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Programming

Is It Worth Learning a Little-Known Programming Language? 267

Posted by timothy from the worth-it-to-whom? dept.
Nerval's Lobster writes: Ask a group of developers to rattle off the world's most popular programming languages, and they'll likely name the usual suspects: JavaScript, Java, Python, Ruby, C++, PHP, and so on. Ask which programming languages pay the best, and they'll probably list the same ones, which makes sense. But what about the little-known languages and skill sets (Dice link) that don't leap immediately to mind but nonetheless support some vital IT infrastructure (and sometimes, as a result, pay absurdly well)? is it worth learning a relatively obscure language or skill set, on the hope that you can score one of a handful of well-paying jobs that require it? The answer is a qualified yes—so long as the language or skill set in question is clearly on the rise. Go, Swift, Rust, Julia and CoffeeScript have all enjoyed rising popularity, for example, which increases the odds that they'll remain relevant for at least the next few years. But a language without momentum behind it probably isn't worth your time, unless you want to learn it simply for the pleasure of learning something new.
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Is It Worth Learning a Little-Known Programming Language? More

Is It Worth Learning a Little-Known Programming Language?

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  • No. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05, 2015 @12:31PM (#49621891)
    There is enough similarity between programming languages that there really is no point in learning any more than what you need. If you find yourself in a position where you need to learn a new one, as long as you have a pretty broad background it usually only will take a couple of days to get going and a couple of weeks to get really good.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mlts ( 1038732 )

      On the other hand, once you learn a few programming languages, it becomes easier to know others, (assuming something that isn't completely different, such as a procedural language (C or Java) versus a functional programming language (Lisp, Scheme), versus assembly language.

      If you know C, you can consult the camel and make functioning perl code. So, it might not hurt knowing a non mainstream language, and may not take too much of your time, relatively.

    • Re: No. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Every language has tradeoffs, otherwise we'd all just use the one that didn't make any sacrifices.

      Ruby excels in productivity, developer workflow, infrastructure tools and flexibility but it's tradeoffs is actual speed and concurrency.

      Go excels in concurrency, portability, team development and keeping you close to the metal but it's tradeoff is a much slower working speed for everything around HTML as well as a different way of thinking about problems.

      Java excels at speed with the tradeoff of severe lack pr

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        Everything has tradeoffs.

        I agree [thealmightyguru.com].

      • Here's one you missed:

        Python excels at being the jack-of-all-trades, though most of its trades have other masters (see above.)

        • Python excels at quick-and-dirty. Unlike many of the scripting languages, it's applicable to a wide range of environments and usages. It doesn't require the time devoted to rigor that Java does nor the time devoted to avoiding pitfalls that C/C++ does. It's not "write-only" and the syntax isn't littered with cryptic constructs. It doesn't induce writers cramp like COBOL and it handles strings more graciously than FORTRAN. If you have one-off tasks that don't need polishing, what you hacked out in a short pe

    • Re:No. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05, 2015 @12:54PM (#49622171)

      There is enough similarity between programming languages that there really is no point in learning any more than what you need.

      That's true with a lot of the "C-with-X" type programming languages that are out there (e.g. if you know Python/Perl/Ruby you probably don't need to also learn Ruby/Python/Perl unless you have to), but there are also programming languages that are built around a wholly different philosophy, and I would argue that people *would* benefit from learning one of them, even if you don't actually ever use it.

      The canonical example is Prolog. Not used for anything much in particular, but a completely different way of thinking about programming, and something that will definitely make you a more well-rounded programmer if you do learn it. Likewise, if you've never worked with a functional programming language, learning Scheme or Haskell will be a benefit. Something like Eiffel is good to learn design by contract. Heck, even esoteric languages like Brainfuck and Unlambda can be worth learning (but never using) for the different perspective they give on how to accomplish a programming task.

      Of course, by "learn" here I don't just mean learn the syntax. By "learn" I'm referring to knowing the concepts behind the programming language, and understanding what is "correct" or idiomatic for that programming language, rather than "can I transliterate this FORTRAN program into Scheme syntax?" It's not "will I ever use this language" or "will this look good on my resume" but "what is the philosophy of this programming language, and what can I learn from it"?

    • There is enough similarity between programming languages that there really is no point in learning any more than what you need. If you find yourself in a position where you need to learn a new one, as long as you have a pretty broad background it usually only will take a couple of days to get going and a couple of weeks to get really good.

