programming language popularity in industry

Casey_81

Recently I was chatting with coworkers and friends who are lecturers about trends in the popularity of programming languages both in industry and in colleges... Which got me thinking..
What programming languages do you use in your everyday job?

Joneser

I'm only in 4th year of university but the dominant programming language for us is java. However the new first years are doing C++ now so it looks like that is going to change.

Sparks

This is what TIOBE tracks. As of October 2010 the top three languages in order were Java, C and C++.

amen

how come no C# ? it is a growing language?

no SQL ? On Cobol, PL/1,

I don't know what TOIBE is tracking but I bet the stats are wrong. Can't see Java as the top language. Too many embedded systems, mainframes, UNIX, workstations, military software etc all written C (or C++)

CuLT

PHP and Javascript, mostly. A lot of momentum building up around JS as a server side language from what I can see too.

Got my first look at Erlang there a couple of weeks back, bizarre looking language (from my perspective), but interesting. Really should expand my language base a bit more.

DublinWriter

amen wrote: »

how come no C# ? it is a growing language?

no SQL ? On Cobol, PL/1,

Cobol hasn't gone away you know.

SQL isn't a programming language.

c# still reigns supreme for all things Microsoft and is much favoured over vb.net.

I don't think the language in itself is important, it's more to do with the IDE, envrionment, tools, SDK, framework and community support available - Java, C++, c# are all descendant of the original c and are syntactically very alike, your average c programmer wouldn't have much trouble working with the languages mentioned, while languages like Prolog, Pascal and Cobol are worlds apart.

Casey_81

amen wrote: »

how come no C# ? it is a growing language?

laziness on my part, would group c# in the DotNet framework

Casey_81

Sparks wrote: »

This is what TIOBE tracks. As of October 2010 the top three languages in order were Java, C and C++.

Thanks for that, find it hard to believe that Java is still the top language.. in the company I work for we develop in java and c++ and the java team is about quarter the size of the c++ team..

jmcc

DublinWriter wrote: »

SQL isn't a programming language.

Well it is debatable as it is Structured Query Language. There are associated scripting languages (Postgres has PL/Tcl, PL/Perl, PL/Python from what I remember. Oracle also has similar extensions) and triggers and procedures in MySQL. When it goes beyond the mickey mouse, 1MB web databases, the language options and complexity increases rapidly. Some of the SQL that I would use for data crunching could be 5 to 30K lines long. No doubt DBAs working on other large databases or datasets would also regularly use large SQL scripts. However thinking in SQL is a bit more complex than thinking in ordinary computer languages.

Regards...jmcc

DublinWriter

jmcc wrote: »

Well it is debatable as it is Structured Query Language.

It's not debatable at all.

SQL doesn't have the procedural flow and control characteristics of a programming language. SQL isn't a programming language.

SQL scripts are basically a set of individual and atomic SQL statements carried out in series.

You're confusing DML with with SQL. Oracle has PL/SQL, but that's separate from it's implementation of ANSI-SQL, same difference between T/SQL in the Microsoft/Sybase world and SQL.

Placebo

PHP and JS

Naikon

DublinWriter wrote: »

It's not debatable at all.

SQL doesn't have the procedural flow and control characteristics of a programming language. SQL isn't a programming language.

SQL scripts are basically a set of individual and atomic SQL statements carried out in series.

You're confusing DML with with SQL. Oracle has PL/SQL, but that's separate from it's implementation of ANSI-SQL, same difference between T/SQL in the Microsoft/Sybase world and SQL.

Hence the letter 'Q' for query. SQL to me is basically just a query tool. PL/SQL reminds of COBOL in that it's painfully limited with what you can do with it beyond yet another "stored procedure". God I hate those words. I tend to only use shell scripting, C, sed, AWK and Perl for my purposes. Perl can be a bit of a headache sometimes. Java is decent I guess, but I would take C over it anyday. Java is anything but simple when you look at the sheer size of the standard API's.

this.BITEME!

leahcim

Of course SQL is a programming language.

Just because its focus is data management and manipulation rather than control flow doesn't take from it being a programming language.

Most database vendors have extended standard sql to include control flow procedural language constructs such as loops, conditional branching structures.

somebodude

So you reckon you can implement, in SQL, any of:
- bubble sort
- linked list
- SHA1 hash function
- IRC Chat client
????

