Say Something Nice About Every Language You’ve Used

http://blog.darevay.com/2010/12/say-something-nice-about-every-language-youve-used

by swannodette • 16 years ago

35 30 16 years ago

blog.darevay.com

gsivil2• 16 years ago

A great conversation starter. Something that I wanted to read about for sometime in HN. Hopefully more HNers will drop a word or more here

Elrac• 16 years ago

Lua: Amazing how much you can accomplish in a tiny language that has just one data structure.

Perl: Proof that line noise can be executed.

PHP: A simple language for simple people.

FORTRAN: Accounts of its death are exaggerated.

COBOL: Still the world's biggest code base.

Erlang: When 5 9's just isn't enough.

Haskell: It will make you look leet.

J: Brevity is the soul of wit.

Forth: RPN great is.

schleyfox• 16 years ago

BASIC - Got me started, taught me how to think like a programmer

C++ - Fun in a perverse sort of way, especially when using templates

C - Fast, simple, elegant, perfect

Java - Great keyboarding practice. I touch type because of it

PHP - I don't have to use it anymore

Smalltalk - Huh, so this is basically Inception?

Lisp - Promoted good beard growth.

Erlang - I now have an idea of how to go about building a telecom company

Perl - Because brainfuck was too legible

Python - Show me on the doll where TIMTOWTDI touched you

Ruby - How do you feel about writing psuedocode and then executing it (albeit very slowly)

Assembly - Helped me get into character for an 80s night party

ThePinion• 16 years ago

PHP - Everyone seems to hate you, but you've managed to help me get every job done. You may be a pain in the ass at times, but I love you and I'm sticking by your side.

anigbrowl• 16 years ago

Basic: I love the 80s

Pascal: Wait, I can create my own types? HOT DAMN

Python: Incredible, no matter how untidy it is it still works

JavaScript: Ditto but faster

Visual Basic: admit it, that was an awesome IDE, especially for 1993

Excel Macro Language: before VB, Excel had macros in cells and you could do weird things with them. I wrote a really nice tax avoidance system in it for a bank once.

C: I don't know why I waited so long to take it up./n Unfriendly string handling offset by beauty of economy./n/n

x86 assembler: My, you're versatile.

56k assembler: Computers are so much more fun when you don't need an operating system

This thread: quite educational actually. I should go back and look at Lua.

cosgroveb• 16 years ago

COBOL... You paid the bills for awhile.

Mithrandir• 16 years ago

HTML: <font size="8">Best markup language <b>ever</b>.</font>

geuis• 16 years ago

English: helps me get around, lots of cool curse words.

Japanese: was able to ask for the restroom in Tokyo, and got some cute girls giggling at me

BASIC: got me started in programming

Visual Basic: Let me make some fun desktop apps, like my Special Ed sound board with prank call capabilities. Also taught me I really needed to get back to using Macs.

Real Basic: Let me make some apps on the Mac like I did with Visual Basic. Then made me realize I didn't like using environments like VB and RB anywhere.

html: Got me started in web development.

javascript: Taught me that frameworks are freaking awesome and to love prototypal OO languages.

php: Sorry, I used it for years and it just taught me to orient towards frontend work. Hell, I can't even get a cute girl to giggle with php, so what's the use?

python: Dear Python, I just wanted to let you know how much I love you. You are such a great language. So simple and straightforward, so easy to understand and to get along with. Its like we were made for each other. I get along with you so much better than my old partner, php.

Aaronontheweb• 16 years ago

C++: taught me life lessons the hard way, but made me a better programmer for it.

C#: Does everything and gets better with age.

Java: Let's face it - making a version of "Snake" using Swing was a hell of a lot easier than doing it with the console.

VB: Thanks for paying for my first car and at least one internship in college

PHP: The best one night stand I ever had.

MIPS Assembly: I never appreciated loops until I had to rebuild one using you.

ML: Thanks for failing out at least two of my classmates during Programming Languages - I didn't like them anyway.

LISP: Just keep adding parentheses...

Perl: I never really understood you, but you gave me my first test of web dev.

