Ask Slashdot: What Language Should a Former Coder Dig Into?

An anonymous reader writes "I was a consultant for nearly 20 years and I got into projects where I had to work with a huge variety of software, operating systems, hardware, programming languages, and other assorted technologies. After retiring from that I have spent the last 10 years in a completely different sector. Now I find myself wanting to really focus on coding for personal reasons. You can imagine how out-of-touch I am since I never really was more than a hack to begin with. I can learn syntax and basics in a weekend, question is, what Language should I become native to? Never liked anything 'lower-level' than C, and I don't have the funds to 'buy' my development environment....help me Slashdot, you're my only hope."

Brainf*ck

[greywire]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck

C# or PHP

[Anonymous Coward]

C# is a robust language, and has both free versions from Microsoft for Windows (command-line SDK compiler and Visual Studio 2010 Express IDE) and open-source packages (Mono compiler/libraries and SharpDevelop IDE) that run on most platforms. There's a lot of depth to the language and it borrows many of the best ideas from functional programming languages. It also has the advantage of being a translatable skill for iOS, Android, and Windows 7 mobile apps using MonoTouch (not free).

PHP is a better choice if your main environment is Linux or OS X, if you aren't looking for strong IDE support, and you primarily want to write console apps, or web apps running under Apache. There is a Mono-based implementation of ASP.NET for non-Microsoft web servers, but it's sort of a pain.

Both of these also have strong support communities on StackOverflow and other places when you run into questions, and both are desirable job skills if your interest changes from being personal to being career-minded.

Re:Development environment

[PlastikMissle]

Yes. C# (VB.NET and C++ as well) has the free Visual Studio Express from Microsoft. While it doesn't officially support Python, it does become a very good Python IDE by using the equally free (and unimaginatively named) Python Tools for Visual Studio.

Re:Why do people ask questions like these?

[JWSmythe]

    Because they don't want to say "I'm a noobie, what should I code in?"

    If he was a seasoned programmer, he would have included little tidbits like what he intended to do, and what his experience was.

    Web page? PHP.
    High load gaming? a flavor of C.
    3d gaming without reinventing the engine? Whatever that engine needs.
    Phone apps? Java.
    Simplify how his Linux machine boots? Bash.
    Some new hardware that he just invented? Probably assembly.
    "Hello World"? Any language he'd like.

    I started real development with Perl. I've mostly moved away from it, but there are still a few things that I need the Perl modules to do, that are difficult to find good interfaces anywhere else.

what do you want to do?

[Surt]

I'd use the preferred language for the kind of project you want to work on. If you just want to be employable, learn java.

Re:Beware of dynamic languages for large projects.

[rubycodez]

Nonsense, you are talking out of your ass. huge projects have been done in all the languages you name. there are web pages devoted to list huge projects in each one

Re:Some half-truths and prejudices

[elashish14]

Best for numerical analysis and simulation: C/C++ (nowadays), Fortran (once upon a time, still has some holdouts)

Best for scientific visualization: Matlab (not free) or Octave (free), IDL (not free)

Python deserves some mention in both of these categories as well. Numpy/Scipy are outstanding tools which can easily replace Matlab and Octave. Namespace hierarchies and OO implementation aren't necessarily the highest priorities for simulation, but when they are, Python kicks the pants off Matlab. Pylab has also fit all of my needs for plotting, though I have never really used it for anything too serious and it still isn't Python3 compatible.

For numerical analysis and simulation, you can always write Python wrappers for your low-level C and Fortran libraries.

Another consideration to keep in mind for these types of projects is that if you're gonna run them on a supercomputer, you can damn near guarantee that Python will be available on it while Matlab probably will be, but will require a bitch of dealing with license matters.

Re:Why do people ask questions like these?

[wazafoojitsu]

As I noted in my post I never was a seasoned programmer, I was a total hack, aw hell you guys prolly don't even know what a hack is, you probably think I had an area of expertise too. I HACKED SHIT TOGETHER and got PAID! I learned whatever I needed to know to accomplish what others couldn't. I probably forgot more about the languages I've used than most 'experts' know of any single language. I couldn't possibly have listed all the languages and technologies I have done work with. But here's a sample.... BASIC, C, Pascal, Ada, COBOL, Perl, CGI, vbscript/asp, scripting (*ux shells mostly), VB, most recently PHP. I am only interested in general purpose work, utilities, hell I don't even know yet exactly where I will go with this. I was hoping for some informed guidance and expert advice but maybe slashdot isn't what it used to be...

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Why do people ask questions like these?

[llin]

If you're looking to learn something new and general purpose, Python has a combination of decent docs (you can start with http://www.python.org/doc/ [python.org] , http://pleac.sourceforge.net/pleac_python/ [sourceforge.net] , and http://www.lightbird.net/py-by-example/ [lightbird.net] ), good libraries (see http://pypi.python.org/pypi [python.org] and https://github.com/languages/Python/most_watched [github.com] ) and all-around flexibility (all the regular system stuff, lots of microframeworks for web, scientific computing tools, 2d+3d graphics).

You may want to take a look at IPython ( http://ipython.org/ [ipython.org] ), Reinteract ( http://fishsoup.net/software/reinteract/ [fishsoup.net] ), and DreamPie ( http://dreampie.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net] ) for some interactive shells/interpreters to play around with. I use vim for programming, but there are a number of IDEs. Of the ones I've tried, I thought IEP offered the most interesting tools: http://code.google.com/p/iep/ [google.com]

Probably the fastest/easiest way to learn (and learn if you like) Python is to go through Zed Shaw's book/exercises: http://learnpythonthehardway.org/ [learnpytho...ardway.org]
There's a lot of other stuff on the Python wiki: http://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide/Programmers [python.org]

Slashdot definitely isn't what it used to be. For programming questions you may want to look at Stack Overflow or Quora. For general nerdly news, I find Hacker News, Techmeme, and The Verge tends to cover my bases better these days.