Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

If you could only learn three programming languages, which would you choose?

spreadsheets.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 69 posts

Re: If you could only learn three programming languages, which would you choose?

#11

Post by egor83 »

russellallen wrote: post #8
egor83 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, good point - I guess I should've started with 'Other'. As for arc-arc-arc answers - one out of 62 so far. EDIT: I answered to the previous version of the parent.

Well at least you know pg's voted.

How do I know that?

Re: If you could only learn three programming languages, which would you choose?

#14

Post by tumult »

You've included many redundant languages while simultaneously excluding several classes of languages. Many of your other decisions seem odd.

C/Pascal/Delphi are not so different from each other. C++/Java/C# are not so different from each other. PHP/Python/Ruby/Perl/Lua/JavaScript/Shell are not so different from each other. Arc/Scheme are not so different from each other.

You've neglected the APL family of languages. You've neglected the Prolog family of languages. You've neglected the Forth family of languages. You've neglected languages in the family of theorem provers, such as Coq, Agda and ATS.

You've also made some other strange choices. Scala and OCaml but not Standard ML? Smalltalk and C++ but not Simula? Groovy, which nobody will remember in three years, but not Fortran, a timeless classic still in wide use today?

Re: If you could only learn three programming languages, which would you choose?

#16

Post by CodeMage »

tumult wrote: post #14

You've included many redundant languages while simultaneously excluding several classes of languages. Many of your other decisions seem odd. C/Pascal/Delphi are not so different from each other. C++/Java/C# are not so different from each other. PHP/Python/Ruby/Perl/Lua/JavaScript/Shell are not so different from each other. Arc/Scheme are not so different from each other. You've neglected the APL family of languages.…

And SQL isn't a programming language.

Okay, so SQL isn't a general-purpose programming language. It's not Turing complete, either. But I wouldn't go so far to say it's not a programming language. It's a domain-specific language used for programming. I believe that makes it a programming language. Not one I like too much, but a programming language nevertheless.

Re: If you could only learn three programming languages, which would you choose?

#17

Post by jules »

egor83 wrote: post #12
jules wrote: post #6

No x86 assembly? No F#?

Actually, I thought about including both (along with Fortran and Algol out of respect for the old school), but I had to stop somewhere. Well, that's what "Other" is for.

Okey, I submitted "other" "other" and "other": F#, LLVM IR, and x86 assembly.

Re: If you could only learn three programming languages, which would you choose?

#18

Post by [deleted] »

CodeMage wrote: post #16
tumult wrote: post #14

You've included many redundant languages while simultaneously excluding several classes of languages. Many of your other decisions seem odd. C/Pascal/Delphi are not so different from each other. C++/Java/C# are not so different from each other. PHP/Python/Ruby/Perl/Lua/JavaScript/Shell are not so different from each other. Arc/Scheme are not so different from each other. You've neglected the APL family of languages.…

And SQL isn't a programming language. Okay, so SQL isn't a general-purpose programming language. It's not Turing complete, either. But I wouldn't go so far to say it's not a programming language. It's a domain-specific language used for programming. I believe that makes it a programming language. Not one I like too much, but a programming language nevertheless.

[deleted]

Re: If you could only learn three programming languages, which would you choose?

#19

Post by egor83 »

tumult wrote: post #14

You've included many redundant languages while simultaneously excluding several classes of languages. Many of your other decisions seem odd. C/Pascal/Delphi are not so different from each other. C++/Java/C# are not so different from each other. PHP/Python/Ruby/Perl/Lua/JavaScript/Shell are not so different from each other. Arc/Scheme are not so different from each other. You've neglected the APL family of languages.…

I agree with some of your points, though I don't think making C/Pascal and Python/PHP groups would be a good decision.

As for languages selection - I considered adding assembly, F#, ML, Fortran, Algol and some others, but I had to stop somewhere. I combined the options in DZone with GitHub top, and added a few other names.

SQL was explicitly requested in the previous discussion, so I added it. Groovy scored above Lisp and ObjC in DZone's survey, so it's in the poll as well.

Re: If you could only learn three programming languages, which would you choose?

#20

Post by tzs »

tumult wrote: post #14

You've included many redundant languages while simultaneously excluding several classes of languages. Many of your other decisions seem odd. C/Pascal/Delphi are not so different from each other. C++/Java/C# are not so different from each other. PHP/Python/Ruby/Perl/Lua/JavaScript/Shell are not so different from each other. Arc/Scheme are not so different from each other. You've neglected the APL family of languages.…

> And SQL isn't a programming language.

Sure it is:

http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set

http://assets.en.oreilly.com/1/event/27/High%20Performance%2...

Post reply on HN