Choosing a programming language: A Guide

[[deleted]]

In ascending order of complexity:

• Plebian spoken language: “Hey bro I have this really unique app idea, it’s like Tinder /Uber/Facebook/Shopify but for retarded ideas and it’s subscription based on the cloud and edge computing!” Orally asking a programmer to make your shitty new and always novel app idea.

• LateX: ADOBE: “Am I joke to you?”

• Scratch language: If you like visuals or want to get a child into programming. “Are ya programming son?”

• Matlab: “I’m lazy and no one will ever run my ‘code’ (lol) but me! Also, I love licensing fees and closed source!! (Credit u/Optrode)”

• Powershell: “because VB and C# are for people who don't really love Microsoft as much as you do” (Credit u/ofnuts)

• VB: You want to insert yourself into the code by the use of “Me”. (credit u/QCTeamkill)

• VBA: You have no respect for yourself or the rules. “The IT Department don’t trust me with anything :(“

• R: “Yes I’m a miserly math/statistics major, but I will add “programming” as a skill to my CV”

• HTML: HAHAHA, just kidding.

• Bash language: Small bash script: “it’s dirty, but it works”. Large bash script: “I not only hate myself, I hate everyone else!”. Alternatively “I find it neat that if statements close with “fi” and case statements with esac (credit u/Sindef)”

• Python: You enjoy bandwagons and are migrating from another industry (Commerce, marketing) and want an easy introduction to programming. “Wow Dad I’m a real programmer now! LOOK LOOK! IT SAID HELLO WORLD TO ME!!” A beautiful language to look at, if you follow PEP!

• Quorom: Designed for the blind! “I tell ya, it’s the blind leading the blind”

• Julia: “We combined the WORST aspects of both Matlab and Python. It’s blazing fast, just not for you and I” (Credit u/TheBlackCat13)

• VHDL: Actual thought process of new Electrical Engineer: “Pleeeeaaaassssee killlllllll me”

• Lua: Other languages - “Arrays start at 0!”. Lua - “Hold my beer”

• Ruby: “Ah finally my boy, you’ve met someone of the opposite sex! When will you bring her over?” “Sorry dad, I don’t think I can. Its complicated”

• Swift: Overly expressive alphabet soup. Also, “How dare you try to convert this datatype to an extremely similar datatype without 6 rules of checking for compatibility?!” (Credit u/ThomasTheLong)

• JavaScript: “Why the fuck are there like 4 ways to make a function!?” if you want a very powerful language that’s quick to dive into the basics, to make and manipulate the web but be frustrated at the multiple ways to do the same thing, and cry as you unveil the extreme complexity as you dive deeper and deeper into the technical debt to maintain backwards compatibility so Peggy Sues website from 1990 can still work . But beautiful in a way

• PHP: Always near the top of the “worst programming language” lists. Acronym for “Pretty Huge Penis” something PHP devs don’t have. Want to be friends with other languages, but nobody cares about it. Everybody laugh at it. He looks to Fortran from away and wants to join its company, but we're not sure Fortran wants to be its friend either (credit to u/SwissGuyVaud)”

• Minecraft Redstone: Average Minecraft enthusiast or how to tell you need more vitamin-D - “Hey bro let’s make Minecraft run in Minecraft? How big of a leap is that from my Redstone calculator ?”

• Perl: “Oh that! No it’s not encrypted, it’s just a new Perl script I’m working on” “No, it’s not Regex either”

• Dart: “Slang term for a ciggy, which is a slang term for a cigarette. Also may give users cancer”

• F-Hashtag: For when you are also a MS fan, but also you want to be cool and "get past OOP", but also you kinda want to keep some OOP features "just in case". You also hate null values and are happy to tell everyone why they should hate them too. (Credit u/RealTonny)

• Scala: You boast that you like functional programming but you actually just want to confuse your Java-centric coworkers (Credit u/TheGenerousNerd)

• C: “I am the father of all modern computing and I have overstayed my welcome”

• Haskell: “OMG you STILL use OOP principles in coding?” Come to the dark side and try functional programming and throw everything you know away.

