Best Languages to Learn?

I've read that one should pick languages for he wants to do. Are there just like, a few languages, that when learned, would cover pretty much every job?

I'm a programming nub. I've just turned seventeen and I'm only halfway through a high-school Java course. >.>

Depends on what you want, really.

If you want to make macros for work or whatever, learn something high-level like python or VB. Restrictive and resource expensive, but you'll get your program done much faster, and if it's something small, chances are it won't matter anyway.

If you want to be a part of a large scale software dev. environment, you're much better off learning a lower level language like C, because most likely you'll have to be more careful on your impact on performance compared to if you're just putting together for a two-week company-related project that'll likely never get used again.

Then it changes again for website development, I use ASP classic because I have to, but honestly I can pretty much make it do anything I want, and with good coding/database practices, I can make it perform well (enough) for larger-scale sites. I wouldn't recommend learning it though, no one uses it anymore.

I'd say familiarize yourself with a high level language, a low level language, and maybe even dabble in ASM, since you don't seem to have anything particular in mind, you may as well round yourself off well.

>>20
Not true, my beard is quite small, thank you very much.

>>41
Depends on what you call macros, and no, Python is not restrictive, it's far less restrictive than C. It's dynamic typed, and it's policy is "anything as long as it works". For most stuff, you should be using dynamic languages.

C is useful for systems programming and popular applications programming where the combined saved time and cost of a million users outweight the extended time and cost of development.

Depends on what you call macros

Anything that starts with (defmacro

>>44

Or starting with (define-syntax for the Schemers.  Or ending with IMMEDIATE for the Forthers.  Extensible compilers ftw.  AFAIK all other languages fail.

But >>41 didn't mean macros in the real meaning of the word.  They meant the Microsoft meaning, that is, one of their proprietary extension languages which change from year to year (WordBasic -> VBA -> VB.Net?)

>>41
>>44->>45
Different person

>>44
>>45
Same person

>>45
Extensible compilers win for one man projects, yes. But AFAIK all other languages are standard and thus you can work with others.

>>41 didn't mean macros in the real meaning of the word
I deduced it, that's why I noted who's the same as who in this thread.

And the real meaning of the word macro is a funny image, shopped with some catchphrase.

43 nailed it. You should use the highest-level thing that works, as long as it comes with a strong interface to lower-level stuff for performance. "Features" of low-level coding like strong type systems ultimately aren't as useful in making stable, polished code as high readability, low line-count-per-feature and ease of testing are.

Python does have some weaknesses beyond runtime execution; it's "big" in terms of base memory usage and startup time, and it seems like nothing can get around that. That doesn't matter for a lot of apps, but since it is so slow on its own, you may feel stuck should you go outside of what the libraries can handle - an enormous territory, but still not everything. (most of the time general slowness can be countered with built-in functions that use C code for a speedup)

For a truly lightweight dynamic language I would recommend Lua. It has good performance and several Lisp-like features, and it has by far the easiest C interface of anything I've seen; it embeds itself very easily, with only one general concept, the Lua stack, to learn. One may get a sense, initially, that the language is "too dynamic," but the real main downside is that the standard libraries are very small. There is strong interest in expanding the libraries, though. In a few years it may become the equal of Python, Ruby et al.

JAVA fails

Facination with object orientated   programming is simply   in one huge   bucket that is   easier to understand   and work with   its review and   commentary works better   for me as   an argument to   my 2nd statement   can suck my   dick and fuck   them both Twice.

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All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
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All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
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All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy