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Which programming language you would bet on ?

Claude Moore

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posted 11 years ago

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Hi to all,

if you would bet on an emerging technology / programming language, which would be your choice ?

Aniruddh Joshi

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posted 11 years ago

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Problem Solving skills

Anrd
"One of the best things you could do is to simplify a larger application into a smaller one by reducing its process and complexity - Fowler"

Bear Bibeault

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posted 11 years ago

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For what purpose? I'd have very different answers depending upon the answer to that question.

[Asking smart questions] [About Bear] [Books by Bear]

Campbell Ritchie

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posted 11 years ago

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Off to MD with you!!

Claude Moore

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posted 11 years ago

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Bear Bibeault wrote:For what purpose? I'd have very different answers depending upon the answer to that question.

For any purpose may come into your mind. For example, Java is a language used pratically everywhere... you can write enterprise apps as well as simple mobile apps. Which may be next Java ?
I've heard of Google's language Dart which seems promising to write web apps, for example...

dennis deems

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posted 11 years ago

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Claude Moore wrote:I've heard of Google's language Dart which seems promising to write web apps, for example...

For web apps, Dart definitely looks like one to watch. I'm hoping to free up some time to start playing with it soon.

Pat Farrell

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posted 11 years ago

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Claude Moore wrote:For any purpose may come into your mind. For example, Java is a language used pratically everywhere... you can write enterprise apps as well as simple mobile apps. Which may be next Java ? I've heard of Google's language Dart which seems promising to write web apps, for example...

Many mechanics use a hammer, screwdriver and pliers to do everything when repairing a car. This does not mean that they are the best tools for the job.

If I were to write code to do serious numerical analysis, I would NOT user Java, I'd use Fortran.

When writing code for embedded systems, I would NOT use Java, and in most cases, you can not use java. On a new project, I'd consider using Google's GO.

Dart is an attempt to fix the design flaws of Javascript. Some would argue that Javascript doesn't need fixing.

Every few years, yet another language/foundation is labeled as the silver bullet that will solve all problems. A very smart man, Fred Brooks, write "No Silver Bullet"
I've been watching this for 40 years, and so far, Brooks is right.

Claude Moore

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posted 11 years ago

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Pat Farrell wrote:
Many mechanics use a hammer, screwdriver and pliers to do everything when repairing a car. This does not mean that they are the best tools for the job.

Pat Farrell wrote:
Every few years, yet another language/foundation is labeled as the silver bullet that will solve all problems. A very smart man, Fred Brooks, write "No Silver Bullet"
I've been watching this for 40 years, and so far, Brooks is right.

I agree with your position. I think that writing For any purpose may come into your mind was interpretated as "think of a silver bullet to resolve every problem", while what I meant was "Just think about a new language that, in your opinion, will be successful". I should have explained myself better, sorry.

Of course specialized languages like Fortran had and still have their own application domain: if you're thinking of numerical analisys, you'd probabily associate tasks envolving number crunching to Fortran language. I can't say if Dart deserves attention, if it's a good or bad idea; let's suppose that it has been targeted to become the language to program Web with: it would be, simply, a winning bet if Dart became a de facto standard for web programming.

A similar thing happened in my humble opinion with Objective C, which is gaining more and more popularity since is the "language of choice" to develop apps for iOS devices.

Pat Farrell

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posted 11 years ago

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Dart can only gain traction of other (non-Chrome) browsers support it. So far, none do.

I know Brad Cox, the guy who invented Objective-C nearly 30 years ago. It was an OK language for its time. Its badly showing its age, and IMHO would have been retired if it wasn't that Next's NextStep used it. Which meant that OS-X used it when Jobs brought NextStep to be the new Mac OS. Any general purpose language that lacks garbage collection and expects the programmer to get it right is, IMHO, Neanderthal.

Frank Carver

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posted 1 year ago

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If I were a betting man, I would be putting some cash on Rust right now.

Rust seems to be the only language in several decades which has been able to seriously challenge C for low-level and systems work, and its approach to security and robustness is the best in class at the moment.