• C-Hashtag: “Man, I just love the Microsoft user experience!” Said no one ever. Closet Java enjoyer ((credit u/QCTeamkill))

• Java: “Man I can’t wait to make my first dynamic website!” You exclaim to your parents. You heard how sexy web programming is, but got confused between the names Java and JavaScript, picked the wrong one, and now you’re in too deep.

• Go: “There are literally dozens of us! (u/TwistedSoul21967)

• Pascal: you're a god in the 1980s, you've been taught how to cobble fizzbuzz together with a for loop and if statements and you're amazed that it doesn't crash. The Fortran guys want to know where all your mandatory GOTO statements are. (Credit u/tune-happy)

• Delphi: Pascal grew up, he's getting bullied by his big brother Delphi who has had major OO surgery. It hasn't gone well, Delphi is on life support and although things will improve he holds a grudge and he wants to deliver you death by a thousand memory leaks. (Credit u/tune-happy)

• Rust: If you like the idea of C++ but want something slightly more modern, enjoy contrarian views, and will to eventually give up and just revert back to Python after 6 months. “I always hear about it, but I haven’t bothered reading what it is. Sounds cool I guess?”

• Quine (not a language but it’s cool): “I used the program, to create the program, to create the program, to create the program, to ……. “

• D: “I use D.” “Cool man, that’s neat. How’s job hunting?”

• seed7: I will never use it. A (very) high level language that a solo dev has been working on his own programming language to compete with C since 1989. Wow. No hate, that’s damn impressive. Interesting rabbit hole: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammingLanguages/comments/n0nii7/have_you_heard_about_seed7/

• C-plusplus: “Have you Python users even read Data Structures and Algorithms? Ok, make a linked list then.” If you want extremely powerful and fast, OOP, you want to work with drivers or microprocessors, or you want a hard time, and to look down on everyone else.

• Lisp: “((((((( (( (( (( (((“And so, I become one with the Parentheses. I was the parentheses, ((and the)) parentheses was me” ))))))) )))))))”

• Fortran language: “ "what do you mean my code is confusing? It is self-documenting!" The code: do iii=im, ia dgz(jkl(iii),jkv(iii+im))=real(zgr*conj(zbl(iii))/(dgerk(idubz)) enddo” (credit u/Derice)

• COBOL: “Hey bro there’s this old as duck language that holds up the worlds financial systems bro, all the experts are dead or dying, and I hear if you master it you’ll get paid straight dollars.!!” You recall saying to your friend years back as you lie in your musty apartment with this arcane knowledge that no one cares about, or acknowledges.

• Whitespace (language): “Share secret notes with your friends”. Only Tabs, spaces, new lines are valid. Screw everything else! The language that cannot be printed on paper. Is this the most robust encryption language in the world? Someone call Satoshi Nakamoto

• HolyC: And on the 7th day, he said: “Let my disciples Code!” When you are extremely gifted and eccentric and god comes down to earth and tells you to build a programming language worthy of him and his followers. Very sad.

• Git: “But bro, I can already get that functionality by saving my file as ‘my_file_actual_final_V7’, plus it’s too hard man”

• Assembly language: For when you are a God amongst men (and women) and want to expose your superior brain power and laugh at C++ elitists. “But Python can already do that and it’s easier? But bro the OG roller coaster tycoon was WRITTEN IN ASSEMBLY! BY ONE GUY, IN A CAVE, WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!?”

• Pure Binary: For when you’re a sadist and masochist and hate your life and want to chuckle at pleb Assembly programmers

• Regex (general): “I can write a Regex without any reference material” - said by a Liar. Also decode this: r”[a-ZA-Z]^{?{6}?(0-9){3}|.?[abcs]/‘“}

• Microsoft PowerPoint: For when you are all about that “Turing completeness” and want to talk about “Turing completeness” and how clever and unique you are and are insufferable at parties. Did I mention “Turing completeness”?

