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Survey Results

What is the best starting language for a new developer?   [Edit]

Survey period: 7 Apr 2008 to 14 Apr 2008

Some developers start with scripting and move to high level languages, while other start with ASM and continue from there. What do you think is best way to start? (Suggested by Christiaan Rakowski)

OptionVotes% 
Assembler (any flavour)512.43
C30614.59
C++28713.68
C# / Java69633.17
Lisp150.71
Pascal / Modula / Delphi1266.01
Python361.72
VBScript241.14
Visual Basic26912.82
The first language will depend on what area the developer will want to work24111.49

View optional text answers (93 answers)


 
GeneralRe: Sacrilege! Pin
W Balboos, GHB7-Apr-08 4:30
W Balboos, GHB7-Apr-08 4:30 
GeneralRe: Sacrilege! Pin
chaiguy13377-Apr-08 4:22
chaiguy13377-Apr-08 4:22 
GeneralRe: Sacrilege! Pin
W Balboos, GHB7-Apr-08 4:32
W Balboos, GHB7-Apr-08 4:32 
GeneralRe: Sacrilege! Pin
chaiguy13377-Apr-08 4:33
chaiguy13377-Apr-08 4:33 
GeneralRe: Sacrilege! Pin
Luc Pattyn7-Apr-08 0:10
sitebuilderLuc Pattyn7-Apr-08 0:10 
GeneralRe: Sacrilege! Pin
Mark_Wallace7-Apr-08 1:29
Mark_Wallace7-Apr-08 1:29 
GeneralRe: Sacrilege! Pin
chaiguy13377-Apr-08 4:26
chaiguy13377-Apr-08 4:26 
GeneralRe: Sacrilege! Pin
Mark_Wallace8-Apr-08 1:18
Mark_Wallace8-Apr-08 1:18 
logan1337 wrote:
There's very little about Java I like.


Now there's a statement that I can totally get behind.

I think what I hate most about it (jar files are fine, in Windows -- you just double-click 'em and they're almost like real programs!) is the mentality behind it, which shows up in things like naming conventions.

Here's an actual statement I wrote as part of a sample prog for customers, using our own API (so I didn't have much choice about names):

Installation installation = installations.getInstallation(INSTALLATION);

My first pro language was COBOL; I would have summarily executed anyone who had named things so badly that such a line could exist, but such naming seems almost compulsory to Java programmers.


The other biggie is the almost anal attraction to doing things in the most complicated and cumbersome possible way -- usually to avoid using anything to do with Windows.

For example, about six weeks ago, a colleague was tasked with automating part of our release notes documentation, so he fired off with Java, then of course had to get XML involved, and that led on to DocBook, etc. etc. etc, and needed half a dozen engineers to contribute a ridiculous amount of time each.

Last week, I got sick of waiting, so I rattled of a VB Word macro that does the whole thing at the click of a button in a Word doc. It took 7.5 hours (tables and various template-specific text styles are involved, so it's reasonably complicated) (Look at me: I'm ashamed that it took me so long!)

The idiot's colleague's response to this?
"Yeah, but my way, it would have been perfect!"

I agreed. It was a perfect waste of time, effort, and (lots of) money -- and is now scrapped, because we already have the perfect, simple, 7.5-man-hour-total-cost solution.


So yeah, you can say this again for me:
logan1337 wrote:
There's very little about Java I like.

GeneralRe: Sacrilege! Pin
chaiguy13378-Apr-08 4:40
chaiguy13378-Apr-08 4:40 

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