Read about me at frankcarver.me ~ LinkedIn ~ Frank's PhD research

Tim Holloway

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posted 1 year ago

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Frank Carver wrote:If I were a betting man, I would be putting some cash on Rust right now.

Rust seems to be the only language in several decades which has been able to seriously challenge C for low-level and systems work, and its approach to security and robustness is the best in class at the moment.

Concurrence.

Although Go did achieve some small success. My local "github" (Gogs) server was implemented in Go. Lua has a small niche, including in some AVR-style devices and in the home automation server I use. Although neither of those 2 is really "emerging" any more. They're been around a while now.

The secret of how to be miserable is to constantly expect things are going to happen the way that they are "supposed" to happen.

You can have faith, which carries the understanding that you may be disappointed. Then there's being a willfully-blind idiot, which virtually guarantees it.

Les Morgan

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posted 1 year ago

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I have to say, I would keep my bets where i have placed them already, and that is:

1 - program ability: the ability to understand and break down complex problems into workable modules that can easily be developed and integrated into the desired product.

2 - whatever seems to be the emergent technology in the area i wish to live. For me, right now that is:
a) MS SQL Server
b) C#
c) Java

This has served me well for decades now. One thing to remember: a language is only a tool used to express the ideas that you develop with the imagination and programming skills that you possess. If you don't have the programming skills or the imagination, then a highly skilled code monkey you may be.

Out on HF and heard nobody, but didn't call CQ? Nobody heard you either. 73 de N7GH

fred rosenberger

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posted 1 year ago

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What odds are you giving? I'll bet on anything if the potential payout is high enough.

There are only two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors

Tim Holloway

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posted 1 year ago

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Les Morgan wrote:
2 - whatever seems to be the emergent technology in the area i wish to live. For me, right now that is:
a) MS SQL Server
b) C#
c) Java

This has served me well for decades now.

These aren't "emergent" technologies, though — which was the original question. They are all established technologies. Safe bets, though.

Liutauras Vilda

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posted 1 year ago

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Tim Holloway wrote:These aren't "emergent" technologies, though — which was the original question.

They were when the original question was asked (10 years ago) That's not true either...

Tim Holloway

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posted 1 year ago

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I'm not sure I'd care what was "emergent" 10 years ago, anymore. In 1954, FORTRAN was emergent.

Peter Rooke

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posted 1 year ago

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Web Assembly -

Wasm is designed as a portable compilation target for programming languages, enabling deployment on the web for client and server applications.

So not really a programming language, more of a runtime environment for many of the current popular languages.
Here's a github list of Web Assembly Projects

Regards Pete

Les Morgan

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posted 1 year ago

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Tim,

very true, but none the less, if you do not have any real emergent technology in your area... this is what i go with, and it's where the big money is right now too.

Les

Out on HF and heard nobody, but didn't call CQ? Nobody heard you either. 73 de N7GH

Tim Holloway

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posted 1 year ago

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Les Morgan wrote:Tim,

very true, but none the less, if you do not have any real emergent technology in your area... this is what i go with, and it's where the big money is right now too.

Les

Yes, but again, the question wasn't "Which programming language would you bet on?" That was just the thread title. The actual question was "Which emerging …?" So you're supplying an answer to a question that wasn't asked.

Giovanni Montano

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posted 1 year ago

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Claude Moore wrote:Hi to all,

if you would bet on an emerging technology / programming language, which would be your choice ?