SQL isn't turing complete ...

leahcim

I take your point. If you were just writing select or insert statements in sql you wouldn't be using it as a programming language.

SQL isn't turing complete ...

The base SQL standard isn't but people who use sql in a commercial environment (people who call themselves database programmers) use vendor specific variants such as t-sql (MS) and pl-sql (ORACLE) which are considered to be turing complete.

So you reckon you can implement, in SQL, any of:

bubble sort
linked list
SHA1 hash function

All the above would be possible (with the likes of t-sql etc). But you would be crazy to try, this is not what the language is designed for. Would you use prolog to do any of the above?

IRC Chat client

To implement this you would need a library to access the TCP/IP stack, I dont think any of the database systems all this kind of access. Again this is not the kind of problem sql was invented to solve.

somebodude

leahcim wrote: »

To implement this you would need a library to access the TCP/IP stack, I dont think any of the database systems all this kind of access. Again this is not the kind of problem sql was invented to solve.

pshaw. in Oracle PL-SQL there's DBMS_SOCKET, no ?

Anyway, I though you meant ANSI SQL, sorry.

Oh another thing - PL-SQL hasn't dynamic memory allocation ...
a waay back I had to implement a rules-based timesheet system in PL-SQL,
and it was in the end straightforward, in the same sense as it's strightforward
to scratch yourself between the shoulderblades with your toes...

Skrynesaver

Perl

Though I use Java every other day

Atomic Pineapple

Java with a bit of C/C++ thrown in for me.

satchmo

Mostly C++, Cg/HLSL, some Python and a bit of Lua.

stevenmu

C# mostly, with bits of HTML, Javascript, Xpath, CAML, and XSLT thrown in. Ok, so HTML definitely isn't a programming language, but if SQL gets included I'm definitely claiming Xpath, CAML, and XSLT

Casey_81

Thanks for your replies,

It gives interesting reading, perhaps I should have included DB/Web stuff in the poll to make it more representative.

Personally I would call myself a C# coder (as I would have most industrial experience with it), but am working primarily with Java at the moment. I can hack together a C++ program, but wouldn't be fully proficient with memory management.

ambasite

C# to write Selenium test scripts.

oooomy

ambasite wrote: »

C# to write Selenium test scripts.

try the firefox selenium remote control - record whatever you need and select export as c# when done.

Evil Phil

Python at the mo', little bit of java thrown for my MSc.

BostonB

Casey_81 wrote: »

...
What programming languages do you use in your everyday job?

That doesn't seem like you meant college...

JohnathanM

I've been working exclusively with Java for the last few years for back-end work, although right now I'm wondering how much longer it will be before I'll be working in something else.

Not going to be C#... leaving M$ environments behind me was a blessing.

Webmonkey

Actually C# .NET is quite impressive even if it does come from MS

Casey_81

Webmonkey wrote: »

Actually C# .NET is quite impressive even if it does come from MS

+1 I'm a fan of C# also, i used it in industry in a previous job.

net4hack

I was thinking of doing a .NET course to move from HW&NW support to programming. But after reading this thread I think it would be better doing a java course. But what about frameworks like STRUTS, AJAX etc which is widely used which also I have to study if going to a Java environment.
So considering job oppertunities and learning curve, which would be better Java+frameworks or .NET?

Naikon

net4hack wrote: »

I was thinking of doing a .NET course to move from HW&NW support to programming. But after reading this thread I think it would be better doing a java course. But what about frameworks like STRUTS, AJAX etc which is widely used which also I have to study if going to a Java environment.
So considering job oppertunities and learning curve, which would be better Java+frameworks or .NET?

Probably Java, as the code can be ported across any platform that has access to a java runtime enviroment. The same cannot be said for .NET applications which either run on Windows, or don't run at all. Mono is not a 100% substitute on non microsoft platforms. An open source enviroment at least allows you to fix issues if you want, as opposed to being at the helm of Microsoft to solely fix issues with .Net.

Saying that, I would suggest you avoid java if you can and just go with the correct tool for the correct job. No one programming langauge will ever solve one problem, when another tool could do the job in much less time for example. Would you consider doing regular expressions in C if you have perl at your helm? Just some points to consider. You can't learn one and expect it to solve all your problems.

BostonB

Couldn't hurt to do a bit of both tbh.