Programming Languages
LISP anyone? Fortran? Jovial? Pascal? COBOL (! !! !! !!) Am I the last surviving programmer from Atlantis?
Here is a list of them all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pr ... _languages
I did some COBOL once and I had to learn it in college. I have heard of Fortran, Algol and LISP but never programmed those.
LISP anyone? Fortran? Jovial? Pascal? COBOL (! !! !! !!) Am I the last surviving programmer from Atlantis?
Here is a list of them all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pr ... _languages
I did some COBOL once and I had to learn it in college. I have heard of Fortran, Algol and LISP but never programmed those.
I did mention Smalltalk, but I just realized I forgot ADA (took a whole semester advanced course on it) and even Simula-67 which we used in sophmore comp. sci.
Quite a lot of languages, the highlights are:
PDP11 assembler : 1/ being able to write a single instruction in high memory which would copy itself to the next lowest address and then execute itself, until it got to address 0
2/ self modifying code in device drivers.
Lisp: being able to write a function could construct a new function and execute it.
Smalltalk: my favourite language, the best object oriented language, great debugger, and great organisation of code. Used it for writing programs for my research.
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Many of the above but one that I'm using now for an iOS app is via the Xcode IDE, which supports C, C++, Objective-C, Objective-C++, Java, AppleScript, Python and Ruby source code with a variety of programming models, including but not limited to Cocoa, Carbon, and Java.
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A software and gaming geek.
Diagnosed as a 30-something.
I have actually lost count at this point, but I realized a long time ago that it isn't the language that makes for a good programmer. Language is merely a matter of syntax. It is the understanding of patterns and concepts that makes for a real programmer.
As for a lot of the older languages I've seen listed here, well, just as a scholar may understand ancient Hittite, good for bragging rights, but it won't earn you a living.
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As for a lot of the older languages I've seen listed here, well, just as a scholar may understand ancient Hittite, good for bragging rights, but it won't earn you a living.
The question seemed to be more about comparing experiences to satisfy curiosity than about identifying programming skills that are currently in demand... pointing out that some of the languages are obsolete or that the answers to the question don't matter seems unnecessarily negative and I think misses the point of the question.
Also, almost all of the languages mentioned so far are still in active use... even most of the old ones. Only a few are no longer used significantly, and it can still be interesting to see who's used them.
I always find it a little disappointing to see people fresh out of university or whose experience is all in one part of the industry acting like a small set of languages or practices they're familiar with are sensible and denying the validity of everything else... often they don't even seem to realize how common (and often practical) other languages and tools are in other parts of the industry. (That last part might not apply to you, but your post reminded me of it).
BASIC (for various old platforms)
Various assembly languages
Bash
C
C++
C#
Csh
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
PHP
Python
Ruby
Visual Basic
Honestly after you learn a few, picking up a new language is a matter of days (maybe weeks if you also throw in commonly used heavy APIs), if that. So the number of languages one knows doesn't really determine how good a programmer they are (although learning more languages probably will make you a better programmer, but it's not something to list on a resumé or brag about). It is still a good idea to learn as many as you can because you'll discover that different languages are more suited to different problems, so you can choose one that will solve the problems at hand. Additionally, when searching for jobs, being able to pick up the language or framework a job requires in a couple of days before applying (which you can only do if you've become used to learning new languages) makes you much more employable.