Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Mark Rousell]

I probably shouldn't prolong this thread but...

Maybe this cartoon will help:
https://blog.toggl.com/save-princess-8-programming-languages/

More seriously, I was recently asked which languages to learn and I
wrote up a list of what I thought was important. See below.

On 18/10/2019 03:33, Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming wrote:
> This is just a quick survey. May I know what programming languages do
> you know? I am considering being a programmer or developer.
> How long will it take for me to master a programming language like
> C++, Java, and Python?

I'm not a professional programmer but programming is part of my job. I
mostly find myself using using C#, Javascript, Typescript, VBScript, and
PHP. I expect to soon need to know some Powershell, Python, and possibly
Kotlin (or Java). I also like the look of Rust but it's a big learning
curve. But all that is just me.

Anyway, below is the list that I mentioned.

Current Mainstream Languages. (Know a few of them well. Which ones
depends on your likely employer, your actual or like projects, and your
preferences). Listed in no particular order.

  * JavaScript
  * TypeScript (transcompiles to JavaScript, increasingly popular)
  * C
  * C++
  * C#
  * Python
  * PHP
  * Rust
  * Go
  * PowerShell
  * Bash (and Linux/Unix shell)
  * Java
  * Kotlin
  * Perl
  * Visual Basic  (VB.NET)
  * SQL  (Oracle PL/SQL, Microsoft T-SQL, MySQL)
  * HTML (not a programming language but important to have some familiarity)
  * CSS (not a programming language but important to some familiarity)


Current Less Popular Languages. (Be aware of them, some awareness of
them. Some are increasing in popularity, some are reducing in
popularity). Listed in no particular order.

  * Swift (very important if coding for iOS)
  * D (very sadly losing out to Rust, I think)
  * Ruby
  * Pascal  (Delphi, Object Pascal, Free Pascal)
  * Objective-C  (being replaced by Swift)
  * R
  * Haskell
  * Lua (embeddable scripting language)
  * VBScript
  * Visual Basic  (VB6)
  * F#
  * Julia
  * Dart  (JavaScript competitor from Apple, will be used in Fuschia)
  * CoffeeScript  (transcompiles to JavaScript, being replaced in
practice by Typescript)


Others, Historical, Niche. (To have at least looked at very, very
briefly so as to be aware of their existence, look and focus). Listed in
no particular order.

  * PL/I
  * RPG  (IBM AS/400, IBM i)
  * Ada  (military, aerospace)
  * Fortran
  * Cobol
  * Oxygene  (Object Pascal-like for .NET, iOS, Android, Java, macOS)
  * Eiffel
  * Clojure (Lisp)
  * ML
  * Vala
  * Nim   
  * Nemerle  (a .NET language)
  * Erlang
  * BBC Basic
  * Scala
  * Ring
  * Clarion  (4GL)
  * Elm
  * REXX
  * Coldfusion CFML
  * ActionScript
  * Algol
  * MS-DOS/CMD Batch
  * TCL
  * AWK  (see also Sed)
  * Forth
  * Haxe
  * Matlab
  * Boo  (a .NET language)
  * Microsoft QBasic  (and similar)
  * Prolog   



-- 
Mark Rousell
 
 
 

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[deloptes]

Dan Ritter wrote:

> deloptes wrote:
>> SQL, Python, PERL, C/C++, JAVA. I wonder why I did not see PHP ... but
>> well.
> 
> For about a decade, PHP was the province of people who copied
> scripts from Matt's Script Archive and didn't know what security
> holes they were creating.
> 
> Sometime in the last five years or so, the PHP community has
> matured and made it a respectable language for web applications.

I don't know. There are a lot of things written in PHP.
Also UML seems very reasonable to me + CMake, YAML, XML... can be viewed as
supportive but the same is also SQL. Compiler, Debugger are also important
at least for the binary. 

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Dan Ritter]

deloptes wrote: 
> SQL, Python, PERL, C/C++, JAVA. I wonder why I did not see PHP ... but well.

For about a decade, PHP was the province of people who copied
scripts from Matt's Script Archive and didn't know what security
holes they were creating.

Sometime in the last five years or so, the PHP community has
matured and made it a respectable language for web applications.

-dsr-

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Dan Ritter]

John Hasler wrote: 
> Joe writes:
> > Spend an hour or two with the job advertisements (which is what the OP
> > needs to do) to see the enormous range of what employers *think* they
> > want, and this is what the young ladies in HR will definitely require
> > of an applicant.
> 
> Especially amusing are the ads that demand five years experience
> something invented four years ago.

My college roommate spent a summer doing an internship at Sun
Microsystems, helping write the manual for a new language they
were releasing.

So, when recruiters were asking for five years of Java
experience three years later, he was one of very few people not
employed at Sun who could reasonably claim that.

Years are a terrible way to judge experience. So are most other
ways, though.

-dsr-

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Thomas D Dial]

On Sat, 2019-10-19 at 09:46 -0500, John Hasler wrote:
> deloptes writes:
> > SQL comes everywhere handy...
> 
> SQL is certainly handy, but I don't consider it a programming language
> (likewise HTML).

About 20 years ago I wrote and tested a match-merge update program with
(as I remember) the then current version of Oracle SQL. It ran to about
a screen full of text, but depended on all input validatation having
been done and no data item transformations during execution. Couldn't
persuade the users to take it on, though, as they were committed to
using C.

> 
> If you *do* consider HTML a programming language the crawling horrors
> that most Web sites send out make the worst BASIC spaghetti balls look
> like something out of IBM Federal Systems.

Tom Dial

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[mick crane]

On 2019-10-19 08:11, Thomas Schmitt wrote:




Have a nice day :)



cheers
mick

--
Key ID4BFEBB31

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday 19 October 2019 08:38:15 John Hasler wrote:

> Joe quotes:
> > "If you think you need to use floating point, you don't fully
> > understand your application."
>
> Right.  There isn't anything you can't do with bignum.
>
> I wrote software for control systems using cpus such as the RCA 1802.
> You can do a lot more with 8 bit integers than seems possible at first
> thought.
>
I'll back that up. The first "had a job to do" program I ever wrote, in 
1978, was for a video production helper, laying a new digital academy 
leader on a finished commercial, intended to function with an automatic 
station break machine.  This was at KRCR in Redding CA.

I used a cosmac super Elf, buying its case and an s-100 backplane, built 
the video board and added a then $400 for the kit 4kx8 static memory 
board to the cosmacs 256 bytes and the interface to a Sony 2850 3/4" 
u-matic tape machine it was controlling.

I went on down the road looking for greener pastures after their long 
time chief came back to work from the heart attack he had 2 weeks after 
I was hired. I had no more contact with the station until '94 when I'd 
taken 2 weeks to visit an aunt in Salem OR who was fading. Calling to 
catch up, I found that in 94, 14 years later, my program was still in 
use many times a day.  In a television stations control room, thats 
amazing, because while the technology used to play that commercial is 
constantly changing, the need to do that job accurately hadn't.

And after scareing Microtime out of their shorts when I found the bare 
beginnings of such at their booth at the annual NBA shindig in Vegas the 
following year, and mentioning to the bow tie in the booth that I had 
already done that, only better, it had dissappeared an hour later and 
was never admitted to exist ever again.  And no one else has ever 
attempted to do it unless they did their own version in house and kept 
it quiet. 

> You can also get by without a multiplier.

I don't recall I needed to do any muls or divs, but did do some bit 
twiddling. My version of the time code was actually better than drop 
frame for tracking wall time. Not that it mattered over the maximum of 2 
minutes and 10 second duration of laying down that new leader and the 
audio tones on one track of the audio that tied the tape to the station 
break machine. But I figured if a had to do it, do it right. :) FWIW, I 
still have 2 audio carts filled with backups of that program and a type 
written printout of its program on the top shelf of the bookcases on the 
walls of this room. My man cave. Memories of times past...

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Joe]

On Sat, 19 Oct 2019 15:34:06 +0200
deloptes  wrote:

> Joe wrote:
> 
> > And it's not so much fundamental languages as the buzzwords, the
> > frameworks, 'agile' programming, AJAX, and things like proprietary
> > CMS (C for both content and customer) systems. Nobody ever asks for
> > basic programming skills.  
> 
> You are sooo right, but one must understand the language first, to be
> able to use the framework. I bet it is getting extremely difficult
> for newcomers to understand all that stuff and a good guidance is
> extremely valuable.

Indeed. I'm sort-of learning Laravel at the moment. If you're reasonably
competent in PHP and HTML, there's still a steep learning curve. It does
a lot of stuff, but you have to work *its* way e.g. every application
requires a separate virtual server, domain name and therefore DNS (or
multiple /etc/hosts) entry. You can't just drop a directory of stuff
into /www/docroot (as I usually do) and expect it to work.
> 
> IMO the future is in automated frameworks that turn a/the concept
> into code. For example I used swagger (https://swagger.io/) or symfony
> (https://symfony.com/) - of course you have to know the language
> (java or php) - but it is all about the time you need to turn the
> idea into code.
>

Nothing new under the sun:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_One_(software)

-- 
Joe

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[John Hasler]

Thomas D Dial writes:
> FORTRAN is somewhat similar, but has a smaller, more stable, and mors
> specialized application space and often, I think, is maintained by the
> successors of the program users who wrote it originally. A good deal
> of it may, by now, have been replaced by C, C++, Python, or some other
> newer language.

There are highly optimized and thoroughly debugged scientific and
engineering libraries written decades ago in FORTRAN.  These are often
used in programs written in much newer languages.  It's hard to justify
porting them because they work so well as-is.
-- 
John Hasler 
jhas...@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Thomas D Dial]

On Sat, 2019-10-19 at 09:48 +0200, deloptes wrote:
> James H. H. Lampert wrote:
> 
> > The OP wanted this treated as a survey, and so . . .
> > 
> > Many dialects and derivatives of BASIC, including (but not limited
> > to)
> > IBM VS-BASIC (ran on 370 and compatible mainframes), TRS-80 Level 1,
> > Level 2, and Mod I Disk BASIC, GWBASIC, and the various QBASICs
> > (QuickBASIC and QBX). (I took one look at VisualBASIC, and swore off
> > any
> > further M$ development tools.)
> > 
> > FORTRAN (mainly FORTRAN IV: IBM G1, WATFIV, and TRS-80 FORTRAN).
> > 
> > Pascal (CDC Cyber Pascal).
> > 
> > COBOL (also on a CDC Cyber).
> > 
> > PL/I (CDC Cyber PL/I; CDC ANSI PL/I; IBM AS/400 PL/I).
> > 
> > Assemblers (DEC Macro-11, 8086).
> > 
> > (LISP)   <-- the parentheses are an inside joke.
> > 
> > C (mainly on AS/400s). I must go down to the 'C' again, to the loony
> > 'C,' and cry.
> > 
> > Modula-2
> > 
> > MI (it's the closest you are allowed to get to a true assembler
> > language
> > on an AS/400)
> > 
> > RPG/400 (both OPM and ILE)
> > 
> > CL (on AS/400s; it's like a shell script, only compiled).
> > 
> > Java
> > 
> > I've forgotten just about all the SmallTalk I ever learned.
> > 
> > I can get by in SQL.
> > 
> > The more programming languages you know, the easier it is to pick up
> > additional programming languages. And the less likely you are to
> > treat
> > your favorite language (or the only one you know) as a panacea. And
> > if
> > you have good linkage capabilities, mixed-language work is not
> > difficult
> > at all.
> > 
> > Not much that's on the published list. But then again, when I leave
> > my
> > present employment, I'm probably never going to write a single line
> > of
> > code professionally again.
> > 
> > --
> > JHHL
> 
> But James ... this is like a walk through the museum. Are these indeed
> languages that "Employers Really Want"?

There is a lot of existing code written in SQL, Java, COBOL, C (and
C++), FORTRAN, and I expect by now Python. That code needs or will need
occasional maintenance or even further development.

COBOL, in particular, is well established in some large and important
core business systems, especially in financial organizations; a
programmer with decent skills in COBOL, along with the applicable host
OS (mostly z/OS) and development tools and facilities is used is likely
to be able to earn a decent living for some time to come. It may be a
language in decline, but it is likely to take quite a while.

FORTRAN is somewhat similar, but has a smaller, more stable, and mors
specialized application space and often, I think, is maintained by the
successors of the program users who wrote it originally. A good deal of
it may, by now, have been replaced by C, C++, Python, or some other
newer language. I have been retired for a few years, but wonder if
development and maintenance by end user technical subject specialists is
not common with Python as well.

I suspect most of the others listed here are niche languages by now that
might offer occasional employment but more likely would occur
occasionally and be handled as an additional duty by programmers who
primarily uses other languages.

Various on-line quasi-technical publications present lists from time to
time that suggest a number of other languages that may be in demand. A
few that come readily to mind are Javascript, R, and Go, but there are
others.

Tom Dial

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[John Hasler]

deloptes writes:
> SQL comes everywhere handy...

SQL is certainly handy, but I don't consider it a programming language
(likewise HTML).

If you *do* consider HTML a programming language the crawling horrors
that most Web sites send out make the worst BASIC spaghetti balls look
like something out of IBM Federal Systems.
-- 
John Hasler 
jhas...@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Richard Owlett]

On 10/19/2019 08:26 AM, deloptes wrote:

[SNIP]
SQL comes
everywhere handy, because you have to store the data somewhere - but still
there is difference between Oracle, MySQL/MariaDB or sqlite. Each one has
its advantages and disadvantages - and SQL for the one is likely not
compatible with SQL for the other, though SQL is well standardized - the
implementations are different.


I used either dBase II or III about 30 years ago but have not used any 
database since. SeaMonkey stores bookmarks {and other stuff} in SQLite3 
database files. My bookmarks are now massive and poorly organized. I 
have a mental image of how they could be organized in dBase.


Any reading suggestions on appropriate tools?
[I've other personal projects that would benefit from a database tool.]
I would like to read the existing data, edit it, and then print it out 
in a format that visually resembles a detailed "table of contents" with 
sub-headings more than 4 levels deep. When using SeaMonkey's export to 
HTML the resulting file is more than 6500 lines.


A nice extra would be the possibility of outputting in a format 
acceptable to SeaMonkey

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[deloptes]

Joe wrote:

> And it's not so much fundamental languages as the buzzwords, the
> frameworks, 'agile' programming, AJAX, and things like proprietary CMS
> (C for both content and customer) systems. Nobody ever asks for basic
> programming skills.

You are sooo right, but one must understand the language first, to be able
to use the framework. I bet it is getting extremely difficult for newcomers
to understand all that stuff and a good guidance is extremely valuable.

IMO the future is in automated frameworks that turn a/the concept into code.
For example I used swagger (https://swagger.io/) or symfony
(https://symfony.com/) - of course you have to know the language (java or
php) - but it is all about the time you need to turn the idea into code.

regards

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[deloptes]

Joe wrote:

> Seriously? BASIC worse than Hollerith strings? It was 45 years ago, but
> I still remember...

Indeed - I have the feeling here only people from the home for the elderly 
(Seniorenheim) are posting - BASIC, COBOL, PASCAL ... OMG

Though I must admit there were some good posts around - but the majority
must be 50 or 60+, who gave up evolution 20-30y ago.

The study was pretty good

SQL, Python, PERL, C/C++, JAVA. I wonder why I did not see PHP ... but well.

IMO you use one language for rapid prototyping and if necessary (for example
commercialize it), you use one of the binary languages. SQL comes
everywhere handy, because you have to store the data somewhere - but still
there is difference between Oracle, MySQL/MariaDB or sqlite. Each one has
its advantages and disadvantages - and SQL for the one is likely not
compatible with SQL for the other, though SQL is well standardized - the
implementations are different.

regards

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[John Hasler]

Joe quotes:
> "If you think you need to use floating point, you don't fully
> understand your application."

Right.  There isn't anything you can't do with bignum.

I wrote software for control systems using cpus such as the RCA 1802.
You can do a lot more with 8 bit integers than seems possible at first
thought.

You can also get by without a multiplier.
-- 
John Hasler 
jhas...@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[John Hasler]

Joe writes:
> Spend an hour or two with the job advertisements (which is what the OP
> needs to do) to see the enormous range of what employers *think* they
> want, and this is what the young ladies in HR will definitely require
> of an applicant.

Especially amusing are the ads that demand five years experience
something invented four years ago.
-- 
John Hasler 
jhas...@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

Joe wrote:
> "If you think you need to use floating point, you don't fully
> understand your application."

+0.9


Have a nice day :)

Thomas

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Joe]

On Sat, 19 Oct 2019 11:09:06 +0200
"Thomas Schmitt"  wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> John Hasler wrote:
> > > FORTRAN on 1620s and 370s,  
> 
> Joe wrote:
> > Seriously? BASIC worse than Hollerith strings?  
> 
> 212H Of course you don't do string processing in FORTRAN. It's for
> problems which you can solve by representing everything as
> homogeneous coordinates and then computing the result by one giant
> matrix multiplication.
> 

And, of course, there's the other extreme:

"If you think you need to use floating point, you don't fully
understand your application."

Maybe not exactly word for word, I think it's from one of Leo Brodie's
books on early Forth. Might be a quotation from Charles Moore.

-- 
Joe

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

John Hasler wrote:
> > FORTRAN on 1620s and 370s,

Joe wrote:
> Seriously? BASIC worse than Hollerith strings?

212H Of course you don't do string processing in FORTRAN. It's for problems
which you can solve by representing everything as homogeneous coordinates
and then computing the result by one giant matrix multiplication.

(wc helps a lot to construct proper hollerith constants.
 To be typical all characters would have to be capital letters or digits
 encoded in EBCDIC.)


Have a nice day :)

Thomas

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Joe]

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 17:34:57 -0500
John Hasler  wrote:


> I guess some people who started with BASIC do eventually recover.
> 

And then you say:

> FORTRAN on 1620s and 370s, 

Seriously? BASIC worse than Hollerith strings? It was 45 years ago, but
I still remember...

-- 
Joe

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Joe]

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 22:50:29 +0100
Brian  wrote:


> 
>  > Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want  
> 
> Nobody has answered the question yet.
> 

Because there isn't an answer. 

Spend an hour or two with the job advertisements (which is what the OP
needs to do) to see the enormous range of what employers *think* they
want, and this is what the young ladies in HR will definitely require of
an applicant.

And it's not so much fundamental languages as the buzzwords, the
frameworks, 'agile' programming, AJAX, and things like proprietary CMS
(C for both content and customer) systems. Nobody ever asks for basic
programming skills. Here's a fragment of an advertisement in my country
picked at random:

"Knowledge of the following skills is important for this role:

.NET
C#
MVC
SQL
SharePoint (Advantageous but not essential)

The role will be based in Central London. Depending upon your
experience and skills, the salary for this role is up to £50K."

I've never been near .NET or C# (the latter written by the main Delphi
developer). I look at this kind of thing now and again, just out of
curiosity, and I don't think I've ever seen a job where I tick all the
boxes, even at hobby level.

-- 
Joe

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[deloptes]

Brian wrote:

> You, and everybody else, may as well have skipped the whole post and
> saved the List from wasting bandwidth. I ask you
> 
> > This is just a quick survey.
> 
> Really?
> 
> > I am considering being a programmer
> 
> Wowee.
> 
> > Turritopsis Dohrnii
> 
> Jellyfish. Hard to grasp.
> 
> >  How long will it take
> 
> Where's that piece of string?
> 
> > Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want
> 
> Nobody has answered the question yet.

It was in the survey - this whole thread was teaser to go and read the
survey.

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[deloptes]

James H. H. Lampert wrote:

> The OP wanted this treated as a survey, and so . . .
> 
> Many dialects and derivatives of BASIC, including (but not limited to)
> IBM VS-BASIC (ran on 370 and compatible mainframes), TRS-80 Level 1,
> Level 2, and Mod I Disk BASIC, GWBASIC, and the various QBASICs
> (QuickBASIC and QBX). (I took one look at VisualBASIC, and swore off any
> further M$ development tools.)
> 
> FORTRAN (mainly FORTRAN IV: IBM G1, WATFIV, and TRS-80 FORTRAN).
> 
> Pascal (CDC Cyber Pascal).
> 
> COBOL (also on a CDC Cyber).
> 
> PL/I (CDC Cyber PL/I; CDC ANSI PL/I; IBM AS/400 PL/I).
> 
> Assemblers (DEC Macro-11, 8086).
> 
> (LISP)   <-- the parentheses are an inside joke.
> 
> C (mainly on AS/400s). I must go down to the 'C' again, to the loony
> 'C,' and cry.
> 
> Modula-2
> 
> MI (it's the closest you are allowed to get to a true assembler language
> on an AS/400)
> 
> RPG/400 (both OPM and ILE)
> 
> CL (on AS/400s; it's like a shell script, only compiled).
> 
> Java
> 
> I've forgotten just about all the SmallTalk I ever learned.
> 
> I can get by in SQL.
> 
> The more programming languages you know, the easier it is to pick up
> additional programming languages. And the less likely you are to treat
> your favorite language (or the only one you know) as a panacea. And if
> you have good linkage capabilities, mixed-language work is not difficult
> at all.
> 
> Not much that's on the published list. But then again, when I leave my
> present employment, I'm probably never going to write a single line of
> code professionally again.
> 
> --
> JHHL

But James ... this is like a walk through the museum. Are these indeed
languages that "Employers Really Want"?

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[deloptes]

rhkra...@gmail.com wrote:

> Never did much Perl, but I think anything (well, not sure about obfuscated
> C) is more readable than APL.

I am not sure if it makes sense to compare a modern car engine with one
constructed 150y ago.

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

i wrote:
> > The overall design paradigm is object oriented but without fancy stuff
> > like overloading or inheritance. Encapsulation and aggregation must
> > suffice.

mick crane wrote:
> This is interesting topic for me but don't know what these words
> "overloading or inheritance. Encapsulation and aggregation"
> mean in programming context

Object orientation is a design pattern for programming. Invented already
in the 1950s, it long time carved a miserable existence in
let-the-machine-burst languages like Simula or Smalltalk. In the late
1980s it became the modern way of programming. To my knowlege, no other
design pattern has yet really taken over that role.

Pillars of OO are: Aggregation, Encapsulation, Inheritance, Polymorphism.

Aggregation, already known in Structured Programming, consolidates a set
of variables in a single container structure. This reduces the number of
variables which you have to pass to called functions and helps to keep
an overview what belongs where.

Encapsulation hides the entrails of program parts from most other program
parts so that only a well defined set of functions (aka "methods") is
visible to the others and has to be kept stable for them. This gives the
programmer more freedom to improve parts of the program without damaging
other, unrelated parts.

By these two gestures, "classes" and their "object instances" get defined.
A class is a set of variable definitions and a set of methods which can
operate on the variables. An object instance is a set of variable storage
with individual values. It is subject to manipulation by the methods.
A common analogy in biology is "species" and "individuum".
(That's why the university where i studied offered Simula as language for
 biologists. You should have heard their comments after the first lecture
 which was held in our math faculty's rooms.)

Inheritance strives for re-use of well working and tested program parts
by declaring that a new class is like one or more existing classes with
maybe some extra features and maybe some modifications of the existing
features. The inheriting class only has the code that is missing in the
bequesting classes, which contribute most of the code implementation.
So here the programmer knocks over the clarity, which was gained
by encapsulation and aggregation, by inventing nearly-but-not-really-same
things and scattering their program code over larger parts of the program.

Polymorphism (aka overloading) gives nearly identically looking program
gestures different meanings. Classic is the overloading of the "+"
operator for everything that a drunk mathematician would accept as some
kind of addition. Plus string concatentation and maybe marriage of bits.

If you fail to make your program unreadable by inheritance, try
overloading. This will surely do the trick.

A more substantial overview with a more polite opinion towards C++ et.al.
can be found at
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_programming
(Note the link box "Programming paradigms" to the right. There you find
 naivity, madness, and deep wisdom.)


Have a nice day :)

Thomas

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Ben Caradoc-Davies]

On 18/10/2019 15:33, Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming wrote:

This is just a quick survey. May I know what programming languages do
you know? I am considering being a programmer or developer.
How long will it take for me to master a programming language like
C++, Java, and Python?


Mastery is a high level goal. Are you trying to learn enough to secure 
employment in an entry-level position?


Python is easiest to learn and widely used, but not commonly used in 
packaged products. Java is the most widely used, and designed as a more 
portable and easier to learn alternative to C++, which is also widely 
used. C++ is by far the hardest.


Do you have a particular industry in mind? The choice of language will 
follow the domain.


Software development is about much more than just programming: teamwork, 
engineering practices, and personal technical and business 
problem-solving ability. What is your background?


A great way to learn is to choose an open source project that uses a 
language of interest to you and contribute bug fixes to it. Proven 
ability on open source projects is a great way of building your resume.


Kind regards,

--
Ben Caradoc-Davies 
Director
Transient Software Limited 
New Zealand

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[rhkramer]

On Friday, October 18, 2019 06:33:19 PM Jeremy Nicoll wrote:
> Perl is a whole lot more readable than APL.

Never did much Perl, but I think anything (well, not sure about obfuscated C) 
is more readable than APL.

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[James H. H. Lampert]

The OP wanted this treated as a survey, and so . . .

Many dialects and derivatives of BASIC, including (but not limited to) 
IBM VS-BASIC (ran on 370 and compatible mainframes), TRS-80 Level 1, 
Level 2, and Mod I Disk BASIC, GWBASIC, and the various QBASICs 
(QuickBASIC and QBX). (I took one look at VisualBASIC, and swore off any 
further M$ development tools.)


FORTRAN (mainly FORTRAN IV: IBM G1, WATFIV, and TRS-80 FORTRAN).

Pascal (CDC Cyber Pascal).

COBOL (also on a CDC Cyber).

PL/I (CDC Cyber PL/I; CDC ANSI PL/I; IBM AS/400 PL/I).

Assemblers (DEC Macro-11, 8086).

(LISP)   <-- the parentheses are an inside joke.

C (mainly on AS/400s). I must go down to the 'C' again, to the loony 
'C,' and cry.


Modula-2

MI (it's the closest you are allowed to get to a true assembler language 
on an AS/400)


RPG/400 (both OPM and ILE)

CL (on AS/400s; it's like a shell script, only compiled).

Java

I've forgotten just about all the SmallTalk I ever learned.

I can get by in SQL.

The more programming languages you know, the easier it is to pick up 
additional programming languages. And the less likely you are to treat 
your favorite language (or the only one you know) as a panacea. And if 
you have good linkage capabilities, mixed-language work is not difficult 
at all.


Not much that's on the published list. But then again, when I leave my 
present employment, I'm probably never going to write a single line of 
code professionally again.


--
JHHL

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Jeremy Nicoll]

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019, at 23:34, John Hasler wrote:

> I guess some people who started with BASIC do eventually recover.

It's not all that bad.

At my first place of employment, we ran WATERLOO BASIC (from the 
University of Waterloo) for students to learn how to program.

This was on an IBM mainframe, running VM/CMS, and the text editor 
(Xedit) was programmable.  I wrote a set of fairly complex Xedit 'macro'
programs which allowed students to write code in an extended non-line-
numbered syntactically-sugared version of the language, with what 
appeared to be 'proper' procedures/functions.

As they exited from the editor, the macros converted the code they'd
typed back to the more basic form of the language for it to be run, 
and as they started to edit one of these programmes the GOTO-ridden
code would be transformed into the apparently more structured version
of the language.

Unfortunately we could only let the more competent students use the 
'better' language, because they had to understand the 'on the fly'
changes that were made... so they could cope with runtime error 
messages from the actual (less sophistcated) code, which didn't 
precisely match what they saw in the text editor.

-- 
Jeremy Nicoll - my opinions are my own.

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[John Hasler]

Thomas writes:
> The only right way is to work down from a BASIC on ROM, which is said
> to have in part been coded by William Henry Gates III himself, to a
> self-made assembler, and then back to Rocky Mountain BASIC on HP
> desktops.  Finally you move to a Unix workstation (16 MHz and 4 MB of
> RAM suffice), learn Bourne shell and C, and be done.

I guess some people who started with BASIC do eventually recover.

FORTRAN on 1620s and 370s, C on MTS, Z80 assembler (hand assembled until
I finally got an assembler), Pascal on a PDP11, bare metal hex for the
RCA 1802, FORTH using an 1802 FORTH system I helped write (in hex), and
finally UNIX System III on my very own Onyx.  I eventually did do some
stuff in BASIC but by then my immunity was established so I don't think
there was any brain damage.  Perl and Python too after that, of course.
-- 
John Hasler 
jhas...@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Jeremy Nicoll]

This discussion is spammed across a whole bunch of linux dstro mail lists.

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019, at 19:56, ghe wrote:

> Pascal teaches you to think good thoughts. It's was a wonderful language
> to learn back in the late 1970s.

Yes, or Algol...

> Perl's mantra is "There's more than one way to do it". That's part of
> the reason Perl's considered (by some) a write only language -- you
> can't understand what you wrote last week.

Perl is a whole lot more readable than APL.

-- 
Jeremy Nicoll - my opinions are my own.

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[David Wright]

On Fri 18 Oct 2019 at 23:22:37 (+0200), Thomas Schmitt wrote:
> Doug McGarrett wrote:
> > [...] and I learned to use BASIC.
> 
> And ? Any recognizable damage left ? :o)
> 
> > (This was in the days when we had
> > an acoustic modem and a Teletype machine, and the mainframe was
> > 1500 miles away!)
> 
> I had a color tv and a VIC-20 on the couch table.
> 
> > Later, I learned a "real" language, Pascal.
> 
> Arghh. Get hot water ! Get some disinfectant ! Get some iodine !
> 
> The only right way is to work down from a BASIC on ROM, which is said to
> have in part been coded by William Henry Gates III himself, to a self-made
> assembler, and then back to Rocky Mountain BASIC on HP desktops.

Ah, our annual nostalgia trip! I'll save some typing:

https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2018/08/msg00949.html
https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2018/08/msg00993.html

Cheers,
David.

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Brian]

On Fri 18 Oct 2019 at 13:26:03 -0400, Doug McGarrett wrote:

> 
> 
> On 10/18/2019 09:31 AM, Dan Ritter wrote:
> > Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming wrote:
> > > Subject: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want
> > > 
> > > This is just a quick survey. May I know what programming languages do
> > > you know? I am considering being a programmer or developer.
> > > How long will it take for me to master a programming language like
> > > C++, Java, and Python?
> > 
> > Nobody knows.
> > 
> > 
> skip intro

You, and everybody else, may as well have skipped the whole post and
saved the List from wasting bandwidth. I ask you

 > This is just a quick survey.

Really?

 > I am considering being a programmer

Wowee.

 > Turritopsis Dohrnii

Jellyfish. Hard to grasp.

 >  How long will it take

Where's that piece of string?

 > Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

Nobody has answered the question yet.

-- 
Brian.

> > 
> > Most experienced programmers know two or three computer languages very
> > well, and one or two others just enough to figure out what a program is
> > doing.
> > 
> > Python is generally considered a good language to start learning
> > the ideas of programming, and is also widely used for a variety
> > of tasks. I think "Learn Python The Hard Way" is an excellent
> > introductory book. It will take a dedicated student at least
> > two months to get through it, or about a year if you work on it
> > one day a week or so.
> > 
> > Once you know one programming language, you will find it much
> > easier to learn new ones in the same family of languages, and
> > also easier to learn unrelated languages. For example, once you
> > understand the concept of a typed variable, you won't have to
> > relearn that -- just what the types available in a given
> > language are.
> > 
> > I work in shell, Perl, Python, Ruby; I use some special purpose
> > languages like SQL, and specialized configuration languages like
> > Cisco IOS and Juniper's JunOS. I have used any number of
> > languages in the past that I don't encounter much, like LISP,
> > FORTRAN and Prolog.
> > 
> > I don't consider myself a programmer. I'm a senior
> > general-purpose systems administrator with network engineering,
> > security and people-management specialties.
> > 
> > -dsr-
> 
> I'm not a programmer either. I started learning code way back
> when BASIC and Fortran seemed to be the most common languages,
> and I learned to use BASIC. (This was in the days when we had
> an acoustic modem and a Teletype machine, and the mainframe was
> 1500 miles away!) Later, I learned a "real" language, Pascal.
> When I discovered the case statement, I was in heaven! What a
> mess it was to do the equivalent in BASIC! As an RF engineer,
> it was really handy to solve some repetitive equations in Pascal.
> 
> I'm not sure if any Pascal compilers are still available, but
> Turbo was the most popular back when. Until the last version
> came out, and it was too complicated for its own good.
> 
> I took a good look at Python, and decided that the necessary
> indentation was too much for me to deal with. Maybe there is
> some kind of automated system for doing this, but I don't know
> of it.
> 
> As for as learning to code, the most important part of any coding
> language routine is to state a problem and define a means of solving
> it, step by step, before you write a word of code, regardless of the coding
> language! (This usually is called "pseudo code.") So if you have
> a logical mind, that's the first step.
> 
> --doug
> 

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[mick crane]

On 2019-10-18 22:22, Thomas Schmitt wrote:


But with a text editor i write a description in form of C structures
and function stubs, which i fill by remarks to roughly describe what
to have or to do where and when. Already during this design stage i use
as much compilable C code as possible to describe what i mean.
The overall design paradigm is object oriented but without fancy stuff
like overloading or inheritance. Encapsulation and aggregation must
suffice.


This is interesting topic for me but don't know what these words
"overloading or inheritance. Encapsulation and aggregation"
mean in programming context
not being very good at this stuff.
Any chance of expanding this thinking in design stage ?

mick

--
Key ID4BFEBB31

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

Doug McGarrett wrote:
> [...] and I learned to use BASIC.

And ? Any recognizable damage left ? :o)


> (This was in the days when we had
> an acoustic modem and a Teletype machine, and the mainframe was
> 1500 miles away!)

I had a color tv and a VIC-20 on the couch table.


> Later, I learned a "real" language, Pascal.

Arghh. Get hot water ! Get some disinfectant ! Get some iodine !

The only right way is to work down from a BASIC on ROM, which is said to
have in part been coded by William Henry Gates III himself, to a self-made
assembler, and then back to Rocky Mountain BASIC on HP desktops.
Finally you move to a Unix workstation (16 MHz and 4 MB of RAM suffice),
learn Bourne shell and C, and be done.


> As for as learning to code, the most important part of any coding
> language routine is to state a problem and define a means of solving
> it, step by step, before you write a word of code, regardless of the coding
> language!

That's what i did on my Texas Instruments TI-58C with its math assembler
language and merciless programming interface.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-59_/_TI-58

But with a text editor i write a description in form of C structures
and function stubs, which i fill by remarks to roughly describe what
to have or to do where and when. Already during this design stage i use
as much compilable C code as possible to describe what i mean.
The overall design paradigm is object oriented but without fancy stuff
like overloading or inheritance. Encapsulation and aggregation must
suffice.
Then i go on an implementation frenzy.
Testing feels like hangover with debugger breakfast.

On larger projects be prepared for euphoria, nervous breakdown,
baseless hope, deep dispair, and - in case of survival - the feeling
to have once again muddled through.

Hoo-yawn ...
  goto bed;


Have a nice day :)

Thomas
bed:;

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Joe]

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 13:26:03 -0400
Doug McGarrett  wrote:

> On 10/18/2019 09:31 AM, Dan Ritter wrote:
> > Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming wrote:  
> >> Subject: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want
> >>
> >> This is just a quick survey. May I know what programming languages
> >> do you know? I am considering being a programmer or developer.
> >> How long will it take for me to master a programming language like
> >> C++, Java, and Python?  
> >
> > Nobody knows.
> >
> >  
> skip intro
> >
> > Most experienced programmers know two or three computer languages
> > very well, and one or two others just enough to figure out what a
> > program is doing.
> >
> > Python is generally considered a good language to start learning
> > the ideas of programming, and is also widely used for a variety
> > of tasks. I think "Learn Python The Hard Way" is an excellent
> > introductory book. It will take a dedicated student at least
> > two months to get through it, or about a year if you work on it
> > one day a week or so.
> >
> > Once you know one programming language, you will find it much
> > easier to learn new ones in the same family of languages, and
> > also easier to learn unrelated languages. For example, once you
> > understand the concept of a typed variable, you won't have to
> > relearn that -- just what the types available in a given
> > language are.
> >
> > I work in shell, Perl, Python, Ruby; I use some special purpose
> > languages like SQL, and specialized configuration languages like
> > Cisco IOS and Juniper's JunOS. I have used any number of
> > languages in the past that I don't encounter much, like LISP,
> > FORTRAN and Prolog.
> >
> > I don't consider myself a programmer. I'm a senior
> > general-purpose systems administrator with network engineering,
> > security and people-management specialties.
> >
> > -dsr-  
> 
> I'm not a programmer either. I started learning code way back
> when BASIC and Fortran seemed to be the most common languages,
> and I learned to use BASIC. (This was in the days when we had
> an acoustic modem and a Teletype machine, and the mainframe was
> 1500 miles away!) Later, I learned a "real" language, Pascal.
> When I discovered the case statement, I was in heaven! What a
> mess it was to do the equivalent in BASIC! As an RF engineer,
> it was really handy to solve some repetitive equations in Pascal.

I learned BASIC as the integer-only Applesoft, on an Apple II. A year
or two later I bought a BBC Micro, which had BBC BASIC built in.
Functions, procedures, recursion, case, all sorts of stuff that proper
BASIC didn't have. Oh, and a built-in assembler for the 6502. The later
Acorn Archimedes had an ARM assembler built in. 
> 
> I'm not sure if any Pascal compilers are still available, but
> Turbo was the most popular back when. Until the last version
> came out, and it was too complicated for its own good.

I came to Pascal from BBC BASIC, and found it a bit of an anti-climax.
There didn't seem to be that much difference.
> 
> I took a good look at Python, and decided that the necessary
> indentation was too much for me to deal with. Maybe there is
> some kind of automated system for doing this, but I don't know
> of it.
> 
> As for as learning to code, the most important part of any coding
> language routine is to state a problem and define a means of solving
> it, step by step, before you write a word of code, regardless of the 
> coding language! (This usually is called "pseudo code.") So if you
> have a logical mind, that's the first step.

"Kludgecode", I've seen it called, in a programming book I read about
forty years ago.

I mostly code as a hobby, I've sold a bit of Delphi and PIC assembler
as parts of something larger, but I've never been employed as a
developer. I think the OP may not realise that most development jobs
require a year of two of *commercial* experience using all the latest
buzzwords. Basically they're looking to hire people already doing the
same job for competitors.

I have a selection of computer hardware, so I mostly code in PHP on my
web server now. I notice that nobody else mentioned PHP. I consider
client-side code to be the work of the Devil.

-- 
Joe 

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[ghe]

On 10/18/19 11:44 AM, hdv@gmail wrote:

> On 18/10/2019 19.26, Doug McGarrett wrote:
> 
> ...
> 
>> I'm not sure if any Pascal compilers are still available, but
>> Turbo was the most popular back when. Until the last version
>> came out, and it was too complicated for its own good.
> 
> Forgive me for barging in, but I just had to answer that.
> 
> Sure there is! Take a look at Free Pascal (freepascal.org). It is very much
> alive. I use the RAD editor Lazarus (a clone of Delphi for those who still
> remember what that was) that goes with it regularly.

GNU claims to have one too. Search for 'linux pascal compilers'.

>> I took a good look at Python, and decided that the necessary
>> indentation was too much for me to deal with. Maybe there is
>> some kind of automated system for doing this, but I don't know
>> of it.

Vim knows about Python's indentation fixation. It automatically indents
when it sees a colon.

Pascal teaches you to think good thoughts. It's was a wonderful language
to learn back in the late 1970s.

Perl's mantra is "There's more than one way to do it". That's part of
the reason Perl's considered (by some) a write only language -- you
can't understand what you wrote last week.

Python's is "There's only one way to do it". I skipped Python a while
back because of the indentation, too. A Python program looks a lot like
a C program run through a prettyPrinter.

I miss C's preprocessor, but Python has some cool new data structures
and capabilities that more than make up for that omission. Still no
constants, though.


I'd suggest C, Java, Python3, some shell, Perl, and a few others the
employer uses. FORTRAN can be useful for some applications. But if they
want you to write COBOL or BASIC, look for another job :-)

-- 
Glenn English

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Jude DaShiell]

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019, Doug McGarrett wrote:

> Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 13:26:03
> From: Doug McGarrett 
> To: Dan Ritter ,
> Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming 
> Cc: debian-user@lists.debian.org
> Subject: Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want
> Resent-Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 17:26:48 + (UTC)
> Resent-From: debian-user@lists.debian.org
>
>
>
> On 10/18/2019 09:31 AM, Dan Ritter wrote:
> > Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming wrote:
> >> Subject: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want
> >>
> >> This is just a quick survey. May I know what programming languages do
> >> you know? I am considering being a programmer or developer.
> >> How long will it take for me to master a programming language like
> >> C++, Java, and Python?
> >
> > Nobody knows.
> >
> >
> skip intro
> >
> > Most experienced programmers know two or three computer languages very
> > well, and one or two others just enough to figure out what a program is
> > doing.
> >
> > Python is generally considered a good language to start learning
> > the ideas of programming, and is also widely used for a variety
> > of tasks. I think "Learn Python The Hard Way" is an excellent
> > introductory book. It will take a dedicated student at least
> > two months to get through it, or about a year if you work on it
> > one day a week or so.
> >
> > Once you know one programming language, you will find it much
> > easier to learn new ones in the same family of languages, and
> > also easier to learn unrelated languages. For example, once you
> > understand the concept of a typed variable, you won't have to
> > relearn that -- just what the types available in a given
> > language are.
> >
> > I work in shell, Perl, Python, Ruby; I use some special purpose
> > languages like SQL, and specialized configuration languages like
> > Cisco IOS and Juniper's JunOS. I have used any number of
> > languages in the past that I don't encounter much, like LISP,
> > FORTRAN and Prolog.
> >
> > I don't consider myself a programmer. I'm a senior
> > general-purpose systems administrator with network engineering,
> > security and people-management specialties.
> >
> > -dsr-
>
> I'm not a programmer either. I started learning code way back
> when BASIC and Fortran seemed to be the most common languages,
> and I learned to use BASIC. (This was in the days when we had
> an acoustic modem and a Teletype machine, and the mainframe was
> 1500 miles away!) Later, I learned a "real" language, Pascal.
> When I discovered the case statement, I was in heaven! What a
> mess it was to do the equivalent in BASIC! As an RF engineer,
> it was really handy to solve some repetitive equations in Pascal.
>
> I'm not sure if any Pascal compilers are still available, but
> Turbo was the most popular back when. Until the last version
> came out, and it was too complicated for its own good.
>
> I took a good look at Python, and decided that the necessary
> indentation was too much for me to deal with. Maybe there is
> some kind of automated system for doing this, but I don't know
> of it.
>
> As for as learning to code, the most important part of any coding
> language routine is to state a problem and define a means of solving
> it, step by step, before you write a word of code, regardless of the coding
> language! (This usually is called "pseudo code.") So if you have
> a logical mind, that's the first step.
>
> --doug
>
The yabasic interpreter has a switch statement which takes case
statements inside it.  One rather unique feature of yabasic is the bind
command which binds your source code to the interpreter and in that way
constructs a stand-alone package.

> >

--

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[hdv@gmail]

On 18/10/2019 19.26, Doug McGarrett wrote:

...

> I'm not sure if any Pascal compilers are still available, but
> Turbo was the most popular back when. Until the last version
> came out, and it was too complicated for its own good.

Forgive me for barging in, but I just had to answer that.

Sure there is! Take a look at Free Pascal (freepascal.org). It is very much
alive. I use the RAD editor Lazarus (a clone of Delphi for those who still
remember what that was) that goes with it regularly.

> I took a good look at Python, and decided that the necessary
> indentation was too much for me to deal with. Maybe there is
> some kind of automated system for doing this, but I don't know
> of it.

This admission proves I am becoming an old fart, but I just can't give up my
precious perl... I like Python a lot, but perl is still my goto language.

Grx HdV

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Doug McGarrett]

On 10/18/2019 09:31 AM, Dan Ritter wrote:

Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming wrote:

Subject: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

This is just a quick survey. May I know what programming languages do
you know? I am considering being a programmer or developer.
How long will it take for me to master a programming language like
C++, Java, and Python?


Nobody knows.



skip intro


Most experienced programmers know two or three computer languages very
well, and one or two others just enough to figure out what a program is
doing.

Python is generally considered a good language to start learning
the ideas of programming, and is also widely used for a variety
of tasks. I think "Learn Python The Hard Way" is an excellent
introductory book. It will take a dedicated student at least
two months to get through it, or about a year if you work on it
one day a week or so.

Once you know one programming language, you will find it much
easier to learn new ones in the same family of languages, and
also easier to learn unrelated languages. For example, once you
understand the concept of a typed variable, you won't have to
relearn that -- just what the types available in a given
language are.

I work in shell, Perl, Python, Ruby; I use some special purpose
languages like SQL, and specialized configuration languages like
Cisco IOS and Juniper's JunOS. I have used any number of
languages in the past that I don't encounter much, like LISP,
FORTRAN and Prolog.

I don't consider myself a programmer. I'm a senior
general-purpose systems administrator with network engineering,
security and people-management specialties.

-dsr-


I'm not a programmer either. I started learning code way back
when BASIC and Fortran seemed to be the most common languages,
and I learned to use BASIC. (This was in the days when we had
an acoustic modem and a Teletype machine, and the mainframe was
1500 miles away!) Later, I learned a "real" language, Pascal.
When I discovered the case statement, I was in heaven! What a
mess it was to do the equivalent in BASIC! As an RF engineer,
it was really handy to solve some repetitive equations in Pascal.

I'm not sure if any Pascal compilers are still available, but
Turbo was the most popular back when. Until the last version
came out, and it was too complicated for its own good.

I took a good look at Python, and decided that the necessary
indentation was too much for me to deal with. Maybe there is
some kind of automated system for doing this, but I don't know
of it.

As for as learning to code, the most important part of any coding
language routine is to state a problem and define a means of solving
it, step by step, before you write a word of code, regardless of the 
coding language! (This usually is called "pseudo code.") So if you have

a logical mind, that's the first step.

--doug

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[Dan Ritter]

Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming wrote: 
> Subject: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want
> 
> This is just a quick survey. May I know what programming languages do
> you know? I am considering being a programmer or developer.
> How long will it take for me to master a programming language like
> C++, Java, and Python?

Nobody knows.

The art of programming is in two parts. The first part is to be
able to think extremely clearly and rationally about a complex
system -- not the computer, usually, but the problem that you
are trying to solve. The second part is writing down those
thoughts in an artificial, highly constrained formal language.

Most experienced programmers know two or three computer languages very
well, and one or two others just enough to figure out what a program is
doing.

Python is generally considered a good language to start learning
the ideas of programming, and is also widely used for a variety
of tasks. I think "Learn Python The Hard Way" is an excellent
introductory book. It will take a dedicated student at least
two months to get through it, or about a year if you work on it
one day a week or so.

Once you know one programming language, you will find it much
easier to learn new ones in the same family of languages, and
also easier to learn unrelated languages. For example, once you
understand the concept of a typed variable, you won't have to
relearn that -- just what the types available in a given
language are.

I work in shell, Perl, Python, Ruby; I use some special purpose
languages like SQL, and specialized configuration languages like
Cisco IOS and Juniper's JunOS. I have used any number of
languages in the past that I don't encounter much, like LISP, 
FORTRAN and Prolog.

I don't consider myself a programmer. I'm a senior
general-purpose systems administrator with network engineering,
security and people-management specialties.

-dsr-

-dsr-