15 replies to this topic

[Pally]

Was doing some reading, I'm learning a little lisp on the side

 

anyways lisp has by several been claimed to be THE most productive language in existence for programming with.

 

if we let the definition of most productive be a language such that gets our ideas from beginning into a finish program faster than any other language that exists...

 

What is in your opinion the most productive programming language.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I'm unsure how you overcome the problems that seem obvious such as obviously one language can do low level more productively where another might do networking more productively so its rather contradicting.. I'll let you guys work out the bugs I guess

[BlackRabbit]

This is a very nice topic and question.

 

As your proposed terms are about quick finishing your program, I think I stick with .NET, c# particularly, in my case. It's very good to make speedy development and it performs if you know what to use and how to do it.

I prefer it rather than Java,Delphi (c++ builder in my case ), c++, etc.

I don't know python, I've heard nice things about it too.

 

I guess web oriented languages were left out of this discussion, were they?

[Pally]

I guess web oriented languages were left out of this discussion, were they?

 

I'd like to include web as well, I've heard ASP is very productive with regards but I never used it

 

 

the ideal productive language does NOT necessary need to the best at anything either which is an interesting distinction since the goal is productivity as a trade off as for being the best at a specialty.

 

I'd personally like something that is super productive and performs many features(networking, GUI, low level memory access).. again the paradox being how can something be very productive if the library gets to big and hard/more to understand and learn(JAVA for example with EE)... I think python matches this paragraph best at fulfilling what I've defined

 

I keep seeing the theme, many contradictions to make a productive language.

 

 

I'm really interested in lesser known languages as well.. LISP is all the rave between the few who know it... most people will go try to argue whats most productive in regards to languages that are popular and heavily used but I'm also so curious what little gems are out there.

 

 

I'd love to program my own language one day for fun, doesn't even need to be good.. just to do it.. I really don't know where you'd start though should I learn compiler programming first?

Edited by Pally, 05 March 2013 - 08:48 PM.

[DragonEgghead]

I usually turn to Python for most of my scripting needs, but I also likd VB.net.

[BenW]

I have zero experience with Lisp, so I don't know how it relates to anything else, but a PHP programmer I used to work with said that Ruby on Rails massively sped up dev time for him.

[Evan]

I think anything that has a good standard library is pretty productive. The killer of productivity is when you need some core functionality and have to write it yourself. Like a linked list or map, etc...

Ofcause; sometimes just because you can write something in Java using a sockets api quicker than C++ doesn't mean by the end of the project it was the more productive solution.

[Yannbane]

I think anything that has a good standard library is pretty productive. The killer of productivity is when you need some core functionality and have to write it yourself. Like a linked list or map, etc...

Ofcause; sometimes just because you can write something in Java using a sockets api quicker than C++ doesn't mean by the end of the project it was the more productive solution.

That begs the question: what is a good standard library? One with lots of features? One that is well-written and efficient? One that is easy to use?

For example, C++ has a pretty large standard library, with loads of features. But due to backwards compatibility with C, its naming conventions are rather user unfriendly and inconsistent (all hail the Great Consonant!)...

I don't think the standard library is a deciding factor in here. I think it's more about expressiveness.

For example, I'm not sure whether JavaScript's (Node.js') stdlib has a tenth of features that C++/Java stdlibs have. That's not to say it's standard library is lacking, because most of the important features are actually inherent to the language itself.

When you look at it that way, you could almost conclude that C++ and Java are lacking in contrast to JavaScript, and that their standard libraries are merely compensations that still don't meet the greatness of JavaScript's inherent expressiveness.

Edited by Yannbane, 06 March 2013 - 08:43 AM.

[Pally]

That begs the question: what is a good standard library? One with lots of features? One that is well-written and efficient? One that is easy to use?

For example, C++ has a pretty large standard library, with loads of features. But due to backwards compatibility with C, its naming conventions are rather user unfriendly and inconsistent (all hail the Great Consonant!)...

I don't think the standard library is a deciding factor in here. I think it's more about expressiveness.

For example, I'm not sure whether JavaScript's (Node.js') stdlib has a tenth of features that C++/Java stdlibs have. That's not to say it's standard library is lacking, because most of the important features are actually inherent to the language itself.

When you look at it that way, you could almost conclude that C++ and Java are lacking in contrast to JavaScript, and that their standard libraries are merely compensations that still don't meet the greatness of JavaScript's inherent expressiveness.

Very nice point you've made

 

something you said made me realize also, I did some Unity programming.. it was amazing how much you can get done so easily with just using Javascript as a language.. the engine does all the hard work but your mostly just using javascript to express your ideas as you mentioned.. yet now I'm stepping out of a language discussion and into an engine discussion which may be unacceptable.

 

 

 

 

 

This is a very nice topic and question.

 

As your proposed terms are about quick finishing your program, I think I stick with .NET, c# particularly, in my case. It's very good to make speedy development and it performs if you know what to use and how to do it.

 

Thats good to hear about C#... another soon to be adventure of mine since getting into .NET should double my marketability

[Evan]

I think Phython then has a good claim, very rich library, and very rich syntax.

[lespauled]

Have a look at F#.

 

Check out this post on the differences in the same project written in F# and C#.  Very interesting.

 

http://www.simontyle...difference.html

[Pally]

Have a look at F#.

 

Check out this post on the differences in the same project written in F# and C#.  Very interesting.

 

http://www.simontyle...difference.html

This sparks another controversy in my mind

 

C# is an Iterative language

F# is functional

 

So when we discuss most productive which type of programming language is most productive then

 

more issues to deal with

[Evan]

according to the wikki page on F#, its actually a multi-paradigm language; so it can be adapted easily to many situations (i guess.)<br /><br />Still, without thinking about a specific domain of problems its hard to really nail what a productive language is. Some problems lend themselves to functional style, some to OO, some to procedural etc. A language with the best fit to the problem will give you a productivity boost.