How To Pick A Programming Language

Tim Daneliuk (tundra@tundraware.com) (Originally posted on comp.lang.python, 1 May, 2002) Copyright © 2002 TundraWare Inc. Permission to freely reproduce this material is hereby granted under the following conditions: 1) The material must be reproduced in its entirely without modification, editing, condensing, or any change. 2) No fee may be charged for the dissemination of this material. Commercial use such as publishing this material in a book or anthology is expressly forbidden. 3) Full attribution of the author and source of this material must be included in the reproduction.



This was written in response to one of the inevitable "Why programming language is better, x or y?" questions that pops up with great regularity on USENET. I thought I'd take a stab at answering it for all time ...

Let L be the set of all programming languages ever conceived past, present, and future. The meta-question, M, thus becomes:

Among all members of L, which is the "best" and thus, which should I learn and use?

A variant of M, let's call it M', is:

Is L(x) "better" than L(y)?

Let P be the purpose for which you wish to learn a "best" language.

Let A be the answer to M or M' with condition P as a constraint. A is thus the following set:



1) P = "I am interested in the design of languages and/or language theory."

Learn as many members of L as time permits. Do not pollute L with your own ideas until you really understand what you are doing and what has already been done. Then do so only if you are convinced you can materially add to the state-of-the-art with original and useful work. The world does not need another language just so you can prove that you understand LR(1) grammars. Implement a subset of at least one existing language yourself to see just how hard this is to do well.



2) P = "My current language is too slow/big in its appointed task."

Most of the time, these problems have a lot more to do with poor programming and algorithm/data structure design than they do the language. Really get under the covers of your programming style and design approach before you abandon the language you currently know best. Read Bentley's "Programming Pearls." Learn to use a profiler. Consider optimizations which merely replace the slow/big portions of the code with something written in a naturally faster/smaller language.



3) P = "I have a specialty problem domain which is not well addressed by a general purpose programming language."

Research what has already been done. You can often find close enough matches to your problem within other problem domains to get something useful done. If there really is nothing useful out there, strongly consider using one of the extant scripting languages to build a "little language" of your own which addresses your problem area. If all else fails, ignore 1) above, and invent your own language, but keep it as small and simple as possible, or you'll spend less time on your chosen problem area and most of your time maintaining your new language.



4) P = "I need to become/stay employable."

Survey common practice in your profession of choice and determine the most common operating systems, GUIs, and languages already in use and the probable evolution of these items in the next several ears. Based on this information, you should select one procedural language, one object language, one scripting language, and, possibly, one assembly language which will comprise your core skill set. In selecting these, also consider the availability of supporting tools like standard libraries, debuggers, language-sensitive editors, profilers, and so on. If you have some choice of languages, always prefer those that share a common link format and have compatible inter-language calling APIs. If it comes down to a tie, pick the older language because it will almost always have fewer bugs.



5) P = "I want to write 'portable' code."

Warning: Computer Science Heresey follows. I've already been burned at the stake in this matter, so put your matches away.

Code 'portability' is overrated. Way more important is the portability of your programming skills. Languages come and go (well, they never really go, do they), but a good programmer expresses themselves well in pretty much any language. This comes with time, experience, reading other people's very good code and doing it wrong over and over again. The most portable language in the world can't help you if you don't understand algorithms, data structures, object decomposition, and how to trade off between them. Writing truly 'portable' code has as much to do with your understanding of the underlying operating environments (hardware, OS, network, I/O, and GUI) as it does with the language in question.

There are, of course, cases where portability is very important. For example, if you are writing commercial software which must run on lots of different platforms for your company to succeed. In that case, first see if you can find cross-platform library support so you don't have to do it all yourself.



6) P = "I want to make lots of money."

Quit programming. Become a rock star, actor, or corrupt politician. The odds of getting rich in these fields, however slight, are probably better than in programming.



7) P = "I've heard that OO is the way to do things, so I want the best OO language."

OO is one way to crack a problem. It is not the only way. More importantly, it is often not a good way. A solid OO language should be in your bag of tricks, but it's not the only thing you will need.



8) P = "I've heard that AI is the way to do things, so I want the best AI language."



See 7) above.



9) P = "I want to produce code faster."



Type faster. It doesn't matter what you type because if speed is your goal you'll just become expert at writing buggy code, so why bother with syntax and semantics at all? Correct code is always produced by people who are thoughtful and deliberate about what they are doing. Oh, and in the long run, they're almost always faster getting things done too.



10) P = "I want the <gender/species> of choice to like me and be impressed enough to go out with me."



See 6) above.



11) P = "The system I must use prescribes a vendor-defined language and tool set. I want other choices."



See if there are Open Source or alternative vendor choices for that platform. If not, master the languages/tools on that platform then broaden your horizons as a matter of professional pride and employability. See 4) above.



12) P = "I'm very nerdy. All I like to do is code on as many different platforms with as many different languages as I can. My Resume' is 14 pages long. I have not been out of the house since 1982. Please help."



Get a life. Read some poetry, or better still, write some (without using curly braces or semicolons). Learn a musical instrument that does not require electricity in any form. Get a low-tech hobby like gardening or sewing. You are an Addict - I feel your pain. As a recovery strategy, consider volunteering your skills to a cause that's worth your time and effort and which requires you to interact with people who have absolutely no clue how a computer works. Try not to be a jerk when the local minister does not grasp the elegance of your finely tuned LaTeX macro for generating the Sunday Bulletin. Do something good for your body and your spirit. I strongly recommend at least one high-activity sport (channel surfing does not qualify) and shooting semi-automatic handguns (at paper targets in a legal manner) as excellent mind-clearing tools. Collect something other than computer manuals.



13) P = "I want to be famous."

Rob a bank and get caught. OR Write a ton of really useful code and then give it away.



14) P = "I'm bored, I need a new challenge."

If you already know more than 5 languages, consider joining the Navy SEALs - they are very busy at the moment and are always looking for an Adventurer just like you. If you are over 19 and this is therefore impractical, get married and raise children. You will never be bored.



Tim Daneliuk

"Bach, Sig-Sauer, Gibson Guitars, Python, & My Table Saw Made Me What I Am Today."

