On Wed, Aug 05 2015, Sisyphuss <[email protected]> wrote:
fun or for hobby, they learn it for living. Thus, for them, the choice of language should be related to their career goal. In derivatives pricing or computer vision, it's C++; in software development, maybe Java? In web, html, css, javascript, php, sql; in scientific computing, R, matlab, Julia... These languages differ a lot, whether in its syntax or philosophy.
It is very rare for "career programmers" to specialize in scientific computing, usually it is the other way round: scientists who need to use numerical methods learn to program.
If someone who is in the natural or social sciences wants/has to learn programming, at this point it is unlikely that they can get by with a single language: depending on the particular scientific community, C++, Fortran, Matlab, R, STATA, and possibly other languages will be necessary, at least for reading code of others. That said, among these Julia could be a good choice for a first language, with arguably better design.
Best, Tamas
