4 ms·

One (programming) language for the rest of your life. Which one?

19 points by watmough 19y ago

If you had to pick one single computer language to use from now until the end of time, which one would you pick? What qualities are you looking for? What are your programming goals? If you like, you can specify a platform or libraries if they colored your choice of language.

cperciva 19y ago
C99. It can do everything I want, and while there are some tasks for which it's not the ideal language, I can write my own libraries to supplement the existing ones. If I'm going to be stuck with only one language, I'd rather use a language where some things are harder than in other languages, rather than a language where other things are simply impossible.
- Todd 19y ago
  Agreed. Not to mention that you can just write your own flavor of any language you choose (most are already written in C). Plus, you've got til the end of time, so the fact that it'll take a few years to write the first one shouldn't be a problem.
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ivankirigin 19y ago
Blub. Why choose a lesser evil?
- ijoshua 19y ago
  Whatever language, I just hope it comes with decent documentation.
  - ivankirigin 19y ago
    Blub's is the best, as far as I can tell.
gibsonf1 19y ago
Lisp - for the sheer power and enjoyment of using it
- ijoshua 19y ago
  If you give someone Fortran, he has Fortran. If you give someone Lisp, he has any language he pleases.
  - parbo 19y ago
    But as coffeeaddicted said above: if you give someone C/C++, he can implement a lisp interpreter easily and then have any language he pleases..
    - ijoshua 19y ago
      Given Lisp, I can implement a Lisp interpreter easily: (loop (print (eval (read)))
      - parbo 19y ago
        Yes, but can you write a standards-compliant C++ compiler?
        davidw 19y ago
        Easily, because in bizarro-one-language universe, I also have an infinite supply of monkeys. Hah!
        euccastro 19y ago
        Put one monkey to work on C++ and assign the rest on Hamlet. Oh, and make the C++ one use a typewriter too.
        Nicolay77 19y ago
        I think that compilers should be specially easy to write in Lisp over any other language. However in the time that most people were writing compilers no common or popular computer had enough memory to run Lisp reasonably. Even 8MB were a luxury. Now we have 2GB of RAM as the norm.
henning 19y ago
Do you have to stick with a single implementation (once you choose MRI you couldn't switch to JRuby) or just the same language? Probably Lisp or some other highly growable language.
entelarust 19y ago
python
- sriram_sun 19y ago
  cpython, jython, IronPython, pypy or stackless? :)
  - marcus 19y ago
    Those are implementations not languages, the language is the same language. And when people don't mention a specific implementation they usually mean CPython.
    - eru 19y ago
      You are right. Partially. As far as I know Stackless introduces some new concepts.
fogus 19y ago
I was half tempted to pick Python, but I suppose my true answer would be C.
himanshu 19y ago
I am still learning many things about python but I think it would be the one language I would choose for the rest of my life.
mechanical_fish 19y ago
What an inane question. That's like asking Thomas Edison which brand of telegraph key he'd like to use for the rest of his life.
- jsmcgd 19y ago
  You say inane, others say hypothetical.
  - mechanical_fish 19y ago
    Okay, maybe "inane" is too harsh. How about "ill-posed"?
- pg 19y ago
  Bad example. People who send morse code (there are still a few) seem to care a lot about which they use. And since Edison was famous as an an extremely fast telegrapher, he'd probably be especially picky.
  - mechanical_fish 19y ago
    Oops, you've misunderstood me -- my telegraph post was, dare I say it, too telegraphic. Yes, Edison (like all other telegraphers) must have cared a lot about telegraph key design, just as great hackers care about language design. I did not mean to imply otherwise. What I was trying to say is that it's inconceivable that a hacker of Edison's caliber would use a single technology for his entire life, even in the (already extremely hypothetical) absence of external factors. That's because, within a handful of years, the hacker changes the tech to the point that it's no longer the same thing. I would suggest that Edison not only cared a lot about telegraph design -- he cared so much that he took every aspect of the telegraph apart to see how it could be improved, and eventually developed the Edison telephone (http://encarta.msn.com/media_461551270_761563582_-1_1/Thomas_Edison_Telephone_from_1911.html http://encarta.msn.com/media_461551270_761563582_-1_1/Thomas...) along with a vast raft of other tech that was unknown in his youth. What makes the question inane is that it assumes that "now until the end of time" is equal to or less than the lifetime of a computer language. It's not. Computer languages evolve so fast that nobody has ever stuck with one language throughout their lives. If external forces don't rewrite your language, you eventually rewrite it yourself -- you develop a bunch of libraries and restate problems in terms of them. And by "eventually" I mean "in weeks, rather than months or years" -- Steve Yegge rebuilt Rails in Javascript in less time than it took me to write this stupid post. I suppose I could try to claim that I would be happy to be a Lisp programmer until the end of time. When someone accuses me of cheating by using Arc (which I hope to do, someday), I'll just claim that it's really Lisp. When someone needs a device driver written, I'll just claim that x86 assembly is really Lisp -- all I need to do is write the assembler in Lisp, yes? Or should I go for broke and claim that my "eternal language" is the native language of a Turing machine? It'll take me a long time to get back up to, say, Rails, but I've apparently been sentenced to spend the rest of my life at it, so why not bite off something challenging?
jimbokun 19y ago
Lisp.
