Posted on 04/06/2023 6:35:29 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
1. Java is the de facto enterprise standard. Having worked in some large enterprises, I know they are absolutely resistant to quick change and will keep Java for decades, like they did with COBOL. Java comes with enterprise and team features that other languages envy.
2. Javascript: depends on Web Assembly and transpilers. Even today, you can write in PHP and transpile in Javascript. It could become “the new JVM”, that is something that gets less used over time but everything use it as intermediate codebase. A big issue with Javascript is that if you exploit its strengths (ease of use, small code, available in browsers) you end in compatibility issues and you’ll need tools and more tools. I know I am in the minority thinking what I am about to say, but I think jQuery has been the most “Javascript soul” library ever created. What came next, are “frameworks” and “language improvements” that take out JS nature and make it another thing. Make it a “regular language”. Add burden and intermediate passages. Look at the ever growing tools chain needed to deploy what used to just require “Notepad” to code and run. Look at the verbose, “classic” newest JS syntax to declare classes etc. At this point we may as well use any regular language and transpile it to JS.
3. Python: it sort of failed to become “the general purpose language”. Paradoxically, I’ve seen more Go general purpose small apps in such a short Golang life time than Python. However Python has picked up the AI and finance analysis niches and is going to stay strong in them for many years to come.
4. C++: a staple for lots of lower level software, I always developed in C++ in two fashions: the “durable” and the “cool guy” way. The first, makes use of “moderate” C++ features and has stood the eras. The latter, using templates to the fullest, overloaded operators in the most extreme ways etc., is very neat and advanced but makes it hellish to maintain such codebase. By maintain I mean the 10 man years applications I had to upgrade and upkeep for years when I worked for large compaines. Whereas classes, inheritance etc don’t change much over the years, we had an hard time adapting templates and other stuff to (usually proprietary and barely standard) implementations for advanced constructs. Regular C: close to immortal. It’ll last until we’ll have such a grand technological revolution (quantum computers? Programmable DNA?) that C won’t be able to represent its basic structures any more.
5. C#: a totally cool and great programming language, but came late. Came late and for years it got imprisoned in the Microsoft ecosystem. We had mono and little else to work on C# outside of Windows. Add the fact you need a runtime and that the runtime has been really Windows oriented for years and you get a situation where a very nice language (I love it!) remained under-represented compared to its potential. I fear its usage will further decline in the future.
6. Kotlin: I feel it’s overhyped. True, it’s cool and “functional looking” so it’s 2018 fashion too. However it’s been developed by one small company and Google supported it because it was instrumental in their huge litigation with Oracle. Will it survive in the next years? Who knows.
7. Go: initially I dismissed it (despite its Google support!). Whereas I don’t see it as the “PHP / Java killer” some believe it to be, it has its uses. I haven’t done a lot with it, but have used and installed software made with it. It’s rich but still immature, especially when dealing with certain lower level O.S. (Linux is what I have seen) operations. I am not sure it’ll have everlasting success, but it’s here to stay for a while.
8. PHP: always mentioned last and shown like its only virtue is to show the others how something should not be done. PHP is not fashionable, it’s not “cool intellectual friendly”. It’s a workhorse, powering the large majority of the net since 20+ years. I love it. When developing large apps, it’s easier to keep backwards compatibility with PHP than in C++. It just works. Since version 7, it just works and fast. And cheap. If you want to ever work with overseas people, C and PHP (and Python in a lesser way) are the languages to go, period. If you want to create a website or an app that is compatible to African budgets, PHP is the answer. If you want to toy with TONS of stuff spanning from the eldest “C-like” functions a la “strpos()”, PHP does it. If you want to play with Interfaces, traits, contracts, behavioral and unit testing, iterators and maps, PHP does it. If you want to play with generators, fluent functions, lambdas, PHP does it. If you want to write a 1000 Java piece of code in 300 lines of code, PHP does it. Now with types hinting and strict checks “like a good language should do”. If you want to hack a 10 liner for a shell operation, PHP can do that. If you want to write a Fail2ban script, PHP can do that. If you want to develop an uber fast MVC backend, you can use Phalcon (C compiled speed). You could also achieve compiled speed by using HHVM but nowadays PHP 7.2 is so fast that it’s not really worth the hassle, just use the latter.
Needless to say, PHP evolved over > 20 years. Like Java, and Javascript, PHP is “the English language” for the web and there’s no reason for it to stop adapting and evolving for another 20 years.
“BASIC!!”, he shouted, banging his walker loudly on the floor for emphasis.
I suspect that within a few years, there will be no human-written programming language. All computer language will be written by AI itself.
Have you ever heard the expression “he did a BAL to the brain and got an 806” (program not found)
Professional IT Operations guy here, I got the same grief as a Linux shell "coder." Building and operating online subscription services was my wheelhouse; SIP telephone services to be specific.
My path:
Fortran in college (Mainframe)
Basic (TRS80)
Z80 Assembly (early microprocessor industrial control, custom hardware)
Turbo Pascal (IBM PC)
C/C++
Modula 2
VB
C# (On it since it was introduced, love it!)
Is Ada still in use in DoD?
PHP and JavaScript run the majority of the web. WordPress uses both extensively and more websites run WordPress than any other CMS.
Yep, there’s no such thing as a shell ‘coding’ either.
There’s entire frameworks to develop games. The coding is the easy part. The graphics arts is the hard part, or time consuming part.
I still have that book!
“PHP and JavaScript run the majority of the web. WordPress uses both extensively and more websites run WordPress than any other CMS.”
Yep. I stay away from Wordpress. It’s popularity has made it the “training grounds” for hacking. This makes it a popular target that is vulnerable. I put up two Wordpress sites and both were penetrated within a week so I stopped using it.
I’ve built many WordPress websites over the past 15+ years and have never been hacked. I use WordFence security plugin. I also make sure to use plugins and themes that are well coded. Always run the latest version of php. Try to keep javascript to a minimum.
It is true that the big guys’ products are the big targets. That’s why Windows and programs for it have always had security issues.
So, every programmer will be fired. Who said, “Learn to code?”
I’ve spent half of my career as a Java dev and the other half with C#. C#, Visual Studio, and VS Code have run away from the pack. Feature rich and constantly evolving. While Java was originally billed as “Write once, run anywhere” but in reality it was “Write once, debug everywhere”, C# has actually achieved the “Write once, run anywhere” idea. We develop on Windows and Macs, and deploy to Linux containers, or test locally using Windows containers and everything just works.
“Always run the latest version of php. Try to keep javascript to a minimum.”
Yep... There is the key right there... :)
Good luck keeping JavaScript to a minimum with all the node.js based apps, like Angular and React.
I hate JavaScript!
“Good luck keeping JavaScript to a minimum with all the node.js based apps, like Angular and React.
I hate JavaScript!”
True... I agree. Besides the fact JS is a delivery tool for hidden scripts. But somethings you cannot get away from. Like Icons and such.
Don’t forget hp’s rpn(hp25, etc)!
To this day I use hp71B’s.
To mention C# and ignore the fact that it is heavily used in Unity for game dev tells me whoever wrote this really isn’t the coder he thinks he is.
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