Poll: Language Use

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=978381

by Xichekolas • 17 years ago

79 122 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

RiderOfGiraffes• 17 years ago

Other: ARM assembler, (a variant of) BASIC, GAWK, Matlab.

cperciva5• 17 years ago

Other: POSIX shell.

nailer3• 17 years ago

Also newer shells would be worth adding too: bash and zsh.

nagrom2• 17 years ago

I currently teach a basic course in shell scripting at a university. I'm amazed that bash wasn't included! I don't know whether you'd include Make in there too, but I would - the two together still form the basis for the majority of software deployment in Linux, I reckon. Certainly all our research software uses these two technologies (still!)

cpr• 17 years ago

Other: Objective-C (how could you forget? ;-)

rickharrison• 17 years ago

same here. Use this every day.

Zev• 17 years ago

Yup, same here. Although, I'll occasionally find myself spending days at a time using C within a project (IOKit (accessing, not writing drivers for), CoreFoundation and some other lower level functions such as kqueue).

tlrobinson• 17 years ago

Other: Objective-J

Ivatar• 17 years ago

Other: Assembly (X86 and POWER mainly). Factor for some interactive exploratory tasks.

nmcfarl• 17 years ago

Looks to me like Javascript is going to take this as nearly everyone who codes it codes in something else as well. Just not the same something else...

Xichekolas• 17 years ago

I didn't post it to find a "winner" so much as to see what the trend was like. I expect javascript/ruby/python to be very well represented because they are common in web apps, and a lot of people here are working on web apps.

jpd3• 17 years ago

Other: PL/X, System Z Assembly

wglb3• 17 years ago

Interesting--what is PL/X used for these days? I worked briefly with what might be similar PL/5 which was a derivative of XPL for writing systems programs for the Sigma 5 series of computers.

jpd3• 17 years ago

As far as I know, the only place PL/X is still used is inside z/OS, though I could be wrong.

cschep2• 17 years ago

I work in vb.net everyday at work. Maybe my brain is melting, but I don't hate it nearly as much as I used to. My previous .net experience was c#, so I think I just had to retrain some habits out of my fingers.

Also, voted for python. Loving it for all my randoming glueing and bit moving needs on my windows machine at work.

cpher2• 17 years ago

When .NET was first introduced, my natural language choice was VB.NET since I was coming from the classic ASP/VBScript world. Over the past 5-6 years, I've introduced more C# into my projects and now I've migrated mostly to C# + ASP.NET MVC -- in addition to Flex, Ruby/Rails. VB is still a useful language since everything compiles to the CLR anyway, but now that C# 3.5 is bringing more "dynamic" features it's more attractive to me. Plus, the syntax is so close to javascript and actionscript that it's a little easier to switch back-and-forth within the same project.But VB has served me well over the years.

cschep2• 17 years ago

Yeah I definitely think there is value in a unifying algol-like syntax. Going between JS and VB.NET is easy on the brain.

viraptor2• 17 years ago

Picked py, pl, c, but also other: http://ooc-lang.org/ (it's pretty interesting lately :) )

utku_karatas22• 17 years ago

Other: Delphi.

barrkel• 17 years ago

Delphi and C for me - the Delphi compiler.

utku_karatas22• 17 years ago

Knowing who you are, god speed you on that :)

zackham• 17 years ago

Other: Actionscript 3

mulander2• 17 years ago

Other: Oracle PL/SQL on a daily basis at work.

MikeMacMan• 17 years ago

Other: Groovy

tednaleid• 17 years ago

tel• 17 years ago

Other: R

owinebarger• 17 years ago

VBA when employed to do financial modeling.

itistoday• 17 years ago

Other: newLISP

http://www.newlisp.com

rman666• 17 years ago

+1 for newLISP :-) Current version rocks!

mcherm• 17 years ago

Other: Mumps. (Yes, really.)

ori_b• 17 years ago

My condolences.

derefr• 17 years ago

Hasn't someone yet written a compiler that targets MUMPS from a nicer language? And if not, why not start on it yourself? Fun project, with very relieving results :)

kogir• 17 years ago

T-SQL almost daily at work.

jorgeortiz85• 17 years ago

Other: Scala

DanielBMarkham2• 17 years ago

Other - F#

I voted for Ocaml, which is a close cousin, but with all the libraries available, F# is really another kind of thing entirely.

nathanwdavis• 17 years ago

Curious, what type things are you working on with F#? Are you in the finance space?