      As a programmer, I can somewhat agree but if you're trying to get hired as a COBOL programmer chances are that you'll move
      to the top of the stack if you actually know COBOL and can list it on your resume.
      Also, just because you've been coding in one language for years and you can start writing functional code in a different language
      after a couple week, you're not going to be as skilled at the nuances of that language as someone who has been using it for
      several years.
      I consider myself an expert in c, c++, and

      • Re:No. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by RabidReindeer ( 2625839 ) on Tuesday May 05, 2015 @02:03PM (#49622931)

        There are probably less than half a dozen basic language syntaxes. COBOL/Fortran/Python, Algol/Pascal/Modula/Ada, C/C++/JavaScript/Perl/PHP, LISP/Scheme, RPN/Forth/Smalltalk. and so forth, not even touching other relatives of the forms I've just named.

        What makes them different languages isn't the language, and it isn't really even the support llbraries (if any), It's the way of thinking that comes along with the language. Whether it's object-oriented, message-oriented, parallel-optimized, Functional, whatever, each language has its own characteristics.

        As the old adage goes (something like) being able to write COBOL in 17 different languages. Yes, you can pick up the syntax in a few days and begin to get a feel in a few weeks, but most people won't think naturally in a language's mindset unless they've spent several months at a minimum at it.

    • The thing is, HR departments don't understand that learning a new language, if you already are good with a few, is no big deal. HR people ask for things like 10 years of experience in Language X and they don't listen to reason, even if Language X has only been around for 2 years.

    • There is enough similarity between programming languages that there really is no point in learning any more than what you need.

      Well, there is a point, but it is a stupid one. If you are trying to get a job and the new company needs people who know $new_unproven_language and you only know 100 other languages, then HR won't let you through the gate, even though someone who has learned 100 other languages obviously could learn a new language in a few days or weeks.

    • So you haven't discovered Haskell yet... No idea who modded you insightful but a more realistic view can be read here: http://norvig.com/21-days.html [norvig.com] (currently down). Sadly I know and then have to maintain code written by people who seem to think like you. I really don't get it why this myth is still alive.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Different langaguages are different.

      OTOH, I disagree with the basic premise of the article. It is my belief that one shouldn't learn a new language to improve ones job prospects, but rather to improve ones skills as a programmer. So if you know C++, then you don't learn C# or Java, but rather Eiffel, Lisp, or Haskell, or possibly OCaML.

      OTOH, If you already know C++ or Java, it's certainly easier to learn Python or Ruby. So easy that a basic knowledge can be learned in a day. So if you're tight on time,

  • Programming languages are for luddites. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05, 2015 @12:34PM (#49621921)
    Only Windows 7 luddites use programming language. Modern app appers write apps written in App Languages!

    Apps!

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by fisted ( 2295862 )

      Only Windows 7 luddites use programming language. Modern app appers app apps apped in Apple's App apper!

      FTFY. Next time at least do it right.

  • Doing it now... (Score:3)

    by Rinikusu ( 28164 ) on Tuesday May 05, 2015 @12:36PM (#49621931)

    Bread and butter has been C# the past few years, currently enamored with f# and racket. I don't think I'll be able to find a job with these, but it certainly has returned me to a "fun" mode.

    • My only problem with C# is that pesky vendor lock in. For now, you gota run that on Windows. I don't mind Windows, but I do mind being forced to use it.

      • mono wants a word...

        • When an app dives into one of the Windows-only assemblies, Mono's word is "broken". .Net and Java are a lot alike. Both are "universal" platforms (originally) sponsored by vendors of operating systems. But .Net is turned inwards whereas Java is turned outwards. Indeed, the only reason .Net exists is because Sun wouldn't let Microsoft weld Windows-only functionality into their version of Java.

        • Mono works fine as long as you have at least one person on your team writing in Mono, not Visual Studio. That way you won't accidentally build on incompatibilities.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bondsbw ( 888959 )

        Not true, C# has been off of Windows for a long time by way of Mono.

        Microsoft is open-sourcing .NET Core, which supports ASP.NET v5 on Windows, OS X, and Linux.

        Kerbal Space Program is an example of a game that was written in .NET (I believe specifically in C#) but is available on OS X and Linux. External plugins can be created in C#.

