Feel free to post links in the comments, however, be warned that my spam filter sometimes quarantines comments with more than one link (I get sent an email and have to approve them – so they don’t get posted until later). And if there are too many links, it’ll just mark it as spam and I’ll never see it (I’ve gotten lazy about checking my spam folder – plus there seems to be a WordPress bug where it’ll only show you the most recent spam comments).

Thanks for the article link, it was interesting, though the title kind of threw me off at first. I was expecting him to literally talk about why these languages would win in the long run, not talk about the flaws of the current crop of challengers.

One point he briefly touched on that I think is important is: “Popular languages have cool names”. If you have a stupid name, your language wont take off. I think this is one of the reasons Tcl has had trouble growing, even though it’s a pretty handy language. It’s name is pronounced “tickle”, and saying to a manager or systems person that you’re using “tickle” always sounds kind of weird. Some of the higher ups at my work can’t even seem to call it “tickle”, they’ll instead say T-C-L. And there really isn’t a good story behind the name either, it’s just an acronym for “Tool Command Language”. Python, on the other hand, has a very cool name. It’s named after Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and it since a python is a type of huge carnivorous snake, it sounds cool to managers and systems people.

I don’t want to come off sounding like Tcl’s name bothers me, it doesn’t, but I think if it had a cooler name, it would do much better in the market. I think Lisp and Erlang also suffer from having crappy names.

I’ve also heard a lot about Ruby on Rails, though recently it’s gotten a lot of attention because it’s slow and not good for large scale web apps. Twitter.com was programmed using it and it’s had all sorts of scaling problems.

Though I’ve found a lot of good things coming out of the python web development sector, especially with WSGI and now mod_wsgi. There is finally a decent deployment option for python web applications.

Having code grouped by braces does make it easier to read (in imho). Though I wouldn’t make a language choice strictly on this. Code can look the same yet behave differently.

> So if I were to say begin using Visual J# the jump wouldn’t be overly difficult then, right?

Correct.

> Will most of the objects and their functions remain the same, but with variable declarations, If-Then statements, loops, and other differences mostly related to the syntax?

I’ve read that all of the .NET languages are functionally equivalent. Though VC++ and C# allow for pointers, and that can make life easier in certain situations. VC++ also generates code that is slightly faster than generated C# code, and C# generates code that is slightly faster than generated VB code.

> By the way has the traffic continued its flow?

It’s settled down. Wednesday saw 5.4k visitors and Thursday saw 2.4k.

That sounds like a crazy party. The guy might have just looked young. Though sometimes young guys just do fall for older women. I’ve actually met a couple of guys recently who have wives 7-10 years older then themselves.

if (Argument1 > Argument2)
{
//Execute some code.
RandomCounter++;
}

The above snippet of code would work in all three of the aforementioned languages, which makes it quite a bit easier to formulate as opposed to Visual Basic (or any other off-shoot of Basic):

If Argument1 > Argument2 Then
‘ (or REM) Execute some code.
RandomCounter = RandomCounter + 1 ‘RandomCounter += 1 in .NET
End If

I really hope that I have not just furthered the confusion, but basically I have grown accustomed to the flexibility of the way blocks are set up in other languages rather than our dear old friend, Visual Basic. Now I am not so much of a fan of Java, but this really could be due in part to the fact that I never used an IDE such as NetBeans, because all of the code I put together was written and compiled in Textpad using the JDE compiler, which meant the programs ran from the command line without a GUI. I respect you quite a bit Pat (always have), and consider you a “programming genius” as you not only seem to know the ins-and-outs of each language you work with, but are also able to recite interesting information about them too.
Now I’m not entirely clear on the whole purpose behind Microsoft’s push for .NET, but I believe sloat had said that it was to unify the languages’ development environment as well as to provide more simplified access to the Windows API. So if I were to say begin using Visual J# the jump wouldn’t be overly difficult then, right? Will most of the objects and their functions remain the same, but with variable declarations, If-Then statments, loops, and other differences mostly related to the syntax? I am just not so sure that I want to continue using Visual Basic to create my applications due to this.
Now onto the topic of these middle-aged women, or cougars. I felt like the event last night was a virtual hunting ground for unmarried (or even unhappy perhaps) women whose biological clocks were ticking louder than the introduction to “60 Minutes” with Andy Rooney. Most were there wearing clothes that just weren’t age appropriate, or that were quite unflattering for their body-types, and it was quite apparent that many of them were “on the prowl”. Of course it was quite akward as I left, passed one older woman who as someone I was with put it, “looks like she was rode hard, and put away wet” (to which I replied, “or not at all”), and heard her exclaim to a crowd of other associates, “have you met my fiance?” I bit my toungue, and tried to keep from laughing, because the guy, or more appropriately “kid”, was no older than 25 at the most. By the way has the traffic continued its flow?

Anyways, it’s interesting you bring up programming languages because I’m currently working on multiple projects at work and they’re all in different languages. One of my coworkers was even like “how do you keep all of these languages straight?!” I basically told him that it’s easy to keep languages straight once I’ve gotten into the groove of whatever you’re currently using.

A lot of people say the second language you learn is the hardest, and I tend to agree with that. And by learn, I mean really learn thoroughly. Once you have a couple of languages under your belt, picking up a new one isn’t bad at all. I usually tend to think of languages by the following properties:

- Object Oriented or Procedure Oriented
- Dynamically Typed or Statically Typed
- Compiling Issues (is the code compiled into machine code, byte code that’s read by a virtual machine, is it interpreted, etc)
- Speed Issues (closely linked to the above point)
- Available Libraries and Tools
- What Platforms Its Output Runs On (or in – when thinking about things like web browsers)
- How Easy It Is To Develop In

There may be other things, but those are the things that come to mind right now.

If you’re thinking about switching to C++ or C#, I’d go with C#. The developers took a good look at the positives and negatives of C++ and Java and made something that was really nice to use. Switching from VB to C# or VC++ shouldn’t be much of a problem since they’re very similar. I believe the only major difference between all the .NET languages is syntax (and possibly the use of pointers).

> How hard would you believe it to be as far as the comparisons between C++ and Basic (Visual of course)?

What language are you referring to? A lot of people I went to school with feared learning Java. However, Java isn’t that bad at all, and there’s tons of documentation online. Getting good at C++ is probably a lot more difficult than getting good at Java. Comparing languages in this way is just opinion though. Some people find Java hard and C++ a breeze.

Anyway, hopefully I answered your questions, if not, just let me know. I kind of jumped around all over the place.