Least favourite programming language?

towel401

so which language do you hate the most? i'd have to say JavaScript. Its slow, restrictive, inconsistent, overused and really just a pain in the arse to work with.

I tried to learn it before but didn't get too far. back in the good old days i would use VBscript for some things instead, now that was a real craptastic language much like the thing it was based on. i remember how VB projects would just start to crash randomly / not compile once they got past a certain size

Ginger

Personally I dont like PHP.. just find it a bit mish mash at times.. but hey thats me..

bambam

toss up between LISP and RPG

IRLConor

?- dislikes(prolog).  
Yes

Vaguely interesting language but it didn't seem particularly practical when I used it in college. I'm sure it's great in its niche but you wouldn't catch me dead writing a full-size app in it.

Civilian_Target

Up yours - Prolog is amazing. What other language lets you write a compiler in less than 200 lines.

Personally, I agree with the original poster. Javascript is pants. Nothing is consistent, and nothing is checked. Finally with tools like Aptana and Firebag, it's becoming usable...

Other contenders of hate include all FORTRANs less than 90 (Column dependancy == bad), MSSQL (its sort of like other SQLs, but not, and thus more confusing) and Semmle (just doesn't make sense).

CreepingDeath

Fortran was shite.

COBOL was basically programming for retards.
Far too high level for anything decent except database work.

Lisp and Prolog were irritating and only had a very narrow range of applications.

Best languages, Java, C++, assembly.

IRLConor

Civilian_Target wrote: »

Up yours - Prolog is amazing. What other language lets you write a compiler in less than 200 lines.

A compiler for what language? You can make a BF compiler less than 200 bytes but it doesn't mean it's useful. I'd bet there are plenty of languages you can write a compiler for in less than 200 lines of Perl/Python.

Prolog is pretty useful in its niche, but any language that requires recursion to do iteration needs a good kick up the arse.

Placebo

assembly language
and J



i love PHP, id marry it. It does everything in life.

hobochris

I hate vb with a passion, so much so I don't really consider it a proper language + don't consider any programmer that hangs their hat on vb to be a real programmer to be their more like graphic designers: can make it look pretty but can't really do much else.

I love: java,c++.

java for its vast flexibility and api's and c++ for its raw power.

CreepingDeath

Placebo wrote: »

assembly language

:eek:

Without assembly language there would be nothing.
You young folk don't know the joys of hand-crafting an assembly routine to replace a C / C++ routine and execute 20+ times faster.

MOH

Not a language, but I hated working with lex and yacc before.

toiletduck

Really didn't like working with VBScript.

thebaldsoprano

Not really a language, but I hate writing and debugging Makefiles...

neil_hosey

Placebo wrote: »

assembly language
and J



i love PHP, id marry it. It does everything in life.

dont lie you loved J :P

was it not the lecturer???

amen

not really a language but I used to hate writing JCL for IBM mainframes

jusk

Another vote for Lisp here. The only good thing about Lisp is that you can say it with a lisp and it sounds funny.

I haven't programmed in years, but that awful jumble of brackets wasted a lot of my time during my final year of college, when I was forced to do my major project in bloody Lisp. It was a pretty bad project, if I remember correctly.

nialo

VB! hate vb and always seem to end up supporting legacy sh1t in it.

not a fan of Lisp either.

charlesD

For me VB would probably be my least favorite language.

so which language do you hate the most? i'd have to say JavaScript.

I think for the service it provides, Javascript works fairly well. In regards to it being restrictive, I think this is due to its nature.

It is not meant to be a full programming language, but rather a web tool. I would not go so far as to say it is my favorite, but I think it does a fairly good job at what it is designed for.

Civilian_Target

IRLConor wrote: »

A compiler for what language?

Why a Prolog compiler of course

You can make a BF compiler less than 200 bytes but it doesn't mean it's useful. I'd bet there are plenty of languages you can write a compiler for in less than 200 lines of Perl/Python.

Prolog is pretty useful in its niche, but any language that requires recursion to do iteration needs a good kick up the arse.

Perl's OK, and Python's great, so Prolog's in good company here.

