You haven't lived 'til you've coded Assembler on an IBM mainframe!
Ah! THOSE were the days! :-)
Posted on 12/28/2015 9:49:47 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The Python Programming Language is rising in popularity in Tiobe's monthly language index, reaching an all-time high of fourth place this month, up from fifth place last month. The language now has a rating of 4.429 percent, an increase of more than 2 percent from a year ago, when it was ranked eighth.
"[Python is] easy to learn, available everywhere, and embraced by industry. Python is the current standard in scripting," a report accompanying the index said. Tiobe uses a formula involving searches on popular search engines to gauge language popularity.
In an email, Paul Jansen, managing director at Tiobe, said Python is in use more and more as a first language at high schools and universities. Moreover, it runs on all major platforms and is very expressive, he said. While JavaScript and PHP are used for only Web scripting, Python can serve as the general scripting language for building scripts and small algorithms, as well as serving as glue code between applications, he said.
Python also scores well in the rival PyPL Popularity of Programming Language index, again coming in second place with a share of 11.6 percent, behind Java's 24.4 percent. PyPL analyzes how often languages are searched on in Google.
Elsewhere in this month's Tiobe index, Java continues its recent rise and is expected to be Tiobe's Programming Language of the Year, a title awarded to the language with the greatest increase in popularity. Java is ranked first, this time with a 20.973 percent rating. Jansen reiterated that Java is being helped by its use in Android mobile development and by the adoption of Java 8, which was introduced last year.
Objective-C, meanwhile, continues to decline. In third place a year ago, it is now in 15th place and has seen a drop of nearly 8 percentage points, leaving it with a 1.357 percent rating. "From the moment that Apple declared that Objective-C was to be replaced by Swift, there was no demand for Objective-C anymore. Obviously nobody was interested any more in learning Objective-C after this statement," said Jansen. Swift, the successor to Objective-C, has risen from 17th place a year ago to 14th place, with a 1.405 percent rating.
C comes in second place in this month's index again, with a rating of 16.460 percent, followed by C++ (5.943 percent) and C# in fifth place (4.114 percent). Respectively inishing third, fourth, and fifth in the PyPL index were PHP, with a 10.7 percent share; C# (8.9 percent); and C++ (7.6 percent).
For next year, Jansen sees big-data-related languages like R and Julia doing well, along with JavaScript and Typescript. Scala, he added, is "a serious candidate for a permanent position in the top 20." On the downside, Jansen anticipates hard times for Objective-C, Pascal, and PHP in 2016.
Sure, that’s the first thing to consider if you have the option. When you’re writing something for say an Arduino, you don’t always have an option. Then there are larger projects where you may need to use many different tools (e.g., php, mysql, javascript, & python).
I worked on a recent project that required a some rather complex data structures and I mused what an exercise in self punishment it would have been using perl references. Perl is like being dragged through the streets of mogudishu behind a toyota hilux.
I like low level languages because they allow for working directly with hardware - it’s something that appeals to my inner self. ;-)
I work with what is appropriate. For text-centric filters, perl really is the balls. But I would never try to write a large application with it. If you are programming a chip, the native assembler might be appropriate. Depends on the project, but as a general statement, Python is probably the best ‘hobby level’ language out there. Once you get it working (easy in Python), you can translate into your own pet language to optimise it if you want.
The one thing I have noticed about Perl, for the times I’ve allowed it to be used in a project, is its reliability and efficient use of hardware resources. I believe FR was built using Perl? The problem with using something like Perl is its declining popularity and therefor future support - all of which makes it less appealing for use in business.
Perl is great, for the paradigm/environment it was originally designed for. There was a time when they were trying to sell it as a general purpose programming language, which it is not. It’s awk on methamphetamine. It’s garbage collection is superb. Again, makes fast and bulletproof filters. Use what is appropriate.
It just depends on what your hobby/project entails. Which programming language to use, should be based on the above - not just based on the most general/easiest to learn. For instance, if you want to work with the arduino, you're going to need to know a little C.
I programmed in c for twenty years before breaking down and discovering what the skate board crowd was raving about.
I am also a big fan of tkinter, the graphical library that comes with every python install. My tcl/tk days got me used to tk and it’s idiosychncrasies. It’s possible to write a non-trivial gui program with python in tens of line of code that will run on a toaster. That is where the script vs compiled code difference shines. Beautiful.
I guess then COBOL under zOS is like a cosplaying a steampunk programmer?
I'm actually okay with that :)
Those ten lines of code may require ten thousand lines of Python interpreter code, not to mention the library files, which must be up and running first. This increase CPU power and memory requirements greatly, which explains why Python doesn't come installed on most toasters, or practically any MPUs for that matter. :-)
A Raspberry PI will run Python script, IIRC. And I'm sure more and more similar devices will run Python in the future, but when it comes to speed and maximum processing - like code for autonomous self-righting/landing quad-copters and etc. - C/C++ will be the first/best choice for now and in the future.
It's actually named after Monty.
matplotlib
numpy
opencv
pygame
pyparsing
dateutil
imutils
ptz
They say most programs will spend 90% of their time executing 10% of the code.
You can use high-level languages for the 90% of the code that's peripheral to the core function, optimize that 10% where it spends 90% of it's time and have saved yourself a whole bunch of coding work without incurring a substantial performance penalty.
You haven't lived 'til you've coded Assembler on an IBM mainframe!
Ah! THOSE were the days! :-)
An interpreted language is a programming language in which programs are 'indirectly' executed ("interpreted") by a interpreter program running in the background. This interpreter program eats up hardware resources a single running "compiled program" wouldn't in most cases.
A compiler is a computer program (or set of programs) that transforms source code, written in a programming language (the source language), into another computer language (the target language, often having a binary form known as object code).
A compiled language (e.g. C/C++, Pascal, even VB, etc.) is converted into minimal machine code and then 'directly' executed by the host CPU/MPU. It's faster and requires fewer hardware resources.
I realize you probably already know most of this - I'm just not sure why you seem to be stumbling over it. Anyway, I just wanted to spelled it out for those who may read the thread and do not know the difference.
Snakes? Pythons!!!!!!
No, I haven't, but I've used apps coded in Assembly and boy were they ever fast! Even networked using serial cables on 286 processors running graphic simulators, they were amazingly fast!
My first coding was some mainframe 101 basic (I forget the company) in college. But I have gui business database apps still accounting for, and taking in thousands of dollars daily, after 20+ years in operation. ;-)
I've been doing a lot of work in PowerShell, and it doesn't seem to quite fit that model. The script code goes through a run-time compiler before it's executed, and you can embed C# code in the script.
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