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175 comments

  • Python. I'm in data science. Sure I could write all that code in C or C++, but my time spent coding all that extra boilerplate is better spent on analysis.

  • Likely either C or C++, both languages have been around for a long time and both are still used in huge projects

  • Ideally I'd choose Rust because I enjoy working with it, but don't have enough time to commit to it at the moment. But being Practical I'd probably say Java, its easy to get stuff going and has been around forever so it's easy to find solutions etc.

  • C, because I can find a compiler or interpreter for other language written in C (I may need to run a few steps to get there), and thus work around your silly and nonsense question. Seriously, I use multiple languages because there is no one true language to rule them all. I use C++ for problems where bash would be wrong, and bash where C++ would be wrong. And some python, cmake, lua mixed in for good measure. I'm looking at Rust to add (rust doesn't like the way our system designed so it is hard to figure out how to implement it)

  • Probably Ruby. For some reason .. no, that's a lie .. playing with Exherbo, Gentoo and Funtoo, but mostly Exherbo, made me loathe Python. However, everyone in the data processing arena seems to use it, so I'm bound to have to change my ways eventually! For "Ruby": read "Python".

    My days of needing high-speed low level languages are long gone. I learned C on Borland C++ back in 1990 to price derivatives on 386s. Loved it.

    If I mess around with any language it's for fun. I intend to commit suicide, when my time is done, by the percussive head trauma that learning Haskell will cause me.

    • See, I love Haskell, and the reason I'd choose Rust for my one language is the feeling that in principle anything I can do in Haskell I can do in Rust, with a little extra percussive head trauma; but I can never have the control in Haskell to do the beautiful efficiency I can do with Rust if I ever actually did any programming.

      • That's rather beautifully put and extra marks for p-h-t! 😁😜

        I learned low level stuff to give prices to traders before the trading interval ended. I'm serious. Our four man hedge fund was under the wing of huge French bank. Pricing in the era was painful.

        Asked for a price in the era used to take minutes for derivatives; I was told much faster wasn't possible; that's a red rag to me. I had no choice but to get dirty and go low level again.

        The traders were old style barrow-boys, their like disappeared maybe a year or so after. Derivatives have a load of parameters that go with the actual price, "the Greeks", and market traders easily remember sets of shopping lists and prices and quantities at the same time. They were a shoe-in before computers were actually useful on a trading floor.

        I learned to program on a 6502 RISC chip in Acorn Assembler. I liked it because BASIC was shit in the era (GOTO Fcuk My Life), like it got much better .. 🤣😂 Knowing how programs work allows me to try to make it faster. These days I think know compilers are smarter than me.

        Rust appeals too for the time-travel aspect. I'd like to learn to write a threaded program. I would have loved to do that when back in the day, I always regretted the way it worked, but it was way beyond me 😭 .

        I wouldn't mind looking at my old original killer pricing program, I knew it could be optimised then, but I just didn't have the time or the skills to go that extra mile. I regret that bitterly. 😡

        If you get time, let me know of your (t)rust travels. Bon voyage.

  • C. I've been programming for over 30 years and it's the only language to survive. Imagine if I was asked this question 30 years ago and picked perl or Pascal, I'd be screwed today.

175 comments