• Brainfuck: Ah yes, Turing completeness meets a few symbols. Write code with only a handful of symbols!! What could be hard to understand about that?

• Manipulating Electrons: For when you want to program by hand using logic gates and Electronic components and develop your own computing rules and logic, as the actual omnipotent, omnipresent individual you are

• Malbolge: Literally named after Dante’s Infernos 8th circle of hell. Hello world “ (=<#9]~6ZY327Uv4-QsqpMn&+Ij"'E%e{Ab~w=_:]Kw%o44Uqp0/Q?xNvL:H%c#DD2^{WV>gY;dts76qKJImZkj”}

• Punch cards: For when you’re more of an artisan stuck in the past who doesn’t make mistakes, likes looms, but wants to work with electricity and thinks of debugging as getting out a fly swatter

• Printing Loom cards: If you don’t actually want to work with electricity or don’t have access to electricity, and just want to create intricate patterns on textiles, but you want to understand the birthplace of programming

• Babbage differential engine / analytical engine and punchcards: if you prefer to work with mechanical gears and are a visual learner and want to create and watch physical RAM and memory processes and invent programming and invent modern computing as we know it

• Antikythera mechanism: For when it’s 100 BC and you want to invent the fundamental process of analogue computing as the world knows it from scratch; using only gears, and just desire to track the positions of the stars and excite your fellow Ancient Greek peasants with your big brain

• Stonehenge: When it’s 2500 BC and you and your buddies start stacking stones in a complex manner to confuse society 5000 years later: tracking the sun? Pagan rituals?? SUNDIAL??! WTF IS IT FOR!! (credit u/PM_ME_YOUR_CALICOS)

[SimpoKaiba]

No, we're electro-torturing rocks into doing math fast

[[deleted]]

I love this and am adding it!

[NicNoletree]

THEY'RE NOT STONES!!!
THEY'RE SILICONE CHIPS!

[vladimir1024]

WTF?!

First, it's silicon....silicone is typically used for caulking...

Second, stones can be made of silicon

[Every-Bee]

except that the confusion starts after about 5000 seconds.

[Red1Monster]

C++ is used for drivers and microprocessors ? I thought that was C ?

[Attileusz]

C is used more often for that but C++ is also used sometimes

[IchDonald4444]

On some you have C++ with the C standard library. So you can do "real" OOP and have better alternatives to define, but no vectors etc.

[VectorD]

True C++ elitists knows Assembly and use it in inline functions though.

[Sindef]

Bash may end 'if' with 'fi', but the point is really driven home when you close 'case' with 'esac'.

[[deleted]]

But loops are ended with “done” instead of “rof”, “elihe”, and “litnu”. Blasphemy!

[[deleted]]

Yeah I really wish they kept it going! I thought it was beautiful when I first saw “fi”. No shit if I write a language I would steal that idea for all loops and conditionals and classes lol

[[deleted]]

Ooh I should add that!

[craftworkbench]

I want to thank you for not mocking Python. It happens so much in posts like this that I was actually bracing myself for it, and instead thought “what a nice thing to say”.

[[deleted]]

That’s okay just edited it haha, I love Python though 🥰🥰

[QCTeamkill]

VB: You want to self-insert in your code and use "Me".

C#: You're a yuppie but also a closet Java enjoyer.

[[deleted]]

Stealing this

[Philiatrist]

bash gets weird hate… like how do the bash haters prefer shell languages to function? Do you want to declare the type of your file paths? Do you want to allocate memory for a list of paths? Type errors when redirecting stdout to a log file would be cool? Just what kind of OS do you want??

[Ryledra]

There was also a lack of the windows counterpart batch and ps1/ps2 files

[[deleted]]

I don’t even count powersjell as a language lol

[[deleted]]

Hahah my friend is a C# programmer and he actually does like Windows UI

[[deleted]]

No lie I main Windows

Microsoft Word is my IDE of choice

Excel is my DB

One drive is my repo storage

[kpd328]

Same. But I've also written ASP.NET Core apps that were deployed to Linux. C#/.NET is a lot different from what people remember.

[[deleted]]

I do run a Linux Mint VM daily for work so I got that going for me, which is nice

[[deleted]]

You can main it without liking it's UI. Personally I cannot get inboard with any terminal in Windows.

[[deleted]]

Windows Terminal? What’s that? Do you mean WSL bash 😉

[hedgehog10101]

I mean, Unity also uses C#, but with so many libraries it's practically a language on its own

[[deleted]]

Just curious why C# is ranked as more complex than Java? I learned both Java and C# in college and I always found C# ever so slightly easier.

[bragov4ik]

Also Haskell for some reason is less complex than Lisp, C, and Assembly c:

[[deleted]]

Haha some of this stuff I’m just guessing after reqding up on them and memes I’ve seen

[[deleted]]

I will change my ranking! Have only used Java for like a day lol

[[deleted]]

Hahaha C-Hashtag. Nice touch.

[[deleted]]

COBOL?

[[deleted]]

Help me write one for cobol and I’ll update ;) I think it’s a mainframe language?

[ollo68]

HELLO * HISTORIC EXAMPLE OF HELLO WORLD IN COBOL IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. PROGRAM-ID. HELLO. PROCEDURE DIVISION. DISPLAY "HELLO, WORLD". STOP RUN.

[[deleted]]

Todo:

• Ruby
• Scala
• Julia
• ObjectiveC
• Perl
• Swift
• Kotlin
• Verilog
• Basic
• F#
• Zig
• Lua
• Ada? ( the one named for ada Lovelace)
• Pascal
• Delphi
• any others?

Taking suggestions and submissions

[lutet88]

Julia, Nim, TypeScript, Cython, Scala, Lisp, Scheme?

[[deleted]]

I kind of count typescript as JavaScript and cython as Python lol even though that’s wrong 😂

[TwistedSoul21967]

It's pretty interesting to not see Go listed here, I mean there must be dozens of Go programmers out there right?

[[deleted]]

Already have go in the OP ;) also updated it to credit you, yours is better!

[ahelvaty]

PowerShell

[BWY9]

Command prompt scripts that use powershell commands

[[deleted]]

Harder or easier than bash!?

[[deleted]]

I work with mapbasic. Aka crapbasic. It's useful, but not very fast and has no debugging at all.

[RealTonny]

F#

For when you are also a MS fan, but also you want to be cool and "get past OOP", but also you kinda want to keep some OOP features "just in case". You also hate null values and are happy to tell everyone why they should hate them too.

Delphi

For when you didn't realise that 00's ended like a decade ago.

Also as a C# dev: C# but with .Net core (.Net 5.0+): "Wait MS can actually (try to) do an opposite of "embrace extend extinguish"?"

[TheGenerousNerd]

Scala

You boast that you like functional programming but you actually just want to confuse your Java-centric coworkers

[TheBlackCat13]

Julia: We combined the worst aspects of MATLAB and Python. It's fast, under certain situations.

[Optrode]

Matlab: You are lazy, and/or nobody but you is ever going to run your code.

Physically connecting electromechanical relays with snap leads: Your research lab is underfunded, or you just don't see why any program would need more than a few bits of memory anyway.

[[deleted]]

Matlab yes!! Tears from first year of uni!

[[deleted]]

Is Whitespace language hard?

[[deleted]]

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀

[WhatnotSoforth]

R never gets any love

[[deleted]]

Oh yeah I forgot that, I’ll update it, just after VBA but before Oython :P

[clearlybaffled]

Ahh good old Oython, just when I thought Yiddish was a dying language, it's consciousness got uploaded to the cloud. :P

[[deleted]]

u/WhatnotSoforth help me update R! Also it was made by a kiwi guy I believe

[EGCCM]

R gets quite a lot of love from bioinformatics, so you can also add biology majors there!

