this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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Programming

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Swift. Mostly because it’s by far what I’m most familiar with. Two things come to mind for what I most like about it. 1. Progressive disclosure: I found learning Swift to be simple since I didn’t have to directly concern myself with advanced features, but as I learned more I could take advantage of these more advanced features. 2. Clarity: I find Swift far more readable than most other languages. I think this is a combination of language features (argument labels for example) and consistency across the standard library and popular third party libraries. I think Swift finds a good middle ground between brevity and expressiveness; there’s never too much boilerplate to write, but the code is usually fairly self documenting.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Mostly because it’s by far what I’m most familiar with.

I hardly ever use Swift and it's still my favorite language. It's a young language and I'm a bit of an "if it aint broke don't fix it" kinda guy, but Swift is definitely better than any of the languages I use on a daily basis. I can't wait until it's a little more mature on the platforms I work with regularly.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Better question: What is your favourite tool for a given problem?

Python for quick hacks to get the data you have in the format you want or something else that's relatively simple.

JavaScript is basically Python's use case but for websites (small games, forms, single page website).

I like C# for when you need to build out a big project carefully that also needs to run kinda quickly.

TypeScript for sacrificing run time to gain development speed. Also my main choice for the web. Wins against JS except for small things on the web.

Rust for when you gotta go fast and that takes all priority.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’ve gotta go with Elixir. I’ve been using it professionally for about 7 years now, and it’s been amazing to see it grow in the way it has. It’s very well-designed, based on a rock-solid foundation (Erlang/OTP), has an amazing standard library with fantastic documentation, and has a strong culture of pragmatism and developer friendliness.

I personally work in web dev, and Phoenix has consistently shown itself to be an extremely capable web framework. LiveView has kicked off a new paradigm for making web applications that most major languages are copying.

There’s a solid embedded story with Nerves, and serious foray into ML/AI with Nx. It’s obviously not suited for the lower level stuff, but that’s when Rust integration with Rustler comes in. Many wouldn’t be interested in Elixir because of it’s dynamic typing, but there’s serious effort by the creator and a research team into developing a gradual type system for the language.

Just an overall solid language that’s extremely pleasant to use with a really healthy and (slowly but surely) growing community.

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[–] Andy 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

The ones I can get things done with:

  • Python
  • Zsh

My current obsession:

  • Factor

Honorable mentions:

  • Nim
  • Roc
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I was about to write Haskell or Purescriot but Unison seems like the future if it ever catches on.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Big fan of Julia for anything that requires a lot of computation. It feels easy to write things in an optimized way without having to work against the language.

I have a soft spot for Common Lisp. It encourages me to write chunks of code that are very evergreen in the sense that I could easily use them in a future project without modification. I don't find myself using it all that much though.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Nim. It just doesn't get in the way or have certain annoyances that other languages do.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Typescript followed by Ruby

Typescript as the web has won. Ruby as nothing else feels closer to poetry

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I don't really have a single favorite a language, if I am able to choose freely it depends on the task.

  • C++ for natively compiled programs and C interoperability, I like the types from the STL and templates.
  • Clojure is IMO great for data-oriented programs, I really like the immutability and it being a lisp. The java interop and the ability to compile to JavaScript with clojurescript can also be useful.
  • Julia for smaller (mostly numerical) programs that should be fast at runtime. The type system is great in being optional, but strong and significantly improving performance when types annotations are used.
  • Fennel (or Lua) is definitely my favorite Language for embedding into larger programs and scripting. Fennel has the advantage of being a lisp and cleanly compiling to lua.
  • brainf*ck is great as a simple language to have fun and enjoy programming
[–] asyncrosaurus 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I didn't have an answer for a very long time. Or more seriously, the answer was "the one that paid the most". I've run the gamut of popular languages, C, C++, Java, Javascript, perl, ruby, Python, Visual Basic, VB.Net, C# and F#.

But the last couple years it's really been C#. The pace of development on the language/runtime has really picked up with yearly releases. The features that are added and iterated on are expressive and intuitive. You can tell from the discussion posts on how a feature is being considered for inclusion is thoughtful and deliberate. It really feels like the language is in good hands.

Just wish those hands weren't Microsoft.

