
Different languages have there advantages and disadvantages for any given solution.

I keep returning to Perl every now and than as its the only language I would describe as fun.
I have at least played with most. but mainly professionally used VB, C#, Perl, Javascript, VBScript for Miscrosoft web development and others such as C, C++ and Java for hobby stuff like Arduino and Android.

Dont get hung up on staying with one language all the rest are just a reference book and a project away.

Gordon

English, fluent in bad english too. Also know some french, german, hebrew(only really insults, and telling people to move/hurry/get out of the way, thanks to my previous employer) and enough Japanese to eat, get around and order stuff from suppliers when Im over there. :slight_smile:

I keep returning to Perl every now and than as its the only language I would describe as fun.

Maybe to a sadist.

;D

Actually, Perl isn't that bad a language to play with, I use it a lot myself. Provided you don't go crazy with regular expression (jeeze, have you seen the one in the CPAN module for validating email addresses that is based on the RFC - INSANE); I swear that regex was devised by someone as a joke - and people took it seriously for some reason.

Now - for fun, I have found that Python is a pretty fun "modern" language (and for ultra-fun - VPython can't be beat).

Then again, I have yet to try FreeBasic or Gambas; I have a soft spot in me for BASIC (having used that as my first programming language on a TRS-80 Color Computer 2), and have played with a lot of them. I think that Gambas could be a real winner, something close to the ease of use of VB6 for creating apps. I think FreeBasic, though, would be closer to using QuickBASIC or PowerBasic, or one of the other DOS BASICs.

:slight_smile:

I too have a soft spot for BASIC - it's a peat bog on the West coast of Scotland.

I too have a soft spot for BASIC - it's a peat bog on the West coast of Scotland.

Personally, I think BASIC just got a bad rap from people's main experience being with interpretors (which were slow), as well as there not being a good way around using "goto" originally, and the name and connotations about it.

Modern BASICs have pretty much gotten rid of all those objections, but people are still put off by the name (something named "basic" can't be used for a complex program); modern versions of BASIC are fast (generally natively compiled), object oriented, structured, etc - everything a modern language should be.

Something else people don't know (and the company doesn't publicize) - see this software:

Originally, the software (prior to version 2; but I haven't used it in a loooong while, so I don't know what/where/if it is still the same - I have read it isn't) was written in VB6...

:slight_smile:

Then there was PICK Basic - arguably one of the more widely deployed and used "business" BASICs on the planet...

Well, there was goto...and then gosub, no formal parameters, lack of scope for variables, no data structures beyond simple arrays, loose typing...

Well, there was goto...and then gosub, no formal parameters, lack of scope for variables, no data structures beyond simple arrays, loose typing...

Yes, these were issues in the early BASICs, but I know that certain BASICs in the 1980s were much better than that (such as Microware's BASIC-09 for OS-9). Later, Microsoft's QuickBASIC 4.5 and PDS 7.1 (and much later, VB for DOS) were leaps and bounds ahead as well, but BASIC had this stigma that its never overcome.

Today's BASICs are much more advanced than that (and people really used VB to death for a lot of projects; some good, some bad) - but the stigma (which is unfounded with today's languages) remains, unfortunately.

(and people really used VB to death for a lot of projects; some good, some bad) - but the stigma (which is unfounded with today's languages) remains

I dunno. I have heard that there is a very large amount of commercially sold software that is written in Visual Basic. The computer scientists may still be sneering, but the real world tends to use whatever gets the job done. (thus the success of C, as well. For better and worse.)

german, english not real fluent but quite more than not starving. In france i am not sure, if i die of hunger..... peut-etre......

Basic on C64, Pascal in the 90s in school. In University i was forced to focus on c64 assembly. cause i do study technic. And you can code very directly to control machines...
And came across Arduino-C for my Universityexam. ("exam" is in Germany a word for one of the FINAL tests in "becoming a teacher".....)

I have heard that there is a very large amount of commercially sold software that is written in Visual Basic.

At one time, I would consider that statement to be true, but nowadays I am not so sure its that great a percentage. Then again, I haven't used VB, let alone BASIC, for anything serious in several years, so I don't know what the truth is.

I do know a lot of people use the .NET languages, and from what I have seen VB.NET is "BASIC" in name only; it actually seems like a mashup between C, VB, Pascal, and Java - I think it might be an artifact of the fact that all .NET languages share a common runtime or something like that, and it reflects in the languages for some reason. I can barely tell the difference between a piece of C# code and VB.NET code, what little I have seen. I think a lot of VB developers have likely moved on to C# (once again, pure speculation on my part).

I don't really worry about all of this any more; the majority of my work both professional and personal are done using open-source (or standardized) programming and scripting languages on *nix OS platforms...

Geez, I haven't thought about that for a LONG time. Just counting the languages I wrote at least one substantial program in, hmmmm:

Fortran II, IV, WATFOR, Ratfor
Algol (several variants)
PL/1, PL/C & PL/M
RPG
APL
SNOBOL
COBOL
BCPL
SAIL
PASCAL
BASIC (lots of variants, including VB)
LOGO
SPL (for HP3000)
C/C++/Objective C
Smalltalk
Forth
LISP (several variants)
Bliss
Ada
Modula
Mesa
Java/Javascript

Not sure i could make a list of all the assemblers I've had to deal with. Includes at least:
IBM 11/30 and 360/whatever, Autocoder for 1401
Univac 1108
PDP-8/10/11, DG NOVA, HP2100
Intel 4004, 8008, 8068, 80386, Zilog Z8, Z80, MOS 6502 and variants
Mot 6800, 68000, 68010, 68020 and variants, Signetics 2650
Various Microcoded processors including a couple of PDP-11 models, Alto, D1/D2, Perq and a couple of other 2900 and Intel 3000 series machines

Not sure if I count shell/macro languages (csh, teco, emacs and the like), since it's hard, but not impossible to write a substantial program in them, and I usually only did quick hacks.

Hey that was a trip down memory lane. And I'm not a programmer by trade.

And I'm not a programmer by trade.

With a list like that, they just call you "Jack"!

;D

simplified C style languages
basic in many flavors
lua, omg lots of lua

and I am slowly but surely learning Korean from our 2 techs at work, who live in Korea, but rotate here on 6 month work visa's to fix issues from the factory

French-Canadian here :slight_smile:

/V

C++ the best for me. I need to write a first post. :sunglasses: