Which programming language to learn?
primesuspect
Beepin n' BoopinDetroit, MI Icrontian
An infographic that compares various languages to Lord of the Rings characters.
PHP doesn't look good from here 
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Comments
The whipping boy of languages hasn't been made to look good? Real shocker.
Gee I wonder if this was made by a Python fanboy. They even claim Facebook is a Python shop when it's actually so into PHP they wrote their own interpreter that's made huge performance increases in the language in the last few years.
This chart might as well say "learn Python unless you're weird or greedy".
^^ that was my thought as well, even though I'm learning python right now.
D is covered in The Silmarillion, which is why nobody knows it exists.
And it's a really dynamic language. You can stick D in anything!
According to that chart, I need to do some serious salary negotiation...
“There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses.” ― Bjarne Stroustrup (inventor of C++)
PHP has its warts but if someone can't tell me about their experiences with Composer I don't want to hear complaints from 10+ years ago. The rapid release cycle of the past 5 years has been fantastic for the language and the community has matured. It's optional typing system makes it awesome for getting started fast and then maturing into a Serious Business Platform.
But I'm primarily doing JavaScript right now so what do I know about good languages...
While I do love me some python I would agree that this graphic certainly has a bias.
I mean python is good but I am not ready to say its the best way to really learn codin. I think schools should start with c especially universities, weed out the weak.
No mention of Icon or Unicon hrm.
Once you learn one it just becomes easy to jump in another. The idea of someone knowing just one of the above hardly makes sense. The larger of a tech eco system you manage the more you find yourself in a soup of languages. You use what makes sense for the mission. Anyway, that graphic is just for the fun and to encourage people new to the sport. Obviously bias and the salaries can't be right, but are likely bias as well with the underlying theme being encouraging people to start learning. I like the analogy. Can basic be Bombadil?
Where's Robo-pascal?
Ugh. Python. Never trust a coding language that isn't whitespace agnostic.
No COBOL or Assembly? What kind of chart is this?
Ada or GTFO. It's partly how I got my current job.
I actually used that Java vs. Javascript quote in a conversation with my boss the other day. Until we spoke, she didn't realize they are two different languages.
Oh man, if your whitespace doesn't match your control structures I want to see your code style guide. I like Python because it's all "you're gonna indent the stuff in this block anyway, curly braces are just redundant"
I don't write code for a living, I sysadmin. My code writing adventures are purely to automate tasks for my work... I don't have a style guide, by and large the style is just whatever structure vim automatically applies. The first time I had to edit python for work (because some yahoo before me felt python scripts were the best way to kickstart boxes), I couldn't for the life of me figure out why my edits weren't working. Stupid, stupid whitespace breaking the code. That shouldn't happen. Ever.
Eh the whitespace bit you once, now you know. Python's whitespace rules are a big part of what makes the language so much more readable for me.
Agreed. I sysadmin and exposure to python has actually helped me write powershell in more readable ways, along with handling yaml files for various programs. Just think of whitespace like punctuation in books. You need to control the flow of information and wouldn't be able to handle it otherwise, so axioms like "whitespace shouldn't break the code ever" don't make sense
VISUAL BASIC
-3/10
Ruby. Purely because I love puppet. Also, bash, purely because it's so ubiquitous in the *nix space at this point.
I
Ruby. Mostly because why's (poignant) guide to Ruby is one of the best language intros ever made.
The only two programming languages I ever learned (and knew pretty well) were ATARI Basic and GFA Basic.
Little-known Primesuspect factoid: At age 14 I actually published a commercial piece of software that I called "SheepCopy". I named myself "Mighty Mighty Software" and sold 10 copies at $15 via the Shareware Freemium model. I made $150 and it was astounding to me that I could make money writing computer programs at the time. I received ten envelopes, hand written, with $15 cash in them from various people around the country. I was THRILLED and my parents thought I was a drug dealer or something.
SheepCopy was specifically for Atari 1040STe computers that had a huge excess of RAM (1 Mb, which was pretty astounding at the time). It would create a 512k RAM Drive at boot and copy a pre-selected handful of programs from the boot floppy onto the RAMdrive, making them much faster and easier to access. It was basically like a 512k hard drive at a time when you still did everything on floppies and only few people had HDs. Sure, when you powered the system down the programs were gone but they were copied to the RAMdrive for performance and convenience, not necessity.
It was pretty cool. Still proud of it.
I wrote it in GFA basic and then re-wrote it in C++ when I learned enough of that. That was the last time I did any programming.
RAMdrives OP
Oddly enough I have to learn ruby/rails today for work. Holy crap you guys, cloud9 is an awesome ide.
This. cloud9 came pre-loaded on the Beaglebone Black I ordered a while ago. Very nice ide.