        Xamarin provides a way to write native cross-platform applications using shared code and native user interfaces.

        I think it's fair to say, we're well past the day where anyone c

        • Not true, C# has been off of Windows for a long time by way of Mono.

          Mono with .NET support is at the whim of Microsoft's choice to release the .NET framework into open source.

          Not to mention that Mono exists at the pleasure of Micro$oft who could easily kill it with a simple infringement lawsuit. I'm not saying they'd win, only that such a suit would kill Mono which has no resources to fight such a thing.

        • I think it's fair to say, we're well past the day where anyone can claim that C# is completely locked to Windows.

          The word "completely" seems like a pretty strong hedge here. Sure, Mono exists, but it seems to be a bit of an unloved stepchild of the Open Source world, which generally seems to regard all things with any relation at all to Microsoft with some combination of hostility, suspicion, or at least disinterest. So, is Mono "a real boy" now in terms of being a full-fledged alternative to .net at all levels including features, libraries, tools, etc., or is it actually an unloved stepchild, as I seem to have perc

          • If you're expecting Mono to cover every aspect of the .NET runtime you're missing the point. I look at Mono as an excellent, open source, managed runtime environment and language that also happens to follow the ECMA standards Microsoft released for the .NET CLI and C#.

            People expect Mono to be able to run any .NET app under the sun on any platform. That sometimes works, sometimes doesn't depending on the app. It's much more suited developing a new apps that you want to be cross platform.

            As other posters poin

        • Not true, C# has been off of Windows for a long time by way of Mono.

          The conventional wisdom here has been that Mono is always a few steps behind MS's implementation of C#, so it's not fully compatible.

          I don't know if that still holds true, but it used to be the general understanding.

      • My only problem with C# is that pesky vendor lock in. For now, you gota run that on Windows. I don't mind Windows, but I do mind being forced to use it.

        Ermm..... C# and VB.NET are Apache-licensed, open-source projects, hosted on Github [github.com], built with Jenkins. running under Linux and Mac OS X as well as Windows. Forking is encouraged, pull requests are taken, and you can talk directly with the Microsoft people who're paid to work on this stuff in a Gitter chat room, through issues on Github, and so on.

        And yet people still drone on about vendor lock-in with these languages. Amazing how little fact-checking people do before posting sometimes.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by HiThere ( 15173 )

          If I read the article announcing the release correctly, then while the basic C# language is (probably) open source, it's definitely not free. You can't make a version of it without the agreement of MS, and the released version by MS is ... incomplete. Parts of it are portable, others aren't. So you can only use it as MS desires.

          IIRC the release agreement said something like "permission is given to any full and complete implementation that fully implements the specifications" I forget whether the specifi

      • C# isn't as limited anymore [hanselman.com]

  • little-known programming language (Score:4, Informative)

    by rossdee ( 243626 ) on Tuesday May 05, 2015 @12:37PM (#49621955)

    APL

  • A good point (Score:3)

    by grimmjeeper ( 2301232 ) on Tuesday May 05, 2015 @12:41PM (#49622015) Homepage

    The answer is a qualified yes—so long as the language or skill set in question is clearly on the rise.

    Very much this. There is a reason why I, and many of my colleagues, leave Ada off our resume. I know more than one person who's stuck doing maintenance work on defense projects that haven't been cutting edge for more than 20 years because they hitched their wagon to obsolete languages.

    The better companies are innovating and looking towards the future. Learning a new language that is on the rise is a good idea. Even if it doesn't pan out, the experience isn't always wasted. And you can demonstrate to future employers that you a good hire because you're good at learning new things in new environments.

    • The answer is a qualified yes—so long as the language or skill set in question is clearly on the rise.

      Very much this.

      Not just this... If it is rising faster in programmers then it is in the market (which happens a lot with highly hyped languages) than you will be in a flooded market. Unlike the "dieing" languages that keep people in them forever because the need is so great. Obsolete languages can pay VERY well, and you can take your pick of jabs and locations.

      • and you can take your pick of jabs and locations

        Ooooh ... poke me in the elbow again!!

      • and you can take your pick of jabs and locations.

        Yah, I could get one of dem dere jabs in Chicago. Den I could watch da Cubbies, da Bears and, of course, da Bulls. ;)

    • Question: is some other language actually replacing Ada for aerospace, DoD projects, and other mission-critical type projects, or is it you just don't want to work on those projects anymore?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rinikusu ( 28164 )

      Send me some job links. I'm in my 40s and looking to get off the cutting edge and settle down into maintenance mode code bases. I was *built* for drudge work.

