favorite programming language and why?

Rust but I wouldn't expect you to understand it.

To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rust. The pointer semantics are extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of PL theory most of the concepts will go over a typical programmer's head. There's also Rust's zero-cost abstractions, which are deftly woven into the standard library - its architectural philosophy draws heavily from Haskell literature, for instance. The Rust evangelists understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of this language, to realize that it's not just the future- it says something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Rust truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the truth in Rust's existencial catchphrase "guaranteed memory safety, fearless concurrency, zero-cost abstractions" which itself is a cryptic reference to Edward Kmett's Haskell package Lens I'm smirking right now#

/uj real and true

C - it is the best portable macro assembler you could wish for.

@Fast-Nop It's also the only portable assembler you could wish for

/uj i really hope somebody gets it or i just look like a pretentious dickhead lol

@12bitfloat Not that you'd mind the latter anyway. :)

@Fast-Nop meanie D:

Ruby (on Rails)

It's so fucking easy to develop an application. I could develop a full online store in a couple weeks compared to others like Python or PHP.

Yeah, yeah, "but Laravel!". That thing is so overcomplicated and bloated because of the core problem with PHP. It was designed to be flexible, and it's just too fluid to do the same things Rails does automatically.

Just... Don't get stuck with the monolith.

C++

1. For some reason noobs are scared of C++.

2. I have grown to know how to use it without making complete garbage anymore.

3. It is as bare as I need it to be. Or as abstracted as I can make it be.

4. There is always something to learn about C++. There is way too much to know it all, and retain it for long.

5. I can connect C++ to any other language.

6. If I want to do simple script stuff I can embed a lot of other scripting languages inside.

7. C++ is currently the language for video games for the most part, I think.

8. C++ is fun.

9. C++ is fast.

10. The C++ language is still evolving and getting a lot of the cool toys other languages have.

11. The C++ ecosystem is pretty awesome: Boost is awesome, Qt is awesome.

12. I can program C++ natively for most devices I want to use: microcontrollers, computers, phones, etc. Embedded is fun!

13. Also, you can program with pretty much any style you want.

@12bitfloat I really don't know anything about Rust. Its the users I have grown to be wary about. lol

You are okay though. We know you are a closet C++ programmer.

I would like to say F#, and for so many reasons, as you all know, but it effectively being a second class citizen in the .NET ecosystem, which results into occasionally having to fight against the ecosystem to get shit done or figuring some weird ass workarounds, does diminish its star a bit, sadly. The language itself is almost perfect, only lacking HKTs…

… which Haskell has. But I find it so impractical as a language I can’t really count it as my favorite.

This only leaves Rust - which I have zero bad things to say about, as opposed to any other languge I know out there, so that must mean Rust is best.

I’ve been using Ruby since ~2004. I’m one of the few people I know who did paid Ruby work that wasn’t Rails/web in general. It’s the language I know best (contributed bug fixes to two implementations), I love the community (I organize Ruby meetups and confs), so in a way it’s still my favorite. But I don’t really use it for private projects anymore.

If I have to target the JVM I prefer Clojure and for .NET I usually use F#.

For paid work things have shifted a bit towards Go for me, a language I have a complicated relationship with.

If I could pick the next language I want to work in full time it’d be Smalltalk (Pharo preferably) or Elixir because they have simple and consistent core language semantics, good tooling and are fun to use.

Although I have used C, C++, Java, Python, TS, and JS depending on the project and team requirements.

But honestly, TypeScript is the one I loved the most, closely followed by C++

Scripting -- bash
- variable expansion
- possible parallel processing
- posix-friendly
- lightweight
- plain and simple
- wildly available
- most devs/ops know the syntax

programming -- Java
- I know it best
- love its jvm memory management
- highly configurable jvm runtime
- resembles of linux -- everything is am object
- very simple and intuitive syntax and rules
- runs everywhere
- safe
- verbosity
- well tested and proven standards
- loads of libraries
- supports native code [with and w/o wrapping]
- single runnable file for all platforms [jar]
- fatjar -- like a docker image in a single file. Just easier to modify

For Web and backend - PHP and everyone who hates that didn't spend enough time checking new PHP out. Its more polished than many other languages right now. Typescript is a close second.
For desktop - TS/JS via Electron. As a person who used Pascal, Java and C# I can just say that it makes things a WHOLE lot of easier.

Overall - Rust. Even though people fight with it, I love the compiler checks and wish there would be more. Most of the time I handle every issue compiler (or better yet rust-analyzer) says and the code works perfectly like I want it to. Not to mention blazing speeds :D

Java and Node Js because they are better than all others

Rust, because it's uncompromisingly fast and handles the inherent complexity that comes with this goal really well.

Typescript is a close second because it gets out of the way like a high level language should, without trying to execute typos. I don't get why anyone ever thought that was a good idea.

@trisha You didn't comment yourself - are you hiding a dark secret such as VBA? ^^

Elixir and Erlang start using it to know why...