Dylanlacey• 16 years ago

In Order: Logo: HOLY SHIT I'M 8 AND I CAN MAKE THE COMPUTER DO SHIT! QBasic: Easy to get started and allowed me to write text games for myself

AGT: DOUBLE HOLY SHIT I CAN WRITE MY OWN TEXT ADVENTURES?! ZZTOOP: You gave the gamers a language to write their own levels. Freaking Schweet.

VB 4: Having controls is kinda nice!

Delphi: I don't remember much. I think I liked... That I was better then anyone else in my highschool class.

Java: Lots of libraries and lots of people in the ecosystem. Plus, I got good at typing.

Motorola Assembler: Hackity Hack! Whoo, LEDS! Made me appreciate higher level constructs, and also gave me a greater understanding of CPUs and how I am really standing on the shoulders of giants.

C: Very powerful access to the OS.

Haskell: Functional Programming hurt my brain but gave me an appreciation for the elegant.

Prolog: I just love the "Define Solution: Get Implementation" nature of Prolog.

Groovy: Having live scripting makes it much easier to do work with JMeter, which is otherwise annoying difficult.

Ruby: Makes things easy, unverbose.

C#: Lots of libraries, more cool language features in every version, the best IDE I've ever used. Not as verbose as Java but just as accepted.

Scala: Woah. SO much fun. I'm really liking how enjoyable and simple it makes solving problems. My new favourite toy.

sukuriant• 16 years ago

(started out chronological, then became stream of consciousness)

QBasic. Got me started, simple and easy to learn.

Java. While verbose, your libraries are second to none. You taught me event driven programming and were the vessel for many of my future endeavors

C. Fast, clean, powerful. I enjoy working with you when I can.

C#. A clone of Java! Your libraries are a bit different from Java, but when I got to know you, I found out you're not so bad after all :)

MIPS. There's something empowering about thinking at as low a level as you

Lisp(CLisp,emacslisp). Elegant, clean, brief. You have great power. Some day I need to dust off my parenthesis and try self-modifying code in you.

netlogo. Erm ... well, it was really easy to create complex systems using you!

Prolog. You are the most unique language I've ever worked with, period.

verilog. It was neat working ~that~ low a level! python. Working with you is like sex. Everything I want to do with you happens so intuitively, I love it.

Google's Go. Your type system is beautiful. I hope to work with you more in the future.

HTML. you're intuitive and straightforward.

gammarator• 16 years ago

Basic: easy enough for me to write silly scripts on the old Apple at the back of the classroom

Pascal: you kept me from falling in love with programming before I declared Physics

Mathematica: your ability to solve symbolic equations is astounding

IDL: you made it easy for me to produce ugly graphics and served as my union card with astronomers

Perl: you helped me get to python so much faster

C: getting good at you encouraged me to learn more about development best practices. basic debugging and version control make me a coding mastermind relative to my peers.

S-Lang: you convinced me of the horrible dangers of Not Invented Here

C++: you've kindly stayed out of code I've needed to do serious work with

Python: you've got so many packages, half of my work is already done. Plus you painlessly taught me some OOP!

kajecounterhack• 16 years ago

PHP. My first language was a web language, not basic or anything like normal people. It just came naturally to me while learning html/css in 6th-7th grade, when I realized I could make online games. It's really fun for people who don't know programming.

Javascript. I can send stuff without refreshing my page using AJAX? Sweet deal.

Java. They teach it in schools, so what the heck. I learned recursion and objects with it!

Ruby. Is. Love. MVC, scaffolding, etc etc was introduced to me through rails. omg why does PHP look ugly all of a sudden?

Perl. I backtracked to learn about CGI. Helped that its syntax had similarities to PHP. Useful tool language for processing stuff especially text.

C++. Whoa I can get programs to run that fast?! Whoa I understand pointers, omp & tbb, and cool low-level stuff!

MIPS. Well, it was useful for learning pipelining.

Python. Useful/sweet language that everyone seems to be all over at least on campuses, but I discovered Ruby first so python was kind of "what's the big deal I can do this in ruby" for me.