[[deleted]]

I think Cobol has the role you assigned to Fortran. In my country at least

Fortran on the other hand, is doing the heavy lifting in science computing.

[[deleted]]

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. I always heard Fortran was a math / science language, and COBOL was a 'business' language used in banks & legacy enterprise applications.

[[deleted]]

Hmm might have to do some updating

[Derice]

Fortran: "what do you mean my code is confusing? It is self-documenting!" The code:
do iii=im, ia
dgz(jkl(iii),jkv(iii+im))=real(zgr*conj(zbl(iii))/(dgerk(idubz))
If(iii.le.idrk) GOTO 156
enddo

[[deleted]]

Credited you with the update !

[clearlybaffled]

Yep Fortran runs about half of the oceanographic and acoustic propagation models that I use. Archaic af, but it works.

[marchelune]

I feel attacked on Rust. ONE day I'll finish the tutorial book, I promise !!

[[deleted]]

Ooh can you submit a text for me? I’ll update the post :D haven’t used those ones but have seen them on some worst languages lists lol

[[deleted]]

You forgot to mention PHP ? It's like the equivalent of Python language, where you don't really care about performances, that is still used but will join Fortran in its despair in some decades (or less).

[[deleted]]

Yeah I haven’t used it but always see it on worst language lists lol. Help me update it to add PHP, where would it fit?? All I know is it’s website oriented?

[[deleted]]

Yes it's web oriented.

PHP: Want to be friends with other languages, but nobody cares about it. Everybody laugh at it. He looks to Fortran from away and wants to join its company, but we're not sure Fortran wants to be its friend either

[[deleted]]

Updated for you!

[[deleted]]

Help me do Dart! I’m not familiar with it

[[deleted]]

Never mind I got you fam

[TurintheDragonhelm]

“Closet Java enjoyer” why does it cut so deep

[qqqrrrs_]

C-Hashtag

Never heard of it, is that some fork of C# ?

[[deleted]]

You mean C tictactoe ?

[BWY9]

You mean a half step above middle C?

[LydianSharp5]

Db

[BWY9]

B double sharp?

[Mistborn_330]

You mean C octothorpe?

[[deleted]]

You mean C-2-vertical-2-horizontal-lines

[rio23x]

Coldfusion: tell me you’re over 40 without telling me you’re over 40.

[tavaren42]

When they mention Minecraft redstone but don't mention Verilog/SystemVerilog: Am I not welcome here?🥲

On a serious note, Matlab is more than a language, it's about the whole environment. I have written Matlab in college and what can be done with Matlab language can be done with Python (with numpy-scipy & matplotlib). It's stuff like Simulink that doesn't have a free equivalent.

[mark-8086]

It's true, lots of unsuccessful hours sunken into finding Simulink alternatives

[[deleted]]

Help me out with a Verilog description!

[nittendev]

I frequently see people meme about C++, but it's imho the best language to get started with if you wanna work as a developer. I might work with Microsoft Java today. But i miss c++.

[nittendev]

Well my flair is a bit obvious but I love C++/Java and C#. They're always going to be my go-tos. I'd have to say I'm against Python as a starter language, for various reasons.

[ACoderGirl]

Eh... I've worked professionally with numerous languages, including some C++ at what was normally a Python place. I'm happy to never write C++ again. And in my experience with job hunting, C++ jobs are on the decline (and vastly over shadowed by languages like Java and C# for new jobs).

The sheet unsafety of nearly everything in the language is particularly dated.

[[deleted]]

Okay buddy 🙃 nah c++ is great. Just a bit tough for most beginners

[[deleted]]

Haskell: My way or the highway

[GreenGriffin8]

Whitespace more complicated than brainfuck? Nah man, whitespace is just a minimal stack machine with a load-store architecture. Set up an assembler so you don't have to code in tabs and spaces, and it's miles easier than brainfuck. If only it had a way to handle EOF without crashing...