  • Learn Forth now. Or something else.

  • Sure. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Tuesday May 05, 2015 @12:45PM (#49622055)

    Nice that TFA titled, "Should You Learn a Little-Known Programming Language?" shows a screenshot of JavaScript, but I digress.

    Little known languages aren't always actually little known or used, just less and/or not main-stream. They are often languages used in specialized areas or use less common syntax and or structure - like PROLOG and LISP. As such, using them can often help a programmer think and problem solve in new/different ways that may help programming in more common languages. I know learning LISP help my recursion skills.

    My LISP and PROLOG skills two are a bit rusty, but I've used (and was proficient with) several dialects of LISP and would probably enjoy a job using either language again.

  • Is the Lobster an auto-post? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Tuesday May 05, 2015 @12:46PM (#49622079)

    Every week I seem to see a slight variation on:
    "Is learning %s worth it?"
    "What is value of learning %s vs. %s?"
    "Would you learn %s to switch jobs?"

    I'm beginning to think this Dice account is just an autopost with a random list of possible values.

    • I've started wagering with myself about whether a particular "Slashdot article" will have a Dice link in it after reading the first line. I can guess with about 90% accuracy now.

  • Oldies but goodies (Score:3)

    by nhtshot ( 198470 ) on Tuesday May 05, 2015 @12:48PM (#49622097)

    I'm very well versed in PPC assembly. I've found a quite wonderful niche working on automotive controllers. I also have several subordinates well versed in Tricore (Infineon automotive CPU) assembly.

    Neither of those will ever make it onto any list of "popular" anything, but we all make plenty of money doing it.

    As important as those two languages are to what we do, I've never hired anyone that listed either of those things on their resume. The ones that did list them specifically had at best a rudimentary understanding and little other practical background that would make them useful.

    Don't learn something because you think you can make money with it. Learn something because you like it and want to use it. Then, find an employer that values your talents and willingness to learn whatever they need you to learn.

    That's the best path to a good paying job.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by JustNiz ( 692889 )

      Working in niche areas is great while it lasts (I know because I do too), but there's always a high chance that something new will entirely invalidate your niche's entire reason for existence within a year or two, especially if is all based around knowledge of one particularly obscure tool or technology.
      Enjoy the ride but stay fresh with other more geneally marketable skills too, so that when the bubble inevitably bursts you're still employable for youir other skills

  • Cobol -- there's old apps that keep on running that are valuable enough to companies to keep maintaining, yet they aren't willing to rewrite
    RPG4 -- same boat as Cobol--although arguably one of the least pleasant language environments
    CL -- many existing apps, plus there are companies writing brand new stuff with it, it's just as powerful as ever, and quite nice to work with
    I'm sure there are others

  • if its academic or for fun, yes.
    If its just to get a job then no, unless you want to gamble with the chance of getting a job in a niche market.

  • The question is "is it here to stay".

    Take Ruby on Rails. Was the craze not even half a decade ago. Everyone was on Rails. Too bad they led to the chasm and nobody bothered to build a bridge over it.

    So learning a language because some startups are crazy about it isn't worth it. But what is? How can you tell whether a language "gets big" or is a tempest in a teapot?

    Easy. It ain't the language, it's the people using it. It's the movers and shakers of an industry that decide what will grow and what will perish.

  • It's only the language that a company with a $700 Billion market cap has decided should be the way to go to program all of their mobile devices.

    If you play in the Apple ecosystem, then learning Swift is not "may be useful for a few years", it is a must for the future.

  • It's not about the nail (Score:4, Insightful)

    by __aabppq7737 ( 3995233 ) on Tuesday May 05, 2015 @12:54PM (#49622181)
    It's about training your mind to understand something hard. Learning a little language exercises will-power, discipline, and focus.

  • Lisp-likes and CS background (Score:5, Insightful)

    by chthon ( 580889 ) on Tuesday May 05, 2015 @01:01PM (#49622241) Journal

    Start with How to Design Programs [htdp.org] and work it through, from beginning to end, even if you are a good programmer.

    Then go to Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs [mit.edu]. Work through the chapters that you find interesting.