__ 19y ago
C++. That way, I'll look forward to my death.
- innernode 19y ago
  hahahahahaha :D made my night! thanks!
- deleted 19y ago
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kirubakaran 19y ago
What happens if I don't pick anything?
- eusman 19y ago
  you will live a better life!
- watmough 19y ago
  You will be forced to maintain poorly written C++ for the rest of your days. Quote from some guy at Continental. "It wasn't a memory leak, it was a memory faucet!"
  - emfle 19y ago
    The nice thing about C++ is that memory leaks are easy to fix. Valgrind is a pretty bad-ass tool. In garbage collected languages leaks can be very hard to track down. And they do happen from time to time.
Zuider 19y ago
Haskell - If I was in some timeless eternity I wouldn't have to bother with monads. Otherwise if I get bored I might hack together a big bang with Lisp.
- jfoutz 19y ago
  As tempting as lisp is, I think i have to throw my hat in the Haskell ring. Lisp lets me turn pure thought into code, as it turns out a good percentage of my thoughts are pretty crappy. Haskell fixes that.
dag 19y ago
Lisp, because it can consume any other language's functionality, which means that I don't have to choose.
- coffeeaddicted 19y ago
  Yeah, but if you use c or c++ you can implement a Lispinterpreter over the weekend, so you'd have both. The other way round it's rather hard.
  - brent 19y ago
    The question isn't what compiler you would want to start off with. Its what programming language (one SINGLE programming language) would you want to use if restricted to use only it.
    - coffeeaddicted 19y ago
      Not so easy as the distinction between programming language and ways to interpret data is often rather soft. Would xml already count as programming language? If not, how about using Lisp only to load configuration data and maybe to exchange data between running applications? An advanced data format is not really different anymore from a programming language. Or should I no longer use s-expressions if I chose something else than lisp? What about makefiles or bash-scripts? Am I no longer allowed to use my editor if it's not programmable in my favorite language? It's just a hypothetical question, so there's some room for interpretation :-) So I really thought more of it as "with which language would I start out". In my case C++ would have a good chance for that (maybe I better change my nickname on ycombinator after getting out with this...). It's one of the few languages which does not confront me with any barriers between me and the system and I like that. I might take longer than with other languages for a lot of tasks, but I know that if something can be done with the computer then I can do it with C++. Also I have lot of experience with it (for example in implementing small parsers) and experience is certainly always an important factor. But the most important factor would be the tasks I would expect to face from now on. Lets say I expect to work on some more games or similar virtual worlds. I already know c++ works for that (for me) so I would chose it. If I would expect to do server-side programming then it would be another language.
jdavid 19y ago
C# with C# compilers running on almost every platform. It can do old things like c & c++ can, and it has advanced string and memory management set up by default. c# has more control and ease of use than any other language i have played with. If i need to consume a DLL i can do it through old ways like C methods, OLE, COM, or through new managed methods. other languages are nice, but if i had to use just one from now and to forever, C# is the only language i see that has the ability to span the gap. Ruby, PHP, Perl, Lisp, erlang, Java, smalltalk, etc... do not seem as flexible across all of the needs to program both software and hardware. C# can be used to program Dirext X, and OpenGL, it can be used to hack your GPU and to program your portable device. Mono runs on linux and so you can use C# in any embedded app.
aaroniba 19y ago
javascript: it's "like scheme with syntax", necessary anyway for cool web apps, expressive, has closures, lexical scoping, and with Rhino you can access any of the Java libraries (without writing Java code) and run it efficiently on any platform (for server-side or desktop apps). It's really the do-it-all language.
- michaelneale 19y ago
  I think (and hope) you are right. Its not to ugly either (I guess depending on how you "grew up"). Lisp for people who can't program without braces ;)
  - watmough 19y ago
    Oliver Steele has written a great functional programming library that adds list comprehension and textural/literal lambdas to Javascript. I keep meaning to play with that, but I always seem to have something else (like work) that I need to worry about. Analogy alert: I kinda see functional programming as like giving up smoking. It may hurt a bit at first, but it's much better for you in the long run, providing you don't annoy everyone by continually letting them know...