Clojure. My first lisp! So weird. Cool? You're supposed to be good at parallel stuff, I can't wait to learn more about you.

edanm• 16 years ago

English - The language I know best, at least in terms of reading/writing. A wonderfully expressive language.

Hebrew - My "mother tongue". Much smaller than English, but it's the language I use every day (in the real world, I mean.)

Spanish - A language I'm learning (pretty good at already). Very lyrical, very fun to speak. Exists in many countries, which certainly helps when travelling the world. Also, having a written language system which is phonetic, i.e. corresponds exactly to how you're speaking, is so much better.

Russian - A language I'm starting to learn. Very difficult. Honestly, it doesn't sound as good as some other languages, but it is very fun to actually speak. Lots of unique sounds that you don't find in other languages, and they're really fun to make.

French - I barely know the language but I've learned a bit, and I'm planning to learn more. Very difficult, but it is a beautiful sounding language.

earl• 16 years ago

C++: this got me into computers

Mumps: didn't ruin my life, just a year of it

VB6: wow you could get a lot of pretty productive stuff done quickly

Matlab: This is how math on a computer should be written.

R: Convinced me there is nothing better than a long lived environment with repl which preserves state. In fact, this is how all code should be written. Also demonstrates open source and provide the best software at least in technical niches.

Java: convinced me garbage collection is good and made me a much better typist.

Ruby: wow you can get a lot of work done quickly -- at least in dev time.

Scala: this is what java should be

nickik• 16 years ago

php: ah now I really know that html isn't programming VB: look when I click submit the stuff from the form prints C: Pointer are awesome spezially when you know how they work and the other people in the class dont :) C#: Array list rock if your used to C arrays Dylan: OO done write Clojure: Wow. FP is much better then OO. Wow. Lisp is as cool as I thought it is. Wow. Concurency made easy :)

gsivil2• 16 years ago

Flirting with languages

BASIC: in an Amstrad CPC6128 for providing lottery pseudo-random numbers for my grandfather. I liked the GOTO. Learning what is a manual

Logo(?): make a square. the word turtle

Pascal: for teaching me that there is a thing called data structure, my first language in college

C: for discovering the archetypal textbook in KR

HTML: simple reminded me of the Basic days

Java: making a window with an active button is not rocket science. What is a class

Matlab: my PhD favorite tool. I was obsessed with its figures

TeX: for giving awesome output. HTML,BASIC experience. addictive

Python: for being my new Matlab the community

Lisp: thanks for surviving, I will stick to you

madewulf• 16 years ago

There is a site for that: http://mytechne.com/

You will also be able to say something nice about your Operating Systems and Text Editors.

rednum• 16 years ago

visual basic - got me to start programming

c++ - umm, made me learn gdb, code formatting and good editor

c - best thing for low level stuff

pascal - easy, painless

ocaml - rewired my brain for thinking functional

common lisp - rewired my brain once again, fun to write

java - this is what c++ should be

python - fun! gets things done

ruby - blocks are fun

bash - cant imagine linux without it

wazoox• 16 years ago

French - mother tongue, nuff' said.

English - probably the language I'm reading the most...

Spanish - nice language, I should practice it a bit more. I've put spanish books in my e-reader.

Italian - almost too easy. I probably should learn the grammar, though.

German - I know very little of it, but I manage to read some bits. Funny language.

Latin - nothing beats latin. Particularly Caesar and Horatio.

Greek - I should probably work it a bit, particularly the grammar. I like reading Greek theater aloud (with a terrible accent of course).

BASIC - first programming language I've learnt. I know I've been burnt forever somehow :)

Z80 assembler - Rodney Zacks' book is so great. I liked this language, though primitive is was.

Turbo Pascal - a nightmare, I hated it. It's what I was taught in college, and I hated the homework, but the language actually is quite nice.

C - I never used it enough to be comfortable with it. Someday...

Perl - learnt it almost by accident. Love it. Nothing beats the Swiss army chainsaw.

Visual Basic - used it for 5 months in some troubled circumstances. Wasn't as bad as it could have been.

