Science and technology

Which programming language for work? For the weekend?

Our author neighborhood grows every month as new, attention-grabbing of us write for us and take part on the enjoyable of sharing their experience and experiences in open supply know-how. So, it is no shock that they’re brimming with fascinating data. It’s simply asking the suitable query to launch it.

Recently, I requested: What programming languages do you employ at work, and which of them do you employ on the weekend?

For some, they differ wildly as a result of their work is far totally different than what they select to construct with at house. For others, they’re comparable, and their weekend tasks simply have extra private objectives. Let’s hear what they needed to say.

Share yours within the feedback.

Which is your work programming language? Which is your weekend?

I am a Java man at Microsoft who makes use of C# for the occasional pet undertaking. —Yev Bronshteyn


PHP and JavaScript, each locations. —Tony McCormick


On the weekend, my 11-year-old coding son and I exploit Python three on the Raspberry Pi. We’ve made every part from funky breadboards to an Alexa-type machine. —James Lovegrove


I exploit Perl and Bash/Shell at work, and Perl at house and for many of my facet tasks. —Joe Kline


At work, I exploit largely C++, Java, and C#. For enjoyable (and typically at work), I exploit C, Go, Perl, and Lisp —Martin Kalin


Being that my begin within the trade got here by way of AIX and Linux administration, most of my work within the early days have been Bash scripts. Now as an older Linux administrator, all I’ve performed is add Python to the combo in my skilled work.

For enjoyable, I’ve dabbled everywhere; experimented with Pascal, wrote quite a few purposes in C#, tried and did not do something significant in C or C++, and eventually have written a small quantity of PHP to both increase current purposes like WordPress and Drupal or a sufficient for a rudimentary running a blog system.

At the tip of the day, if I must get one thing performed, it’s Python. —Steve Morris


I discovered tips on how to program in highschool with Java. Before that, I had used PHP for web-based tasks.

My first skilled job was as a C++ developer, however I had additionally to do loads of Python and JavaScript coding. In my present job, I am programming in Ruby and Go.

At house, to begin a brand new enjoyable net undertaking, my default alternative continues to be PHP to get one thing working rapidly, however when it will get extra critical I are likely to migrate performance to different languages, like Go, which I discover higher for testing. Also, I am doing a little bit of D in exercism.io, only for enjoyable, and to get again a little bit of the C++ feeling I miss within the different languages. —Manuel Dewald


In 1997, on the primary day of faculty, my pc science professor stated to over 100 wide-eyed freshmen, “I think functional programming is going to be the way of the future.” My mates and I checked out one another in disbelief as a result of we have been hoping to be taught Java or at the least C++ to order to affix the dot-com practice upon commencement. Instead, we braced ourselves to study a reasonably unusual practical language known as Haskell. Twenty years later, I discover myself utilizing Python, Go, and Javascript for each work and private tasks. All of these three languages have wealthy assist for practical programming. —Viet Nguyen


I exploit lots of programming and scripting languages, however the language I code in after I’m writing tasks is C. The C language offers flexibility and pace, on the expense of getting to concentrate to particulars and hold observe of issues. You cannot depend on automated array declaration, rubbish assortment or different strategies from greater stage programming languages that will help you; the programmer must malloc() the reminiscence to make use of, and free() the reminiscence once they’re performed utilizing it. You must have good programming habits to code in C. But for all that, C offers me a robust programming platform for my tasks.

(Disclaimer: Much of my C programming is for the FreeDOS Project, an open supply implementation of the DOS working system. DOS would not go away lots of overhead, so applications have to be environment friendly. It makes lots of sense for me to write down DOS utilities and libraries in C.)

When I am writing different issues, like instance code or possibly a fast script, I exploit no matter programming language and scripting language is finest for the job. I write lots of Bash code for automation. I additionally write lots of PHP code, together with a pattern PHP program to fill out my March Madness brackets for me, [linuxjournal] since I do not actually observe basketball. —Jim Hall


My fundamental, all-purpose programming language is Perl, each for work and play. I exploit JavaScript after I must do any net front-end methods, after all, however the nature of my work doesn’t name for that just about as typically as server-side programming.

