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DumbassCash · Aug 10, 2003, 12:01 AM

What is your favorite programming or scripting language?

Mine would be Python.

yeslekmc · Aug 10, 2003, 05:19 AM

C# (even though it's not available on the Mac platform... --yet!)

Chuckit · Aug 10, 2003, 06:10 AM

Originally posted by yeslekmc:
C# (even though it's not available on the Mac platform... --yet!)

Actually, it is, though pretty much only in the same sense that Objective-C is available on Linux.

By the way, why is the OPer Baninated?

Richard Edgar · Aug 10, 2003, 09:23 AM

What is your favorite programming or scripting language?

Surely that depends on what the situation demands. When it comes to string handling, PERL slices, dices and does many other things which you never even knew you might wish to do. However, I wouldn't choose to write a parallel numeric code in PERL.

DaGuy · Aug 10, 2003, 01:59 PM

Code:

If (Favorite == the_one_that_pays_the_bills){
     language = Java
}
else{

     if( Favorite == fun){
         language = objectiveC
     }
     else{
         languague = Perl
     }

}

Arkham_c · Aug 15, 2003, 01:56 PM

In a perfect world I'd write Python all day long. It's simple, effective and elegant.

But in the real world I write java. It's better than Perl or C++ (the other real-world choices where I work), and overall I like it pretty well.

Sometimes I write stuff in REALBasic, because I can build a working app with a GUI in like 10 minutes, and sometimes I just whip up a shell script, but I wouldn't say either is my "favorite" language, though they might be my language of choice for a specific task.

ambush · Aug 15, 2003, 07:15 PM

I like C because it's so straight forward and Obj-C cause it's so much fun (when coupled with Cocoa)

Catfish_Man · Aug 16, 2003, 01:39 PM

Objective-C/Cocoa. Fun, powerful, easy.

Thinine · Aug 16, 2003, 02:31 PM

Fortran!

Damn simple syntax and I'm good enough to generate some fairly elegant code with it.

DaGuy · Aug 16, 2003, 03:19 PM

Originally posted by Thinine:
Fortran!

Damn simple syntax and I'm good enough to generate some fairly elegant code with it.

How do you run it on OSX?

Richard Edgar · Aug 16, 2003, 03:47 PM

How do you run it on OSX?

By compiling it perhaps? There's g77, or Absoft.

depolitic · Aug 17, 2003, 11:30 PM

I love mark up languages most of all, HTML, and XML. It is what stated first of all and I always liked the basic concept of Mark up. Now I know that technically HTML and XML are not programming languages, because they are not able to execute control flow statements. I have been working with Expression Language found in JSP, now that is a cool language.

I will say that I have been learning Java, and have found the concepts of OOP really amazing. The more more I learn them more I become amazed at the simple power of OOP languages. <b>I cannot wait for Java 3.</b>

I will tell you two languages that I dislike are JavaScript and PHP. JavaScript is to unpredictable in response, and a new generation of browsers just keep breaking old code. JavaScript is a victim of the browser wars. PHP, was my last favorite language, before I discovered Java, and once I learned Java, I came to see that PHP is just a very wordy language. I also could just not wrap my head around OOP in PHP. unlike Java which I found remarkable simple with its dot syntax, class and package structures.

So in final analyzes I love Java the most, but think that we humans have not yet discovered the most powerful language for the expression for the condition.

Thinine · Aug 18, 2003, 12:59 AM

How do you run it on OSX?

I don't! g77 only supports Fortran 77 (I use Fortran 90) and Absoft's compiler is $3k! So I telnet into an Alpha box with Compaq's Fortran compiler. Works pretty well. Hopefully IBM will port their compilers and my university can get a G5.

joltguy · Aug 18, 2003, 07:51 AM

Java.

Anything and everything, anywhere and anytime. (How's that for marketing spin?)

DaGuy · Aug 18, 2003, 11:18 AM

Originally posted by Thinine:
I don't! g77 only supports Fortran 77 (I use Fortran 90) and Absoft's compiler is $3k! So I telnet into an Alpha box with Compaq's Fortran compiler. Works pretty well. Hopefully IBM will port their compilers and my university can get a G5.

Exactly...

I wonder what the technical difficulty is/are in regards to porting the latest public domain Fortran compilers? Is it licensing? It seems that most Unix flavors come with some degree of Fortran support out of the box. I don't get what's up with Apple, in this sense. The scientific market still loves fortran. So, why let that, out of all things, be something holding back some switchers?

Thinine · Aug 18, 2003, 03:04 PM

Originally posted by DaGuy:
Exactly...

I wonder what the technical difficulty is/are in regards to porting the latest public domain Fortran compilers? Is it licensing? It seems that most Unix flavors come with some degree of Fortran support out of the box. I don't get what's up with Apple, in this sense. The scientific market still loves fortran. So, why let that, out of all things, be something holding back some switchers?

Actually, there are no open-source Fortran 90 currently available. There is an effort underway to build one from scratch for gcc, but progress on that is slow. Aside from that, which is useless, the only F90 compilers available for OS X are Absoft's and NAGware's, both of which are extremely expensive, even academically.

Richard Edgar · Aug 19, 2003, 10:35 AM

There is an effort underway to build one from scratch for gcc, but progress on that is slow.

I'm considering opening a book on which will appear first - g95, or the F2K standard....

11011001 · Aug 21, 2003, 06:19 PM

Hmm, favorite language.. probably Java, because I got really comfortable with it.

The more I know a language, the more I like it.

Hmm, FORTRANs not a bad language in general, but I have had to modify some horribly programmed programs that made extensive use of GOTOs. I now have an impression of what hell for a programmer might be like. :shudder:

damosan · Aug 23, 2003, 10:01 PM

Lisp has to be my favorite language. The things I normally code in are VB, VB.NET, C++, and SQL. For my personal hacking fun I go back to Lisp.

DaGuy · Aug 24, 2003, 12:02 AM

Originally posted by damosan:
Lisp has to be my favorite language. The things I normally code in are VB, VB.NET, C++, and SQL. For my personal hacking fun I go back to Lisp.

Lisp is something that I've thinking about learning. What's an easy free way to play with it on OSX?

lacrymology · Aug 27, 2003, 09:46 AM

Originally posted by DaGuy:
Lisp is something that I've thinking about learning. What's an easy free way to play with it on OSX?

Well, there is always Emacs, which has a Lisp implementation built in. Also, you can d/l a free trial of Franz's IDE for OSX at http://www.franz.com/downloads/

CLisp http://sourceforge.net/projects/clisp/ may compile on OSX, but I personally haven't tried.

If you want to learn Scheme, which is a close cousin to Lisp, then http://www.drscheme.org/ is one of the best IDEs that I've seen... and it runs in OSX!

-m

DaGuy · Aug 27, 2003, 11:21 AM

Cool, thanks!

DaGuy · Aug 28, 2003, 02:45 AM

Here are the new additions to the family!

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=174240

asmodeus · Aug 30, 2003, 12:21 PM

Throughout Uni I've mostly only ever had to touch Java. It's getting kind of boring and stale for me though, but I do like it quite a lot.

I bought C# In A Nutshell since it was on sale (I guess a new edition is coming out soon) and looked like it focused on more of the base libraries and languages, with very little in the way of MS-centric stuff - so far I'm really liking it, and am going to try it out with Mono on my Redhat PC.

I haven't touched Objective-C/Cocoa in a while due to assignments and stuff, but it was pretty neat. I didn't use it enough to get an opinion one way or the other, just made a heap of examples from books and a tic-tac-toe game.

Python also looks interesting, but I've spent very little time with it, just doing some simple language tests.

1c3 · Sep 4, 2003, 04:18 PM

/me loves PHP^^

wadesworld · Sep 5, 2003, 12:14 PM

Hopefully IBM will port their compilers and my university can get a G5.

They did.

See:

http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp...S_TACT=&S_CMP=

Wade

Thinine · Sep 5, 2003, 12:50 PM

Yeah, free Fortran compiler! Now if only they stay free!