Seriously, learn Prolog, really learn it, learn how to use it (or any similar language, like Lisp or Scheme) and you will never program the same way again. It will change the way you think about all languages. The Little Schemer is still, if you ask me, one of the best programming books out there.

Eitherway, I revoke my previous most hated language in place of BPEL.
By far the most arkward, horrible, convoluted "language" I've ever had to use.

DeJaMo

CreepingDeath wrote: »

Fortran was shite.

COBOL was basically programming for retards.
Far too high level for anything decent except database work.

Lisp and Prolog were irritating and only had a very narrow range of applications.

Best languages, Java, C++, assembly.

Agree with you there...COBOL is a fisher price language...

javascript and vbscript don't count

stephenlane80

CreepingDeath wrote: »

:eek:

Without assembly language there would be nothing.
You young folk don't know the joys of hand-crafting an assembly routine to replace a C / C++ routine and execute 20+ times faster.

:D

grahamor

toiletduck wrote: »

Really didn't like working with VBScript.

+1

Any language with VB in it is nasty, could never get used to that syntax

Placebo

only thing crap about javascript is not being able to pass variable to php etc, other than that its amazing for what it is, i.e JQUERY !!!!! revolutionary !

Hobbes

for me this is kind of a hard question. Most of the development pain comes from the IDE you have to use.

So for example when I had to write struts stuff using just the text files I found it a pain to do.

There was also this propierty language I had to work on for specialised machinary. The machine in question was built in the 70's so still had the tape reels and everything had to be typed in hex into the system on the keyboard (no way to save on the machine itself). While you could use the keyboard to do stuff I gave up and just wrote an app that converted a dummy language I made into the hex code which in turn was put onto the tape.

The annoyance was if there was any kind of mistake you had to wait 10-15mins for the machine to read in the tape then barf a number back which you then had to look up huge manuals to find out what the number meant.

I ended up having to write an app which would check the code before hand and give me the general output I would expect (basically everything the machine did except the mechnical part).

you youngsters have it too easy these days.

Malice

In terms of languages that have caused me the most heartache it's a toss-up between COBOL and Lisp. Both drove me up the walls in college.

Bluefrog

From a web developer point of view I reckon JavaScript is getting a bit of a bad rap here when really the lack of uniformity and poor implementations in web browsers is the real culprit. Also the lack of any decent debugging until Firebug didn't help with the love.

As for PHP I think a lot of the 'mess' involved comes from implementations that don't use good OOP. With the latest version there is really no excuse for that now. PHP definitely fills a niche where ASP.NET would be overkill and I have run into some very annoying issues with ASP.NET with lack of backward compatibility. ASP.NET is a framework rather than a language per sae and frameworks by their nature can make getting simple things done very complicated even though they may shine at more complex tasks.

For most annoying and useless I'd agree with the poster who mentioned VBcript - it wasn't enough they muddied the waters with JScript.

I've been playing round with Python over the past month or two and I'm really liking it a lot - every programmer should have it in their warchest for getting the jobs done that fall between other languages.

.Bob

everyone hates vb eh :P i got really deep into vb.net before i was told i was wasting my time, the code is so inneficient and requires a mountain of framework, but still if i need a program made quick i do it in vb since its my best language, moving onto java now though, since it runs win, unix, or mac :cool:

radioactiveman

By a country mile, COBOL
hape of shíte

Sheeps

bumping this thread to express my hatred for prolog

CuLT

Placebo wrote: »

only thing crap about javascript is not being able to pass variable to php etc, other than that its amazing for what it is, i.e JQUERY !!!!! revolutionary !

Adding to bump to ask what the hell this quote even means?

Javascript is an excellent language for what it is; for it's implementation of anonymous functions it has my love.

PHP can be written well; it's a weird, organically evolved language and most of the problems people complain about stem from the plethora of badly written code out there. PHP allows you to write nice code as much as it allows you to make an absolute dogs dinner of it. Most importantly it's ubiquitous - if you know PHP well you've got quite a portable skill even if it's nearly the only thing you know well.

Malice

CuLT wrote: »

Adding to bump to ask what the hell this quote even means?

The second part is easy, they were expressing their liking for JQuery. As for the first part maybe Placebo needs to understand the difference between client-side and server-side code?