Hope in Clojure, reality is Python and JS rules all

The only safe bet is to learn 4-5 languages and see how the engineering concepts are reshuffled and full of syntactic sugar to substitute design patterns with dedicated arcane esoteric functionalities, then the safest bet is data structure and algorithms, because does not matter which language will come having the two bold skills above will make possibly languages a trivial choice

code is emotional

Al Hobbs

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posted 1 year ago

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Rust is cool and all but i really doubt c is going anywhere. Other than that, JS for sure

Les Morgan

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posted 1 year ago

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Tim Holloway,
quite right, many answers are given to questions that are not asked ;)

IMO: each new iteration of technology become emergent. while SQL, in all of it's dialects, can be considered as a mature technology--each time any of the major players put out a significantly new version, it becomes an "emergent" technology because it gives the client a reason to escape the hold of that vendor and it does happen. We went from Sun/Oracle to MS to Oracle and back to MS because of major changes in their products. Same with Java... we went from MS (put your flavor here) when they went to .Net we move to Java when Oracle took over we moved back to MS with C# and when they moved to MS type of product development and release with Java we put a nail in the casket and said C# from now on.

i am a little bit of preference to PHP and Pearl, but then those are not "emergent" technologies either.

one i see a mild influx back again is C/C++, but once again not "emergent".

i have to admit also that with the number of years left in the industry that i can count on the fingers of 1 hand, i am not inclined to jump out and champion the truly emergent languages... then most recent we actually use around here it R... but then, it's not "emergent" either, not any more.

the only languages that were not "emergent" when i picked them up, was Assembler and C... back before the formalization of the Internet and before the birth of the Web:)

Les

note: there was FORTRAN, BASIC, COBOL, ALGO60, LISP, Pascal, Modula 2, Prolog, and multiple others... but none of those are anything i've used other than in school.

Out on HF and heard nobody, but didn't call CQ? Nobody heard you either. 73 de N7GH

Prasad Saya

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posted 1 year ago

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With so many programming languages over the years it is difficult to pick one. It is a matter of personal preference. A programming language has many attributes of its own, and these have evolved over time. For example, one of the aspects of consideration is the paradigms a language supports - procedural, object-oriented, functional and reactive. Another aspect is the functionaity, or the specific problem the language can solve. Yet, another aspect is the voting counts on a popular forum.

SCJP 5, OCPJP 7, 8, SCJD 5, SCWCD 4, SCBCD 5, SCJWS 4, IBM OOAD 833 & 834, MongoDB Developer

Les Morgan

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posted 10 months ago

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Prasad,

i have to say that job availability and continued employment has always received my vote. while i have learned a few dozen languages to professional use level in my years in the industry, i have to say these are the ones that have always brought the pay check in:

SQL
Java
C/C++
C#
SAS
then the flavor of the month for web scripting--usually JavaScript.

Les

Out on HF and heard nobody, but didn't call CQ? Nobody heard you either. 73 de N7GH

kevin Abel

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posted 4 months ago

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My favorite programming language is a light switch. It is 1 or 0 and I can often debug it by checking if the bulb is on. There are other complications such as the power source not working correctly.

Liutauras Vilda

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posted 4 months ago

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kevin Abel wrote:My favorite programming language is a light switch. It is 1 or 0

You are oversimplifying it. Now it might be between 0 and 1, those that have dimmer that regulates the current or voltage that gets to the light.

You'd expect everything would get simpler over the time, but no, everything gets more complicated.

kevin Abel

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posted 4 months ago

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I agree. It seems simple but as details are added it gets more complicated.

Best,

Kevin

Campbell Ritchie

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posted 4 months ago

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Liutauras Vilda wrote:. . . . Now it might be between 0 and 1 . . . .

Isn't that called a quantum light bulb?

Tim Holloway

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posted 4 months ago

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Campbell Ritchie wrote:

Liutauras Vilda wrote:. . . . Now it might be between 0 and 1 . . . .

Isn't that called a quantum light bulb?

Only if a cat can operate it.

Quantum is discrete values. You just don't know which one. Until you measure it.

Lou Hamers

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posted 4 months ago

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I don't have any strong opinion on this and I don't bet anyway, but I don't get why people are so confident that Rust is going to keep gaining attention and overtake everything. Maybe I'm being ignorant, but I just don't see it.

From what (casual) investigation I've put into it, it seems to have a lot of things going against it, or just not helping it:

- Nasty learning curve
- No performance gains over CPP as far as I'm aware
- Lower productivity compared to modern languages other than C/CPP (I think?)
- Syntax doesn't seem any less verbose than most languages

In particular the productivity and especially the learning curve would seem to be a problem. In the age of "Learn JavaScript/etc. because it's 'easier'!", does the typical developer really want to bother after the hype has worn off?