[–] esscew 5 points 1 year ago

Go make me feel more productive than any other language I've used which makes me feel smarter than I am.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Writing Clojure for a living and I'm pretty happy with it. I also found Common Lisp very interesting, but a little more complex and haven't spend much time with it to be honest, other than learning the language basics.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

PHP! Super easy in use, allows for very fast deployment, is secure, and there are boat loads of libraries available

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Python, for when I don't feel like writing in Rust.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

PHP. I've worked on many languages but I keep coming back to PHP. It's so easy to get shit done fast, easy, and with all the security upgrades, secure too

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

C#, I really enjoy all of the new stuff they add each update and In sheets thankful of the .NET ecosystem.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I only just started learning Nim, but from what I see so far, it might soon become my favorite.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Python! Although I've been recently working on a bigger frontend project in TypeScript and I've grown to like it... Wouldn't use them for all the same purposes though. Right tool for the job and so on...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Nim. It's kinda hard to describe, but it just feels very clean. Makes me wish python had decent static typing and proper variable declarations. Though calling Nim a "compiled python" really doesn't do it justice in the least. I have done some unholy things with compile-time evaluation and macros in this language, it's so much fun.

GDScript is also great. Fixes some of the gripes I had with python as well. Godot is also just a really good game engine so that helps.

Python itself is also great. Has really good packages for almost any use and is really easy to just pick up and use. My main gripe is that it's dynamic. Yes it supports typing, but it doesn't make it any better when almost no libraries use it.

Rust is neat, but I find myself hitting a wall whenever I try to pick it up again. I love the memory safety and type system, but it's not the kinda language you can just pick up and play around in for a few minutes, you kinda have to have a project from the getgo to get any use out of it.

C is fun just for the bullshit you can do with memory and pointers, but I find myself using rust or nim for anything that requires proper memory management.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

In terms of real programming languages its Java, since it's the only thing I know.

Alternatively Bash, since I like the simplicity and it's very useful as a Linux user.

[–] xnasero 4 points 1 year ago

Backend: golang/python Frontend: js/ts Scripting: bash

If i had to choose one it'd be go.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Academically, Rust. But I find the most joy and speed with Go. The only time I’m having fun programming, it is in Go.

[–] atheken 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

That’s interesting. Usually when I see people talking about Rust, they really like it. Are there specific parts that make it less enjoyable than go for you?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

For me, it's the instability in Rust that makes it less attractive than go. By instability I mean that the language itself and the whole ecosystem around it seems to be in a constant flux. If you contribute a PR today you'll get a review tomorrow saying that "you can now use this and that feature from the latest nightly to save 3 lines of code", continuing like that for another two weeks before you finally give up.

Go has been the paragon of stability and professionalism since its first release, also due to the fact that it was a specific goal for the language. Additions are slow and few, often thought over and debated for months (or years) to find the simplest, most optimal solution. What's even more remarkable, they have managed to transport this mindset into the larger ecosystem, which now practices the same values of consistently and quality.

So for me, it feels like the Rust community spends a lot of effort on keeping up with the language, the Go community spends that time getting things done, which is what I mostly go for these days.

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[–] MrJay 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I currently don't have 1 favorite there are so many really cool languages. but here are 2 and some that have inspired me.

  1. Common Lisp for sheer Technological prowess has some very advanced features that I dont see very often, runtime recompilation, code as data, data as code, debuggers, images, redefinition, macros , perf measuring, recompilation during errors to fix bugs etc... and has a algebraic syntax which can be nice.
  2. D for general purpose, again has features that are not common, optional GC, C compiler, zero allocation c strings, Lowlevel purity, and can be as Fast/Faster than C, and as simple as python(in the base language obviously pythons packages make up for basically all of its flaws). Languages that have inspired me not favorites but changed the way I think are APL, Factor, Scheme, Lobster, Unison, and Koka, I hope you enjoy the read if you check any of those out.
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

C++ because I can kill children, and have macros

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Ruby.

My desktop manager is Ruby. My text-editor is written in Ruby. I'm about to switch to a terminal written in Ruby, and a shell written in Ruby.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I love Pharo :) All the power of a Smalltalk for the 21 century, a small but very nice community, decent library support (but not huge), and a good FFI interface when this is not enough.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I don't program but as a user I like python cause it'll tell me what's wrong in a pretty easy format

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