PHP - I too, did the mistake to start a quick and dirty hack that ended into some 20000 LOC monster. The horror.

HTML, Javascript - know my way through it, but never managed to like it. Unavoidable nowadays, anyway.

praptak• 16 years ago

Programming language of aunt's calculator: turned a calculator (boring) into something you can program (cool!). Editing was tedious, so it made me figure it out on paper first (good thing!).

ZX Spectrum Basic - at your fingertips mere fractions of a second after powerup. Can your Eclipse do that?

Z80 assembly language - so fast and so powerful. Magic knowledge for gaining infinite lives in games.

Pascal - structured programming and type safety for the win.

C - nothing in your way, the only limit is yourself ;)

C++ - it has classes!

OCaml - the pinnacle of type safety without typing the types (excuse the pun). And its fast.

Smalltalk - all you need to know about the object-oriented paradigm is there.

Java - Has libraries for everything.

Delphi - I think it's still the fastest way for putting together a decent looking windows GUI app.

Python - I couldn't put it better than: http://xkcd.com/353/

Clojure - its constructs for concurrent programming are life changing. And it's a Lisp. With extra readability for the parentheses-challenged. With a very well thought out standard lib.

RyanMcGreal• 16 years ago

In chronological order:

GW-BASIC - As a twelve-year-old, I could just sit down and write programs that worked.

QBASIC - I could pretty much take out the line numbers of the programs I'd written and compile them. Heady stuff.

Pascal - Easy enough to learn by myself with the help of a reference.

Turbo C - you could make pull-down windows!

VBScript - After a decade away from programming, I quickly discovered I already knew most of what I need to build dynamic websites.

VB6 - building applications with a full-fledged IDE is nice.

JavaScript - A compact, mostly-good language made much better through libraries like jQuery.

SQL - conceptually hard at first, but the natural-language syntax really helps.

Python - finally, a language that lets me think in executable code.

C# - it's well-documented.

PHP - it doesn't actually drown kittens.

arethuza• 16 years ago

OK I fail the challenge - I used VB6 briefly and I can't think of anything pleasant (or even polite) to say about it.

aufreak3• 16 years ago

HP's RPN calculator - Wrote my first fractal calculation on it.

ZX Spectrum BASIC - "PEEK" and "POKE" to write into graphics memory.

GW BASIC - Loved "BEEP" and "PLAY". Made first toy music program.

MS Quick Basic - No line numbers! Yay! (compared to GW BASIC)

Pascal - Blazingly fast compilation! (compared to just about anything else)

C - The warm feeling of being close to the metal.

C++ - Destructor evaluation upon stack unwind.

Haskell - Beautiful syntax. If you can compile your program, it'll probably run as you expect it to.

Scheme - Just me and my code play. Nothing comes in between. Not even the parens.

Smalltalk - Late binding - messages live separately from objects and classes.

Erlang - My first intro to message passing concurrency.

agentultra• 16 years ago

Lisa Assembler: I was really young and only capable of typing in examples from the manual and books I had taken out of the library. I liked the pre-made graphics routines best.

GWBASIC/QBASIC: I had lots of fun making games with these languages. It was very easy to conceptualize a program as a sequence of steps at that age.

C/C++: I'd bought one of those "Learn to Program Games in 24 Hours" books. It took a little longer than that with school and everything, but my friends thought it was pretty cool.

Perl: Wow. You changed everything. I started to think about programming as a language rather than a set of formal instructions. I had a lot of fun making games, bots, and my first "web log" script.

PHP: I had given up programming for a while when I decided I wanted to get into music. But when that failed I was able to pick you up and walk into a job that really turned things around for me and kicked off my career. You were really easy to learn.

Python: You introduced me to concepts I hadn't heard of before in a way that was approachable.

Lisp: You spoiled me. I love conditions and restarts, CLOS, and real symbolic debugging. I come home to you after a long day of work and smile. You make programming fun.

maurits• 16 years ago

In order of appearance

- Logo/hypercard. My highschool doens't even own a pc at this point as I command the turtle around

- True Basic. Fast forward to the line-number free future. Also the birth of my first project, an implementation of ELISA.

