Languages for 2015
Inspired by Richard Astbury’s post, entitled Langages, I’ve come up with my own take on the state of languages for 2015 with respect to what I’d like to work on this year. As with Astbury, I’ll add a disclaimer that this post is “opinionated, poorly researched, and really just the thoughts in my head.” Going to start with the same list. Cheers!
C#
No intention of going in this direction. I hear that it’s actually not that bad, but at this point I think it’s too tightly coupled with Microsoft and I have an allergy. To be fair, though, I do hear that Microsoft is doing cool things - of late.
no
F#
Functional is way cooler, but I don’t want to associate myself with the oil and gas industry.
no
Javascript/iojs
What I know and breathe. I should probably contribute more to open source and stuff, but I really miss using a language with rich data constructs. I’m going on tour for 2015 and I get enough javascript in the office that I don’t think I have the option of missing out on this. I’ll have to check out iojs when I finish my tour.
not in 2015
Julia
I like it so far. I’m afraid of missing features and it becoming too ruby-like. I think I’m going for more structure up-front to start with. Going to revisit the idea of building projects for this, but… perhaps next year.
not in 2015
Java
So Greg, our DSL-designer and PhD in languages, has convinced me that Java is not as terrible as I believe it to be and that mostly the problem lies in the fact that wide-spread use allows for a lot of shit programmers get their hands on it. I am looking forward to being proven wrong, but I’ll keep this only as required in the office… and perhaps build another Android app on the side to brush-up (Austin says that Davlik is a steaming pile of shit, though).
a small project and work in 2015
Clojure
Sounds pretty grand for large-scale data projects, it’s something we use in the office and by cousin swears by it for her job at Amazon - she’s a former computational statistician and a resident data scientist at Amazon. Perhaps, but not really too invested since I’ve got some scala under my belt already and I want to continue down that road.
not in 2015?
Scala
Already started on this, looks pretty sweet, I like that a number of projects have been built in this. I’d like to do a project here with Akka.
yes - month-long projects
Ruby
A hot mess of features with too little structure, too little performance, and too little use outside of web servers. Sorry, but I’ve never been a fan.
never
Common Lisp
So interesting! I mean it’s definitely worth doing if you are going to start with emacs, which I have just kicked up. I like the idea… but perhaps not this year.
till next time
Go
Go surprised me, I have no idea what happened, but all of a sudden it’s big. Too soon to know if it’s worth the time. Not in 2015 for me.
not in 2015
Python
Python has shot itself in the foot with the 2.7/3.3 split. It’s pretty much fucked I think and will lose a lot of audience to - hopefully - julia. It’s so easy though… not really work learning since python is like reading a breezy book and I need something more to grow.
no
Haskell
In progress. just starting off by doing all project euler problems in this - then all my data analysis and ML projects.
yes
Erlang
Haskell seems too similar regarding end-goals. Perhaps if I hit another hardcore-functional kick.
not in 2015
Elm
Only if the office allows. Other than that… too much work.
not really...
PHP
So… apparently a lot of good things exist now that rectify PHP. I will still judge you if you want to use this language.
no
C
Too much work, too little output. nope.
no
C++
Perhaps. That’s a big mountain to climb for a side project, the allure of having all the options you’d ever need with all the speed in the world. Perhaps.
perhaps
Rust
There’s a huge fascination in the community. I have too much on my plate at the moment. If i start looking into one of the ‘maybe’s above, I’ll go over this in more detail.
reevaluate later
Nim
Same as rust.
D
Same as Rust and Nim.
Rackett
Did some work in Rackett in 2014. Fun stuff but not for this year.
SML
Worked though A programming class in SML. Again, fun! but as a one-time deal.
Smalltalk
I’d love to research this as a case-study of the ‘what happened to this language’ line of thought. If I had the time!
Conclusion
Continuing my experiments in Haskell, going to move on to Scala for the webserver support, then consider moving into C++, Nim, Rust or Julia. Work will still be Javascript and Java this year.