    Then start with learning Common Lisp. Even after 30 years existence, there is still no other programming language which implements everything that is possible with CL. There might be programming languages which are more specialised in certain language subsets that are also part of Common Lisp, but none includes everything that CL includes.

    Then learn Common Lisp macros, and realise that to get at the same level of possibilities in other programming languages, you need to embed a Lisp system. But that will be a slow interpreter, and Common Lisp can compile.

  • I explicitly will not hire any programmer who knows only one programming language (C and C++ count as 1 for that score.) Learning a different programming language introduces you to alternative ways to think about problems and solutions. Lisp or Scheme, Ada or Eiffel, COBOL or MUMPS, all provide a different perspective on software design, coding, test and integration.

    Too many hiring managers play "buzzword bingos" in search of "flying purple unicorns," candidates whose buzzwords match their current search

  • Learning new mindsets (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DarkDust ( 239124 ) <marc@darkdust.net> on Tuesday May 05, 2015 @01:02PM (#49622253) Homepage

    Over the years, I've worked with about 20 different languages. I learned a lot of them purely out of interest. Even if you won't need it for any "serious" or paying work, it can be useful to learn a new language that is different from the languages you know. For example, if you know C# you won't learn that much by working with Java; they're too similar. By contrast, if you try learning a language like Haskell or Go instead you'll get introduced to new ways of thinking.

    In almost all languages, there are things you can do easily or "naturally" in it. These language (and framework) features usually influence how you would design a program in that language. And it's these concepts that are worth learning. For example, when I learned Ruby and later Haskell, I learned how powerful concepts like map/select or working with closures are.

    This knowledge then transferred to the languages I usually work with; my designs in my "traditional" languages changed because of the things I learned while working with other languages.

    So even if the new language is not "one the rise" it might pay off by indirectly improving your skills in the languages that you do get paid for.

    • For example, if you know C# you won't learn that much by working with Java; they're too similar. By contrast, if you try learning a language like Haskell or Go instead you'll get introduced to new ways of thinking.

      "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing." — Alan Perlis

  • They might not be programming languages per se, but I've spent a lot of time with autohotkey, NSIS, apple applescript and the like. The one thing all of these have in common is quick, clean looking applications with a narrow degree of focus; automation and deployment.

    I've done some pretty nice tricks with them, mostly from a IT side of things. I've done a few applications with autohotkey. One startup I worked at couldn't really customize their helpdesk system, but wanted more info from tickets. I made

  • Sometimes (Score:3)

    by Necron69 ( 35644 ) <jscott.farrow@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Tuesday May 05, 2015 @01:06PM (#49622291)

    Several years ago, I fought tooth and nail over selecting the new test automation framework we were going to start using at work. I wanted a nice, modern, resume-building language like Python/Ruby/Java. What did they pick? - a legacy internal system written in Perl (and abandoned by the original author who had left the company).

    Over the last year, I've become a moderately skilled, OO Perl programmer, and it's worth six figures to me. Good enough. :)

    - Necron69

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by Marginal Coward ( 3557951 )

      To quote Adam Smith:

      THE five following are the principal circumstances which, so far as I have been able to observe, make up for a small pecuniary gain in some employments, and counterbalance a great one in others: first, the agreeableness or disagreeableness of the employments themselves; secondly, the easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and expense of learning them; thirdly, the constancy or inconstancy of employment in them; fourthly, the small or great trust which must be reposed in those who exercise them; and, fifthly, the probability or improbability of success in them.

      So, if you're making six figures writing Perl, are you sure you're being adequately compensated for its disagreeableness? :)

  • I'm a Salesforce.com developer, which uses Salesforce's custom language "Apex" as well as "VisuaForce". These two languages are bastardized versions of Java and JSP respectively. They are highly in demand because Salesforce enforces governor limits which enforces "best practices" to be followed. For example, you can only have 100 queries in a single run so you can't do a loop and query the datbase. I make mid 100k a year in southern California, but can demand more, especially if I wanted to do full time con

  • It's always worth learning a new way of thinking (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nickovs ( 115935 ) on Tuesday May 05, 2015 @01:07PM (#49622301)

    Even if you never make use of the new programming language it is almost always worth getting your head around a new way of thinking about problems. You may not ever need to write code in Lisp but understanding what a functional language is and isn't good for is helpful in other languages. If you're building flight control systems then Python might not be the language to do it in but getting deep into it and start understanding why you'd want a metaclass in the first place can help you stricture your code better. There aren't a ton of job openings for Erlang programmers but there are lots for people who understand High Availability and Disaster Recovery and the background knowledge will stand you in good stead.

