Which language would I choose if I could only code in one language for the rest of my life? English, of course. I can encode more meaning in English than those examples you gave, and that's my criteria. But I wouldn't blame someone else for choosing C if their criteria was how fast code written in that language could run on a PC, or Lisp if their criteria was building DSL's quickly, or Russian if their criteria was communicating with people living in Novosibirsk.
Ask HN: If you could only code with one language which would it be?
31–40 of 53 posts
Re: Ask HN: If you could only code with one language which would it be?
#32I am learning Swift this year. Surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet. I am hoping to make it is my main language, I doubt if you can live with only one language forever though.
My reasoning is that this is one language that you can use to write apps for MacOS and iOS possibly sharing some codebase. It doesn't run on VM, so should be faster. Swift Playgrounds got me interested in this especially the fact that it seems to work with a lot of toys like Mindstorms. It might even evolve to support server side dev. So I see it as decent investment.
Also people in Apple's ecosystem seems to spend more money on apps even with smaller market share of Apple. And really want to write apps that do something interesting as I am really bored with another CRUD webapp with pretty UI.
Re: Ask HN: If you could only code with one language which would it be?
#33What does this question even mean? Give me one language and I'll implement others as needed. Where do you draw the line between data format, template system, and "language"?
From this perspective, the correct answer is "assembler". Everything else is just fancy tools to generate that, right?
Re: Ask HN: If you could only code with one language which would it be?
#34C
Re: Ask HN: If you could only code with one language which would it be?
#35Perl.
Re: Ask HN: If you could only code with one language which would it be?
#36Lisp, not necessarily because it's good, but because it's easier with reader macros to transform another language into it as needed.
Re: Ask HN: If you could only code with one language which would it be?
#37Lisp. With metaprogramming technique I can add any modern paradigm and language features.
Re: Ask HN: If you could only code with one language which would it be?
#38What does this question even mean? Give me one language and I'll implement others as needed. Where do you draw the line between data format, template system, and "language"?
From this perspective, the correct answer is "assembler". Everything else is just fancy tools to generate that, right?
Which flavor? GAS, NASM, MASM? Should we go with straight opcodes? And if we're talking it this far, what CPU architecture? Etc ad infinitum...
Re: Ask HN: If you could only code with one language which would it be?
#39Common Lisp. Why? [0] [0]: http://p-cos.blogspot.in/2014/09/why-i-like-common-lisp.html Common Lisp / Scheme are great to learn about programming languages themselves. think learning about closures in CL vs in ObjC and you will realize how simple concepts become awkward and secondarily builds your taste so you know engineer who prides in knowing C++ complexity is a fucking idiot. Personally, CL has helped me quickly…
Learning a lisp is on my to-do list and I've narrowed it down to guile or sbcl.
I'm curious what kinds of projects would cause you to reach for common lisp over scheme and vice versa. Also would be interested in any other thoughts comparing the two.
Re: Ask HN: If you could only code with one language which would it be?
#40SQL?? What is the argument for that?