water cooler :: Python surpasses Perl
I went from Bash ->Perl -> C.
Of course, C only *looks* less intimidating. A simple language that's, umm, well, infamously not so simple to debug - to the point of hair pulling, head banging etc - which is not to say it isn't extremely beautiful and wonderful (it is).
I like this page :=)
http://www.andromeda.com/people/ddyer/topten.html
Interestingly, Linux Torvalds recently ranted against C++. I guess when you're as fluent in C as he'd be, you perhaps don't really need C++.
In prehistory for me there was Fortran->Pascal->Assembly->(many years hiatus)->bash->Perl->C
Fortran? Ouch!
We're talking about the olden days here :=)
As a student I found Assembly to be the most frustrating - 6 lines of code to add two digits together, or something. Mind you, my interest in these things is on a different plain altogether these days. I'd probably react quite differently now.
Funnily enough, Fortran's never gone away and Pascal (originally designed as a teaching languange to give students good programming principles) has made a big comeback, among other things, in writing high end games. Not that I use these languages now.
Raving on here: I saw a post on Slashdot or somehwere by someone who claimed all the women programmers he knew worked in Fortran.
I was thinking that, if there was any truth in this, it may be because Fortran has traditionally been heavily used by applied mathematicians, and perhaps some of the women working in programming have that background. Only a theory.
The first six years of my career were spent doing Assembly language programming. Business Applications, typically accounts receiveables, payroll, inventory control. Back then, early seventies, memory was so expensive.
Then I moved on to COBOL. Wrote large system packages for specialized industries, e.g., route accounting, garmet industry, theatre tickets. Did many systems in Databasic (Pick OS) while I was at the City of Garden Grove.
When micro processors came onto the scene, I got into 6502 assembly.
It wasn't until the PC came along that I was able to enjoy many of the languages offered today. I was on usenet grabbing minix when it was a floppy only system. Had to write C to make it do more. Of course Bash, sed, awk, et al. Having fun with UUCP. Was a Coherent Unix UUCP member.
I always loved exploring languages from common popular ones to little known ones, like COMAL. A Dutch language for the IBM PC, manual was in Dutch. It also became popular on Commodore computers. I got to meet the Dutchman who created COMAL. Several Comal programs I wrote got published in their magazine.
Then got into Perl, web interface to Pick OS, then Python. Much Java both server side, replaced Perl sockets, and client side (swing). Also got into tuple space programming with Java Spaces. Then moved on to tcl/tk. Then heavily used PHP in several dot.coms. Loved Ruby and now enjoying Lua/LuaFltk.
Yea, I am an old guy, from punched card and punched paper tape to flash drives. What a ride it has been. And never to old to learn and still having fun.
Great diverse background that you bring to DSL Robert, we're lucky to have you! Never underestimate the value of diverse experience.
As you know, I'm also an oldie by comparison with most users here I suppose, though it's not always easy (and generally not relevant) to guess the ages of the users. I'm sure we have a few much older users here, too.
I have wondered if the majority of DSL users fall into any particular generalisations eg I guess there would be a good percentage of Comp Sci undergrads and more than a few SysAdmins who like to fool around with DSL. And a good many enthusiasts who do not work in the industry at all. And, I'd wager, a few high school kids. We've had one or two women who have declared themselves as such, and one or two who've identified themselves as professional programmers.
A demographic poll could be interesting.
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