DanielBMarkham2• 17 years ago

I have a startup in the real-time web space -- web applications, notifications, rich-client, and real-time content analysis.

gvb• 17 years ago

Other: Ada

AndrewDucker• 17 years ago

Other: COBOL.

tptacek3• 17 years ago

More C than I expected (go us!). Would be interested in what the specific projects were using it.

viraptor2• 17 years ago

In my case, network servers that need small-packet/high-throughput and extremely low latency (telephony stuff). Microprocessors too (AVR mostly) for various stuff.

scott_s• 17 years ago

I'm writing a compiler for OpenMP style parallelism on the Cell. My compiler produces C code.

andrewcooke• 17 years ago

in my case, replacing the critical loop in matlab code with something faster (first c on the cpu, then c/opencl on the gpu).

aidenn0• 17 years ago

Operating System

jff• 17 years ago

Plan 9 OS

HeyLaughingBoy• 17 years ago

Microcontroller stuff. Just made a mod to my Bluetooth temperature monitor side project.

joe_bleau3• 17 years ago

Embedded and real time projects. Mostly industrial automation, instrumentation, communications stuff.

Surprised no one has listed Verilog or VHDL.

tptacek3• 17 years ago

Are you doing Verilog? What are you building? If there was one thing in the universe I want to learn right now... HDL would be one of them.

neilc3• 17 years ago

Building a runtime for a new language designed for distributed computing.

strlen2• 17 years ago

Any further information? Very curious about that.

nagrom2• 17 years ago

Analysis code over a large data set for research in Hadronic physics.

cperciva5• 17 years ago

Well, you know, I'm building this online backup system... :-)

Locke16892• 17 years ago

A new lightweight virtual machine that emphasizes high performance in distributed environments (HPC, cloud, etc)

docmach• 17 years ago

Other: Tcl

wheels• 17 years ago

I wonder if a more specific question, like, which language do you use the most on a weekly basis might produce more meaningful results. I get the sense that cross-language applications are becoming ever-more common.

We have code in C++, Java, Ruby, Perl, Python, Javascript and PHP, but there's a high concentration around the first three.

cperciva5• 17 years ago

The table at 20:55 UTC, sorted by points:

  Javascript	147 points
  Python	116 points
  Ruby		 81 points
  C		 72 points
  Java		 71 points
  PHP		 64 points
  C++		 44 points
  C#		 37 points
  Perl		 27 points
  Clojure	 26 points
  Haskell	 18 points
  Lisp		 18 points
  Scheme	 16 points
  Erlang	 11 points
  Lua		  7 points
  Ocaml		  7 points
  Coldfusion	  2 points
  Go		  2 points
  Arc		  1 point
  Fortran	  1 point
  Smalltalk	  1 point
  D		  0 points
  Other		 43 points

Mostly as I expected, but a couple of things surprise me: I thought perl would be closer to Python and PHP; I didn't think C# would get nearly so many votes; and I would never have guessed that Clojure would make the top 10.

I'm relieved to see that C narrowly beat Java for 4th place, but I'm a bit disappointed by the performance of Scheme, Erlang, and Arc -- even though I don't use them myself, I figured that more people here would.

aaronblohowiak• 17 years ago

Sometimes, our community makes us forget how marginal we are.

rbanffy• 17 years ago

The Secret Weapon User Group never was a very large one.

It's a natural consequence.

staunch• 17 years ago

    Javascript            372 (17.72%)
    Python                315 (15.01%)
    Ruby                  221 (10.53%)
    C                     191 (9.10%)
    Java                  182 (8.67%)
    PHP                   167 (7.96%)
    C++                   124 (5.91%)
    Other                 121 (5.76%)
    C#                     82 (3.91%)
    Perl                   70 (3.33%)
    Clojure                53 (2.53%)
    Lisp                   42 (2.00%)
    Haskell                37 (1.76%)
    Scheme                 34 (1.62%)
    Erlang                 31 (1.48%)
    Lua                    16 (0.76%)
    Ocaml                  11 (0.52%)
    Go                      7 (0.33%)
    Arc                     7 (0.33%)
    Fortran                 5 (0.24%)
    Smalltalk               5 (0.24%)
    Coldfusion              4 (0.19%)
    D                       2 (0.10%)
    2099 points over 23 options

DougBTX2• 17 years ago

In comparison against the TIOBE Programming Community Index for December 2009:

    Javascript            372 (17.72%)  [  3.515%]
    Python                315 (15.01%)  [  5.185%]
    Ruby                  221 (10.53%)  [  2.653%]
    C                     191 (9.10%)   [ 16.285%]
    Java                  182 (8.67%)   [ 17.061%]
    PHP                   167 (7.96%)   [  9.770%]
    C++                   124 (5.91%)   [  9.175%]
    Other                 121 (5.76%)    --
    C#                     82 (3.91%)   [  6.258%]
    Perl                   70 (3.33%)   [  2.692%]
    Clojure                53 (2.53%)   [  0.881% / 3?]
    Lisp                   42 (2.00%)   [  0.881% / 3?]
    Haskell                37 (1.76%)   [  0.190%]
    Scheme                 34 (1.62%)   [  0.881% / 3?]
    Erlang                 31 (1.48%)   [  0.277%]
    Lua                    16 (0.76%)   [  0.585%]
    Ocaml                  11 (0.52%)   [ < 0.15%]
    Go                      7 (0.33%)   [      ??]
    Arc                     7 (0.33%)   [ < 0.15%]
    Fortran                 5 (0.24%)   [  0.425%]
    Smalltalk               5 (0.24%)   [  0.150%]
    Coldfusion              4 (0.19%)   [      ??]
    D                       2 (0.10%)   [  0.587%]

rsaarelm• 17 years ago

Other: Standard ML

joe_bleau3• 17 years ago

Other: assembly (M68k, ARM).