- Pascal. Let there be types! Also runs on a computer I can actually buy myself so I am no longer dependent on daddies apple. Also the first language my dad doesn't know. Both important factors if you are 14.

- VHDL. Wow so this is how my VCR works.

- Miranda. Met a hacker who managed to make pacman with it.

- Assembler/C. Wow so this is how my computer actually works

- Java. super('let there be objects')

- PHP, breading ground of the "read php.net - code a zillion lines - eat pretzel" SE methodology. Also pays bills.

- Matlab. Working with images never was easier. Nurses unique coding skills through skillful (miss) use of find or cumprod.

- Python. New found partner, we are in the exiting and slightly scary 'getting to know each other" period

amadiver• 16 years ago

    Python taught me about list comprehensions and bound methods.

 I've never played with Python before, and I'm trying and failing to understand what bound methods are. Could anyone explain them?

pge• 16 years ago

Logo - first taught me that computers were programmable. that little turtle actually went where I told it to!

BASIC - Forget the turtle, this machine can actually do real stuff - interaction, graphics, solving my rubik's cube. For a young kid, the declarative style of programming was simple enough to make sense

FORTRAN77 - First taught me to think about how data was stored and the difference between the value and the address (and pointer arithmetic).

C - What can you say about C? It's the fundamental building block.

MIPS Assembly - At the end of the day, you've got to move bits and bytes around in registers. Programming assembly taught me how that all works.

LISP - opened my eyes to recursion and functional programming. moreso, it first showed me that programs could be elegant.

Python - It's fast and easy to read. I can show a program to non-programmers, and they can often get the gist of what it's doing. Python code is the most "readable" code I've written.

faragon• 16 years ago

C: Simple and powerful.

C++: Nice library (STL) and RAII.

Java: Simple and fast enough for most tasks.

Bash: Great Swiss knife scripting.

Perl: Great all purpose hacking language.

Python: Is a very expressive language.

Ruby: Simple and expressive language.

Lisp: Clean, flexible, and beautiful.

ML: A very expressive language. Lots of fun.

Prolog: A kind of magic.

COBOL: It's Turing complete.

Pascal: It's Turing complete.

DBase: It's Turing complete.

Fortran: Short but better than a priory expected relationship.

GWBasic: A toy, lots of fun back in the day.

Visual Basic: It's Turing complete.

HTML: It's simple.

Javascript: Extrange but powerful language.

PHP: Useful for getting the job done.

z80 assembly: Not bad for the money.

6502 assembly: Simple and beautiful.

8086 assembly: Could be worse.

68000 assembly: Resourceful.

i386 assembly: Could be worse.

x86_64 assembly: Ugly as always but with more registers.

MIPS assembly: Lots of registers (32i, 32f), nice syntax.

PowerPC assembly: Lots of registers (32i, 32f), nice syntax.

ARM assembly: Just 16 registers, but very expresive instructions.

Spanish: A rude but phonetic-honest language (mother tongue).

Catalan: As musical as French, as simple as Spanish.

French: I like how it sounds.

Italian: I like its rithm.

English: Simple and beautiful language.

German: I like its grammar.

Latin: For Rome!

Zak• 16 years ago

In roughly chronological order

Apple II Basic - the computer has programming built right in

Hypercard - designing a GUI by point and click is nice

C - there's very little between programmer and computer

C++ - you can have more between you and the computer when and only when you want it

PHP - deploying web apps is about as easy as deploying static pages

Javascript - prototypes less verbose than class definitions

Common Lisp - I still haven't used a more powerful language

Scheme - executable simplicity

OCaml - type safety can actually work, and need not be verbose

Ruby - did somebody do a usability study on a programming language?

Forth - low-level expressive and possible is

Python - other people's code is almost always readable

Lua - small, simple, expressive and fast can coexist

Arc - succinct

Clojure - the sanest way I've seen to get a computer to do ten things at once

Haskell - I've never seen an easier way to write a parser

Java - lack of power means the IDE can do half the work for me

Actionscript - at least it has closures

Say Something Nice About Every Language You’ve Used

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