Best Programming Language

[Urban Ranger]

Interesting. Last I have seen it was in the labs of my alma mater. It seems to be quite limited to academia.

[St Leo]

Why isn't this a checkbox poll?

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Interesting. Last I have seen it was in the labs of my alma mater. It seems to be quite limited to academia.

It's excellent for theoretical work (analysis or whatever), but the fact that it's interpreted makes it pretty much useless in terms of straight number-crunching. It's also proprietary (and expensive), which gives Common LISP a major advantage over it.

[Urban Ranger]

Expensive is right. I look at Wolfram Research's website and my eyeballs popped out.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Adalbertus
Chegitz, I guess C# is again an attempt of Micro$oft to control the (this time) compiler market by providing again something slightly incompatible.

"slightly incompatible"? It's a new language, an ISO standard (and the runtime is also an ISO standard). What are they making it slightly incompatible with, since it's its own language? The syntax is very close to C++, but that's because that's the standard industry language and most people prefer that format -- it makes the language easier to learn for most people.

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Neither C++ nor C# are real high level programming languages. What's worse, C# is yet another MS attempt in the "embrace, extend, extinguish" department. Real high level programming languages are ones such as Smalltalk, Java, Pascal, Oberon, Prolog, and APL.

I'm beginning to think you don't know much about what C# really is -- in what way is C# not a real high level programming language like Java? Is it because you have the OPTION of using unsafe and pointer operations? By default, and what they recommend you use, is very similar to Java. It compiles to an intermediate language, the runtime environment executes the program, has garbage collection, etc -- in what way is that form of it not a high level language? C# is great because you can use the high level language, or if you need to (for speed purposes), you can make it a native mid-level language like C++.

[yaroslav]

I only know C,PascalFc,Modula2,Basic,C++ and Java. I have saw a little about VisualBasic and Ada. As far as I know, Java is the better language.

But I don't know about C#. I'm going to download 'Thinking on C#' in order to get a touch. But in this moment I like more clarity than speed-optimization. One of things that I love of Java is that Java is much more simple and clean that C++. I don't say that C# is wrong, but in this moment, I don't like too much unsafe pointer operations or operator overloading...

(Just my opinion)

[Asher]

I think reading input in Java is needlessly complicated myself. The pointer operations in C# are discouraged, but are available for those who need them. If you don't want to use them, don't use them...

It's nice to be able to do real pointer-sorts though.

[yaroslav]

When I move from C++ to Java, I firmly believe that all pointers operations must be allowed. But I grew up to understand that on Java are not necesary.

Well, reading input is not simple on Java, I agree on that. An also, AWT was a bad library. But Swing seems to be much better

Do you know a good free book about C#?

[Asher]

Nope, don't know a good free book. There's lots of tutorials on the web though.

I know that pointer operations aren't necessary (Java's references sort of work), but it's still nice to have the option -- sometimes they are not necessary but allow the program to run faster and more efficiently when used. You just gotta be really careful.

[DarthVeda]

I like C++, I love Java, and I loathe Lisp.

(setf DarthVeda '(Suicide) )

!

[yaroslav]

In fact, I was on a debate with a friend that study Computer Science (I study Telecommunications Engineering) about it's better

1) To forbide unsafe operations (as you say, the can be more effeciente) and sacrify efficency on security altar

2) To allow unsafe operations (but It can translate on a longer writing and test time, because programer will use the unsafe operations when they don't need) After all, you know that programs always missused the language features

What do you think about that?

[loinburger]

Depends on who's responsible for using the language. An unsafe language isn't very good for teaching and if I were the boss then I wouldn't trust an entry-level programmer to use it properly (assuming that it's important that the intended program be finished and debugged on time), but if I'm giving the assignment to a guru (or if I'm a guru) and if speed really is important then I'll prefer the unsafe language. It's like any other language decision--sometimes you want one language, and sometimes you want another. Sometimes you want safety, sometimes you want speed.

[Asher]

Originally posted by yaroslav
In fact, I was on a debate with a friend that study Computer Science (I study Telecommunications Engineering) about it's better

1) To forbide unsafe operations (as you say, the can be more effeciente) and sacrify efficency on security altar

2) To allow unsafe operations (but It can translate on a longer writing and test time, because programer will use the unsafe operations when they don't need) After all, you know that programs always missused the language features

What do you think about that?

I don't see the point to forbidding unsafe operations in a programming language. I don't see what's wrong with including the capabilities in the language, since a lot of applications require efficiency over security. C# includes the operations, but makes you declare them unsafe before you ever use them -- and it's discouraged unless you really need to do it.

Some people like pointers, sometimes they need them for the problem they're solving -- absolutely forbidding their use is wrong, IMO. If you don't wanna use them, don't use them -- C# functions similarly to Java in that respect, except you CAN go a bit lower level if you need to.

[Ramo]

Java's great. C++ is ok, but I prefer not to use it..

I've been hearing that C# is the best of both worlds, though.

I probably ought to learn Fortran one of these days.

[rah]

Darn, you left my FAVORITE off the list.

SAS

A great statistical language, with tons of functional Procedures and Functions for the LAZY (efficient) programmer. And it's a full body language for times when you can't make the procedures do exactly what you want.

IT's great for handling all types of input and output.

And it's been around for a long time and has a huge user community so their web site has a wealth of help if you have any problems.
I've been using it for over 20 years, and it still rocks.

RAH