There is no language that is "uber alles". The domain of the problem you're solving often points to the languages you might consider. If you're working right next to the bare metal of hardware, you'll probably be working in C or C++. Recently I learned via my job there is a rich programming environment and library suite centered around the visual basic environment for interacting with PLC's. I never would have guessed, but it's there and it's big. If you're moving outside the realm of real-time, C & C++ are still options, but I personally find working with statically typed languages a bit of a drag. So I look more towards the "scripted languages" then. Python, Perl, Ruby, etc... I know Perl the best because that's what I had to support the most at my previous job. But after over ten years of perl and debugging perl scripts, I believe perl does not lend itself to maintainable code very well. It takes skill to write good perl, whereas Python seems lend itself to better code from the average joe more quickly. But really, what drives me to the scripted languages the most is simply the rich regular-expression engines that are very easy to use. As mentioned, heavy math and statistics points in another direction, such as R, matlab, or specialized libraries in other languages. If I'm schlepping files around and manipulating processes, then I'll do what I can in bash. And if I'm writing setuid wrappers, I'm in C again. If the unpredictability of the performance impacts of garbage collectors and so forth are an issue, then of course I'll find a language that lets me turn it off and manage my own memory (such as D) or go back to C. Actually - I'd just use C. D is cool, but not mainstream enough yet. I avoid .NET and Java as much as possible. Visual Basic is only to be tolerated when at my place of employment and I'm working with pre-existing tools. -Rob On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 12:02 PM, r j <ronsmailbox5 at gmail.com> wrote: > A question on languages. > What are your favor languages and what are your favorite ways to use them. > I am a python beginner and i am working through the standard library and > writing simple scripts using pattern matching. and the sys library to make a > cross platform easy administration tool. Maybe a web interface later on. > I also use Bash. > > ,Ron > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20100326/bdab90ef/attachment-0001.htm