What's your language?

[Lee]

So I will say it now, front end, I can't do much with, thank you @MDO for Bootstrap!

What is your current preferred coding language and why? Where do you think the future lies?

My comfort zone has always been PHP in association with MySQL. Prior to that I worked on Cobol and Pascal, in fact after Turbo Pascal I went on to Borland Delphi but the fizzled out.

The more time I spend with PHP I am beginning to think there may be something perhaps not better but maybe more interesting. I still want to stick with something I can use to build websites or apps for them.

Was looking at Python but then wondered if I was better sticking with PHP/MySQL and adding to that by finally getting around to learning Javascript properly and that would open up Node.js at the same time.

Decisions decisions.

 

[bsdguy]

My languages are light years away from php (which I wouldn't touch with a pole). But, that's at least my impression, your thread isn't really about our languages anyway but rather about which language you should turn to (if changing at all).

The best answer I have to offer is this: What do you want to do with it, what kind of solutions/applications? And what are your personal preferences and priorities?

The former is necessary because pretty much no language covers all scenarios. Object-Pascal, for instance, is great for end user applications but you would probably not chose it for a web site.
The latter is about what you as a person prefer. Sheer speed, security, comfort, ascetic, etc.

One might add a third criterion and call it level of professionalism, where php obviously is a bottom dweller, C++ (or even Object Pascal) are on the high end, and Python is somewhere in the middle.

 

[Lee]

As I said above

I still want to stick with something I can use to build websites or apps for them.

PHP may not be the most popular from a modern viewpoint, you cannot turn off the fact that so much of the web relies on it and that is not going to change a for long time yet.

 

[bsdguy]

Oh, I mistook you and you are actually just looking for confirmation to stick with php?

I'm not into language evangelizing and I will certainly not try to convince you to change away from php. You like php? Great, have fun with it.

 

[Jonathan]

PHP/MySQL is my comfort zone. I need to pick up Python or @Jared is gonna keep writing code I can't quite decipher.

 

[Lee]

Python was my likely choice but I think I will stick with PHP and go for Javascript which gives me a look in at Node.js. I am not looking for a pro career here, it's all for personal projects.

 

[raindog308]

php is one of those languages I never actually read a book on but can code proficiently in because I learned perl and python first. Once you know those, any other scripting language is just a reskin really...well, a reskin + workarounds for all the features you miss.

I really like golang of late, but I admit I just write toys and stuff for myself. Well, and occasionally for others though I haven't worked on that project in 9 months.

Really for web these days your options are...oh wait, we're talking about web. So first you have to learn three OTHER languages: html, css, js. Then you can pick your server language, or use js for that, too. I hate web programming for this reason.

Your server choices are:

- php
- python
- golang
- NodeJS
- whatever is in the .net world these days, who cares

Yeah, there's also Ruby if you're the guy stuck still doing Rails. There's also perl but who the hell writes HTML::Mason anymore...

php is truly a garbage language. But it is universal.

python is fun...so is golang.

NodeJS I haven't had the need to wrap my head around, but there are so many sexy client libraries that you're going to spend a fair amount of time writing js no matter what server language you pick.

Have I mentioned how much I hate web programming?

 

[Lee]

The only reason I picked up PHP was when building a site many years ago using Wordpress. It largely fitted my needs but then I wanted a couple of other things. So if I have to learn PHP to make those extra bits I am as well just building the blog, gallery and other bits myself, hence I ended up learning PHP.

I stick to using Bootstrap for the frontend, yeah, not the prettiest, however, would you rather visit the site and get the content in a well laid out responsive manner or, my version of pretty, Fireball in the background, neon buttons sliced from photoshop and responsive only if on a 27" screen...

Note: The fireball and neon buttons relate to content in no way whatsoever.

 

[graeme]

Python has the advantage of being usable for a lot of other things: desktop apps (Calibre, Deluge), numerical stuff (with Numpy. SciiPy etc), graphics, as an embedded scripting language, non-web servers....

 

[Tyler]

I'm a disappointment to the techies. I am fluent in English/Spanish, also know Latin, but when it comes to code, it's just HTML/CSS and basic PHP for me. I had always endeavored to go back and learn PHP, but it was always just easier to find a developer.

 

[maounique]

I'm a disappointment to the techies. I am fluent in English/Spanish, also know Latin

I am fluent in French, English, Romanian and can understand at a spoken level a dozen other languages including Latin while in the case of some 5 on top of that i can read with a lot of difficulty (such as greek/polish/russian/japanese-romanized, not kanji and the like).
As for programming, I can read and understand a lot of them, including ASM, however this is a very tedious thing and I only resort to it if there is absolutely no other way I can fix a very important issue. I am no programmer at all, myself, not that type of person, the code I write is so bad I have trouble understanding myself the next day so I have to complete a task within a single working session and is only for hobbies, never for production. I have done some courses in C and C++ very long ago, also COBOL and TurboPascal, but other than that, no formal education in programming, it is simply not for my internal structure.

 

[HostRush]

Php and C/C++. I'm also a Sun Certified Java Programmer, they changed the name though. Openstack is written in Python but I'm reluctant to learn it with my busy schedule and there are Php adapters.

I've done work in Visual Basic and PERL.

Jquery was needed on an app were working on so we got our hands wet.

I've done quite a bit of work with SQL, spent an extra few months in university and had databases as an elective.

 

[Monk]

C/C++/ASM/Perl/Bash

I use asm for reverse engineering malware and c for silly projects that I don't want to write in perl/bash.

 

[ServersBase]

PHP/MYSQL is my comfort zone.

 

[TMTHosting]

PHP , but not really into frameworks so much, need to learn more about them.

 

[noez]

php+mysql a little bit c#

 

[eslabs]

I am fluent in Bahasa and Java ( I mean Javanesse :lol: )

But for everyday I talk more in PHP and Bash,
Also a little bit Python...

now, falling in love with Rust...

 

[greenwebpage]

I feel comfortable with php and python, I also like javascript

 

[NFOrce]

Currently, PHP and MySQL, but I've been also learning Python in the last few months.