    In short, yes, it's worth learning all the languages your brain can handle. Even if you forget the details the concepts will stick around and help you later.

  • Past paid experience with obscure and legacy languages saved my arse after the dot-com crash dumped tons of coders back into circulation on the west coast. I got no offers until I down-played my web experience and highlighted pre-web experience and languages. You never know what experience will come in handy. It's similar to investing advice: diversify your portfolio.

  • If you simply have intellectual curiosity, why not? But if you want to use your knowledge commercially, you might want to focus on languages that businesses actually use. A language is much more than a set of syntax, it's an ecosystem. Try finding code snips on StackOverflow for your new language...good luck with that! The majority of the benefit of using a particular language is not the syntax, but the community support.

  • REXX RULZ! (Score:3)

    by ArhcAngel ( 247594 ) on Tuesday May 05, 2015 @01:28PM (#49622537)
    You can't go wrong with REXX [rexxla.org]

  • Nope (Score:3)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Tuesday May 05, 2015 @01:29PM (#49622553) Homepage Journal
    You get typecast. You could have 3 decades of C/C++ and mention that you studied APL for one semester in college and all the calls you'll get will be for APL jobs. I don't even list LISP on my resume, even though I became enlightened in LISP in the 90's. With LISP, enlightenment is a heady feeling where you suddenly see the elegance with which everything fits together, followed by the sinking realization that if you want to actually do anything with the language you'd have to write all the libraries yourself.

  • As always, the answer is "it depends on a lot of things":

    1. Is the language little-used because it's a special-purpose language? UnrealScript probably doesn't crack the top twenty as far as general programming languages go, but in the game dev field it's probably one of the biggest. Using a specialized language for a specialized task is fine - usually even a good thing.

    2. Is the language little-used, but library-compatible with a more common language? Clojure is a rare language, but it can call Java librari

  • I'll assume the main reason to do this is to get a job, one that in particular advertises for a specific set of skills. One of which is an obscure programming language. Unless you have nothing to do it's probably more worth your time to spend a day before said interview learning enough to fake it. If you want to lie or be honest about this on your resume or in your interview that's up to you and how well you think you can pull that off but if you want your resume to get past HR and make a short list AN

  • Predicting the future is hard and often just look. But you might want to learn an new paradigm. E.g. functional programming. If you haven't done, it will be eye opening. Or a different environment, esp. if you have only programmed in a MS environment look at non-MS languages and IDEs. People who can work in both are in the biggest demand. Or network databses vs relational databases (though you can build a network schema in a RDB, since a network is a relation), etc.

    Look for differences and analogies and ana

  • I think most languages are the same. There is a productivity vs. speed tradeoff, but:

    A functional programming style, can be done in C if you just accept that minimizing global variables and pass functions by their pointers. Learning a functional language is likely to improve your C style and pointer management faster than how you might develop a functional style out of your own assumptions of what it might mean.

    Class based OOP programming can also be done with C implementations. The only benefit of OOP i

  • Yes (Score:2)

    by jgotts ( 2785 )

    I'm firmly in the yes camp.

    Since I began programming in 1985, I've encountered dozens of languages. The popularity of every language waxes and wanes, and occasionally it will wax and wane a second time (perhaps like Java is doing today). Programming languages never completely disappear, but the trend in usefulness of languages is on the rise due to more sophisticated toolkits.

    Knowing these facts, it's never a bad thing to learn a new programming language. Since languages never completely disappear, you neve

  • I was lucky enough to learn how to program in Neuron Data's toolkits before the 1.0 release of the GUI components were released to the public. I rode that gravy train for about 15 years before the market imploded, with a peak of $120/hr. in the mid-late '90s.

    But I didn't choose that route -- I got lucky that something I knew well turned out to have relatively high demand (at least compared to the number of people who really knew that tool well.) I could just have easily been unlucky enough to learn one

  • Is Java really a programming language? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by IWantMoreSpamPlease ( 571972 ) on Tuesday May 05, 2015 @04:36PM (#49624173) Homepage Journal

    Or is it a punishment?

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