As for the alleged benefits, security and prevention of memory related bugs... well, security isn't something that "excites" developers and executives typically.

And I have to wonder if the increased complexities and learning curve will negate any potential gains on the bug prevention front. Conveniently for Rust promoters, this will be exceptionally hard to prove one way or another, so they can continue to make this unproven claims of "less bugs" indefinitely.

Tim Holloway

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posted 4 months ago

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Alan Kay. inventor of the Smalltalk programming language, once describet Java as "C++ without the mace and knives".

I'd rate Rust as C++ without the knives. It's still basically C++ but it has safeguards like Java. Because it's like C++ and C it can be used in very minimal environments. It has no VM nor mandatory platform overhead. Which is why it's beginning to seep into the Linux kernel.

It's not intended to be "kid-friendly". Just to make a hazardous job a little less hazardous. I'm not in the business of writing OS-level code anymore, but if I was, I'd be considering Rust.

Lou Hamers

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posted 4 months ago

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A lot of people that use non C/CPP languages seem to be the ones talking about Rust (from what I've seen). But isn't that mostly irrelevant? I think what matters is what C/CPP developers decide.

I think that's what I'm questioning - the hype would have us believe that even higher level languages are going to have market share taken away. The C/CPP crowd might ultimately go for it, but I'm definitely skeptical that Rust would ever go much further than that.

Tim Holloway

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No, I don't see it likely that Rust will become the "must-have" language that Ruby was. Rust, like C and C++ is not a "git 'er dun!" language. You cannot slop out a pretty (if mostly hollow) application to impress Management in a few hours time in Rust. It's not really even possible in Java, though Java's unique place as a performant and secure web-friendly language has kept it popular.

Mateusz Macocha

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posted 3 months ago

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I will bet on Flutter!

Campbell Ritchie

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posted 3 months ago

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MM, welcome to the Ranch

Tim Holloway

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So he's going to take a flutter on Flutter?

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posted 3 months ago

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Claude Moore wrote:Hi to all,

if you would bet on an emerging technology / programming language, which would be your choice ?

Java. Especially for AI. Even though Python is ahead right now I don't think it's due to anything other than Google very heavily pushing it when they were in court against Oracle and the fact that most AI researchers aren't programmers per. se. and found the ceremony around Java a cumbersome hurtle.

In the end, especially with Oracle behind it, I think the real strengths of Java plus Oracle's willingness and ability to adapt the language to meet the desires and needs of AI researchers will carry the day.

Java is just the better language from every vantage point except barrier to entry which was, I guess, what AI researchers valued and consequently the way AI research did happen to unfold.

Not flaming Python or Python mavens. Just my 2 cents in answer to this question.

Campbell Ritchie

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posted 3 months ago

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JB: welcome to the Ranch

Tim Holloway

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Actually a lot of Python's popularity in AI comes from the IoT world. TensorFlow is available on a lot of very small, very cheap devices. I have a board I paid about $16 for that does Tensorflow and has built-in microphones, camera interface, pi[etc.[/i]

And of course, it's a runaway winner on the Raspberry PI.

You cannot cram Java into a lot of these devices (to be fair, Java wouldn't fit into the top-end mainframe I jockied in the middle 1980s, either). But Python, MicroPython, and CircuitPython can be used with all but the simplest AVR/IOT devices.

Plus it's always easier to add into an established ecosystem than to build from scratch. As the saying goes, "Nothing succeeds like success".

So while Java is not totally devoid of AI stuff, it's nevertheless secondary to Python. At the moment, anyway. Python does have its appeal to those who just want to "git ;er dun!" and not fight with strong typing, setting up Maven/gradle builds and so forth. It's abstract enough that you can do fairly readable AI code.

Going back to the original question (again!), neither of these languages can be considered "emergent", but both are valuable tools for serious computing work.