cpher2• 17 years ago

Other: VB.NET (yes, really), Actionscript

ygd_coder• 17 years ago

I'm sorry.

Gmo• 17 years ago

Hey, me too :)

Although it wouldn't have been my first choice (I was put on an already existing project), I came to like some parts of it.

it0ny• 17 years ago

I am using this more at my current job for a year and I still don't get used to the framework.

Locke16892• 17 years ago

A lot of my projects end up requiring C for speed or hardware access, but I prefer to prototype in Python. It basically ends up being that I spend less time in Python but get about 20 times done when I do. :)

mulander2• 17 years ago

Referring to prototyping. I mostly do them with Emacs Lisp. This may sound strange at first, but this allows me to focus on exploring the problem and takes away the pain of setting up an interface to test stuff when they are still fluid. The funniest part is that once I had to help with a tedious documentation merging task on a tight schedule. Due to extremely limited time constraints I made a half automatic elisp solution that became the standard tool to perform the task. It's still used and by people never exposed to Emacs before.

Luyt• 17 years ago

It's funny how prototype code can suddenly become production code. But maybe that is an emergent property caused by the power of the chosen language.

horia314• 17 years ago

Other: Tcl. Good language, somewhat underrated.

tptacek3• 17 years ago

Ruby is Japanese Tcl. You should switch.

DougBTX2• 17 years ago

Other: boo

mitko• 17 years ago

MATLAB ? It is extremely useful for machine learning hacking.

ique• 17 years ago

Not to mention matrix calculations, which I actually do on a daily basis (for solving PDEs).

nearestneighbor• 17 years ago

Do you prefer MATLAB to Python + numpy + libsvm (for ML) ?

bugs• 17 years ago

Also for engineering works like Vibrations and Control Systems

BrentRitterbeck• 17 years ago

I'll second this. I have started to use MATLAB a lot as it is highly emphasized in my financial engineering program.

d0mine2• 17 years ago

I'm curious who works in Go on a daily basis at current stage of its development? For what kind of projects it is preferable to any other language at the moment?

jmtulloss• 17 years ago

The guys on the Go team probably do.

wglb3• 17 years ago

I would probably be using if if I had to write a high performance threaded application. Also if I had to do something in a low level language, I would choose GO over C now.

dpcan• 17 years ago

Pascal/Delphi Actionscript

philh• 17 years ago

Not a daily basis, but most of my coding lately is in C++ for game design society at uni. In theory I also do php, as webmaster, but I tend to put that to one side more than I ought.

seunosewa• 17 years ago

Scala

mey• 17 years ago

Fortran and D, but no Cobol or Ada...

richcollins2• 17 years ago

Io http://www.iolanguage.com/

huhtenberg2• 17 years ago

Woa, really ?! Please do tell more.

richcollins2• 17 years ago

http://shop.stylous.com/#/about/team ;-)

bmj• 17 years ago

To the other people who do ColdFusion stuff--are you doing new development, or maintaining legacy systems?

I do a mix of both, though I don't spend all day, every day doing CF.

prawn• 17 years ago

Both also. I find it quick and easy to develop with.

csmeder• 17 years ago

No Forth?

Dove• 17 years ago

Other: Ada

zheaton• 17 years ago

Other: MATLAB, IDL

clutchski• 17 years ago

Other: sql

timwiseman• 17 years ago

I do a large portion of my work in pure T-sql right now. Though I also use Python near daily and C# occasionally.

gtt• 17 years ago

Other: Refal.

ikitat• 17 years ago

Other PL/SQL

nostrademons• 17 years ago

No Sawzall or Wasabi? ;-)

drallison• 17 years ago

bash

rabidsnail• 17 years ago

Other: Haxe

fun2have• 17 years ago

Groovy?

djm• 17 years ago

It's interesting that scheme use is not far off being equal to Lisp use. In my case I learned lisp with scheme then decided to stick with it after I looked at CL and realised it would give me a big headeache.

I wonder what prompts others to stick with scheme.

antimora• 17 years ago

Other: Oracle PL/SQL

dreeves• 17 years ago

Other: Mathematica

Mathnerd314• 17 years ago

Other: Squirrel

Poll: Language Use

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