    - michaelneale 19y ago
      Man I wish I had a name like "Steele". "Guy Steele" - now that is a name that demands greatness just by the force of the name.
      - pg 19y ago
        Man I wish I had a name like "Steele". So did a famous Soviet political leader.
chaostheory 19y ago
are you trying to start a religious flame war on yc news?
- watmough 19y ago
  I don't know about Flame War, but I think it's an interesting question. Personally, if I had to choose one language right now, I'd probably choose Javascript, simply because the syntax is easy for a PASCAL/C/C++ user, and it still manages first-class functions, much like my first real (non-BASIC) language, which was PS-Algol (think Java reflection, first class functions, easy persistence, but in 1987, not 1997!) Once Javascript gets a mainstream in-browser JIT, it may well become even more my language of choice than it is now. Other than Javascript, Rich Hickey's Clojure, is a pretty good candidate. I love the syntax, and being able to work directly with the JVM libs.
kirubakaran 19y ago
If you had to pick one single tool to use from now until the end of time, which one would you pick? Choices: Hammer, Drill, Screw Driver, Saw.
- brent 19y ago
  Poor analogy. These are, for all intensive purposes, tools for mutually exclusive tasks. Programming languages are in general for the purpose of writing programs. While they may different slightly in capabilities they are for one purpose. A "better" (IMHO) analogy along those lines would being choosing a handsaw, bandsaw, circular saw, or kitchen knife.
- bayareaguy 19y ago
  When C++ is your hammer, every problem looks like your thumb.
engtech 19y ago
ASM because if I don't have ASM, I'm not going to get much of anything else done.
- tarkin2 19y ago
  I was going to chose this as well because eventually I'll want to interact with new (and exciting) hardware. I think that's the overriding concern. For instance, no matter how much I love PLT-Scheme, Haskell, etc if I chose one of them there'll come a time when I want to code on a new piece hardware and won't be able to because I cannot access the underlying memory registers. But if you have to choose which hardware specific asm then that's even harder...
  - boredguy8 19y ago
    That's easy: Motorola 68000
  - anupamkapoor 19y ago
    MIPS
rmason 19y ago
Coldfusion. Name another language supported by three commercial vendors plus a fourth open source version (smithproject.org)? My goal is simple - rapid application development.
- paulgb 19y ago
  "Name another language supported by three commercial vendors plus a fourth open source version." I'm sure you could say the same about C++ and Java, and probably a bunch of other languages. But that doesn't really say much about the language itself, only who uses it.
  - BrandonM 19y ago
    Not to mention Lisp, which has no fewer than 8 commercial and 10 open source implementations listed here: http://wiki.alu.org/Implementation http://wiki.alu.org/Implementation But you are certainly right that the number of implementations is irrelevant, as long as there is either one good open source one or 2+ commercial ones.
nreece 19y ago
C# (with MS .NET on Windows, ASP.NET on the web, and Mono on *nix)
michaelneale 19y ago
Lisp - its not really a language to much as a meta tool to allow you to build DSLs to solve your problem.
kajecounterhack 19y ago
@rmason -- coldfusion? its DEAD. quick application development...hmm. Some other language + framework would be more like it. I like C++ or lisp.
sriram_sun 19y ago
Don't Care! I know I'm going to cheat! :)
dima 19y ago
Erlang.
rmason 19y ago
@kajecounterhack Maybe you should tell the four vendors that keep producing new versions that Coldfusion is dead. As to other languages/frameworks - did I mention that it needs to scale as well?
ksamuel 19y ago
Since the question specifically includes libraries, I would pick the language with the best selection of useful libraries, and the largest community of users actively creating new ones. For my money, that would be Java -- even with all eternity to write my own libraries, I'd prefer have the option of not doing so, so that I can focus my time on the areas where it is important to roll my own.
Kaizyn 19y ago
If I could only work with one language, then I'd have to say Forth. While I don't know this one nearly as well as any of the others, this one allows you to work at the assembly instruction level up through the level of abstraction of languages like Python/Javascript. Lisp on LispMachine hardware would offer you the same sort of advantages. The C and D languages look like they might also be fairly good choices. Everything else doesn't seem to give you the flexibility to go down to the metal while also having the ability to move up to much higher levels of abstraction.
kashif 19y ago
Python till I die baby!! And then some...
tuxiano 19y ago
python in this world, lisp in paradise
cheponis 19y ago
Verilog. You software weenies don't seem to understand that your fluffly abstractions need to run on real h/w. So I'd rather have control at the lowest level.
mynameishere 19y ago
Java, because I don't have a trust fund.
deleted 19y ago
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