I’m proud to say that I’ve contributed to at the least one open supply Node undertaking, totally by simply letting it hum a couple of bars in order that I might take part. I in any other case don’t know in any respect how Node works.

I’d be remiss to miss Inform 7, the language I’ve revealed at the least one interactive fiction sport in, and which I discover myself revisiting for purely utilitarian causes in my ongoing function because the Annual Interactive Fiction Competition’s technical lead. —Jason McIntosh


Most of my work entails some type of information wrangling, evaluation, reporting, and visualization. Most typically I exploit the Groovy programming language for this objective. Groovy has all however changed Java for a lot of my work, for a bunch of causes:

  • it is far more compact with out being fully totally different
  • it lets me leverage the Java runtime atmosphere
  • it offers high-level constructs and enhanced mechanisms for dealing with lists, maps, units
  • it has good assist for closures
  • it typically helps my choice for object orientation with out forcing on me for small scripting chores
  • it encourages writing in a practical type.

However, relying on the necessity to incorporate sure particular toolchains, I additionally use Python, and prefer it virtually as a lot as Groovy.

When I do net stuff, I typically use Grails / Groovy / JavaScript. I’m experimenting with Julia, and I type of like what I see, however have not performed any manufacturing work with it but.

From time to time, I’ve dabbled in R, however I’ve by no means actually jumped in there with each ft. And, I actually wished to love Go, however there are some things about it that actually bug me—I do not like capitalizing names to make them public (I would moderately have an “export” key phrase); I prefer to provide you with variable names earlier than I write the code that makes use of them in order that I can get an affordable naming conference going; the initializers in “for” and “if” do not go far sufficient; and I feel I’d actually miss the item orientation if I have been to do one thing huge with Go. As to which language do I exploit for enjoyable, I often mud off Algol68. (Really!!!) —Chris Hermansen


I “cut my teeth” as they are saying on the old-school procedural languages, with a wee little bit of publicity to practical languages. So the early days have been BASIC, PL/1, FORTRAN, COBOL, Lisp, numerous meeting languages, a couple of different languages that have been distinctive to the structure/producer of a selected beastie. Then, a short foray into APL with its uniquely wacky keyboard. I rapidly settled right into a behavior of utilizing FORTRAN to do every part, and when it could not, I would write a brand new perform in my ever-growing meeting language library to increase FORTRAN above and past. (I even had a perform/subroutine that successfully let me write inline meeting in my FORTRAN code.)

And, after all, there was TECO… the predecessor to emacs. There have been competitions to write down full-blown bizarre code utilizing solely TECO modifying instructions.

When I ought to have been studying C, I caught to my augmented FORTRAN and/or Assembly method. (Actually, I wrote one huge, for me, C program to dump, confirm, and reload the reminiscence of the Korg M1 synthesizer utilizing an Atari 1040-ST.)

When the world was shifting into OOP, I noticed folks going gaga over Java. I attempted and went gag (me with a spoon) moderately than gaga. And circa 1999, a pal who’d just lately found Python instructed that.

Python turned and continues to be my mainstay. It allowed me to ease into OOP at my very s-l-o-w tempo. A little bit of JavaScript and PHP right here and there plus different scripty stuff like Bash, SQL, and a few easy Perl, however largely Python.

However, of late, I am lastly becoming bored once more. Or one thing. And work is more and more main me within the route of 3D environments for rehabilitation. So, I have been wanting on the Ecere SDK which provides 3D capabilities to one thing known as prolonged C or “eC”, which requires me to overview C. That and sport engines that use both C# or C++. So a small smattering of these. And I am intrigued by Rust, as I all the time favored techniques programming, and the thought of a “C for the modern architectures” is engaging. I hold listening to about WebAssembly, and the “assembly” a part of the identify makes me nostalgic and curious.

Finally, I’ve some mates who’re nuts about Haskell and others who like Lua. I’ve barely checked out both however they’re in some bucket listing… Maybe Go too.

The backside line, despite the entire above, is that my go-to language (with out goto’s) is Python for each weekdays and weekends. —Kevin Cole

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