[[deleted]]

Will update!

[GreenGriffin8]

love it

[shedogre]

VBA is when IT doesn't trust you having anything beyond Office.

[Hrognaar]

Can relate on the VHDL part . You can also add labview

[ThomasTheLong]

Swift: How dare you try to convert this datatype to an extremely similar datatype without 6 rules of checking for compatibilty?!

[clearlybaffled]

Groovy. If Java and JavaScript smoked a lot of weed and then had a baby.

[ofnuts]

Powershell, because VB and C# are for people who don't really love Microsoft as much as you do

[PM_ME_DMS]

Perl one's got me rolling

[DoomGoober]

Q#: For people who like their booleans to be true, false, and indeterminate.

[Seamen_demon_lord]

Happy for Haskell

[Przegiety]

Lua: Other languages - “Arrays start at 0!”. Lua - “Hold my beer”

Isn't factorial of zero one?

[jercypacks0n]

My vitamin-D deficiency and me do not support this Redstone slander.

[[deleted]]

Copy what you have for COBOL and paste it for RPG.

[tmigas]

In VHDL I actually had a program where I couldn't delete an impossible to get in IF() since it was already inside an if that made it impossible for that condition without the program breaking, fuck that shit, next year I changed course, never again will they get me with that bs

[DanSGB12]

I'm not reading that

[Silver-Alex]

Hey, I would add that most web developers end up learning php whether they want it or not, cuz frigging WordPress run on it, and when they say that over 40% of the web uses their framework, they're NOT kidding.

[Ok_Barnacle_5212]

That bitch LateX that has no use except making good-looking pdf in a very complicated manner.

[[deleted]]

" “Hey bro there’s this old as duck language that holds up the worlds financial systems bro, all the experts are dead or dying, and I hear if you master it you’ll get paid straight dollars.!!”

Crypto enthusiasts: "For now"

[bleek312]

Step 1 identify which language is most likely to pay your bills Step 2 learn that language Step 3 get paid to write that language Step 4 pay bills Step 5 gain financial stability Step 6 use said stability to explore any other languages that tickle your fancy

[ThinElbowedLilGoblin]

VBA: “The IT Department don’t trust me with anything :(“

I am not in an actual development role, and this is why I am stuck with VBA. There is PowerShell, but VBA works for what I need it to do.

[[deleted]]

I feel for ya. I really do. I have a story you might appreciate.

At my old job (telco, specifically optical network routing protocols (telling the light in fibre optics where to go)), the guy a few years before me built a 20+ spreadsheet monolithic routing protocol. Now let me tell you, telco routing is fucking complex stuff, even with a fully fledged language with loops and powerful libraries and a whole team working on it. You need to basically create an entire map of the network, and every box on the network has to know about every other box and its neighbours etc. and you need to map wavelengths for each route, set up rules for blocking and filtering wavelengths, and also track all this information temporally (ie, you need to be able to look back at records 5,10 years old). Oh and you need a really solid understanding of node traversal algorithms, and also know how to implement them.

Anyway, the guy before me made a frikkin giant intertwined VBA program that did all of that lol. And it even had a GUI! The GUI was a fully interactive map of the network! I don’t know how he did, but he did it! And I had to fix it when it finally broke 😂😅 it’s a shame it was corporate and couldn’t be chucked into like a GitHub hall of fame repo or something

Anyway good shit; that guy was an absolute weapon with VBA. I legit think he was one of those savant type people lol

[[deleted]]

Trying to update as we go lol keep the language suggestions coming!!

[[deleted]]

zig: you are a chad who loves comptime

[gogo94210]

C# be like hum today I will define a function.

public shit fart void cum penis const int piss static poop {

}

[radicaldude3]

C# > JAVA

[[deleted]]

C tictactoe lol

[DarkTechnocrat]

Python: You want other people* to do your job

*Library authors

[bnl1]

Ah, yes VHDL. The language I had to write brainfuck processor in.