Help me choose my next language!

[Aho]

Flash is a buggy piece of crap that's already being phased out and almost nobody thinks is the best solution for anything anymore, Java is not a web design language, it's a JIT-compiled language featuring object-oriented paradigms and garbage collection. They were referring to JavaScript, which is also a terrible language. PHP is too.

 

Honestly Rails or Django are far better than PHP and its associated frameworks. You're just making your life harder by forcing yourself to use bad languages. With JavaScript you almost have no choice, though Dart is probably a better option considering Chrome and Google's dominance. 

 

PHP is a terrible language when put into the hands of a bad developer, as is any other language. The Laravel framework is just about on par with Rails, with the biggest advantage to RoR being the number of gems it has available.

 

Why the heck are people here recommending server-side languages anyways? Unless the OP wants to become a full-stack developer, there's no reason to learn PHP, Java, Ruby, or anything related.

 

Just focus on JavaScript and possibly, as I recommended earlier, SASS/Compass.

[Builder]

PHP is a terrible language when put into the hands of a bad developer, as is any other language. The Laravel framework is just about on par with Rails, with the biggest advantage to RoR being the number of gems it has available.

The problem with PHP is that it's just a bad language period though. It's much harder to write good PHP than it is to write good Ruby.

 

http://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/

 

I can’t even say what’s wrong with PHP, because— okay. Imagine you have uh, a toolbox. A set of tools. Looks okay, standard stuff in there.

 

You pull out a screwdriver, and you see it’s one of those weird tri-headed things. Okay, well, that’s not very useful to you, but you guess it comes in handy sometimes.

 

You pull out the hammer, but to your dismay, it has the claw part on both sides. Still serviceable though, I mean, you can hit nails with the middle of the head holding it sideways.

 

You pull out the pliers, but they don’t have those serrated surfaces; it’s flat and smooth. That’s less useful, but it still turns bolts well enough, so whatever.

 

And on you go. Everything in the box is kind of weird and quirky, but maybe not enough to make it completely worthless. And there’s no clear problem with the set as a whole; it still has all the tools.

 

Now imagine you meet millions of carpenters using this toolbox who tell you “well hey what’s the problem with these tools? They’re all I’ve ever used and they work fine!” And the carpenters show you the houses they’ve built, where every room is a pentagon and the roof is upside-down. And you knock on the front door and it just collapses inwards and they all yell at you for breaking their door.

 

That’s what’s wrong with PHP.

[Nuluvius]

PHP is a terrible language when put into the hands of a bad developer, as is any other language.

 

Agreed, I've had the misfortune to witness first hand examples. Oh the pain of those days will stay with me to my grave.

[Maximation]

I can't say I'd use Dart because of Google's dominance, no, I don't like them, but hopefully it will foster better languages for the browser just as Chrome fostered better browsers. What I meant now is that Google will probably put a Dart runtime into Chrome at some point and even before that it compiles into JavaScript. They may have already done so, I'm not a big Chrome guy.

 

I'll admit there aren't very many alternatives to JavaScript, which is a shame because it sucks. When I say it sucks I mean the syntax is terrible. In short, it borrows too much syntactically from C. It was also built in 10 days by Brandon Eich, and even he doesn't think it's very good, you can read more on it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2057565

 

It was kind of a hack that wasn't meant to last 20 years and as a result we're using a poorly designed scripting language as a standard in our web browsers instead of whatever we choose to. Source-to-source implementations for languages like Dart are the future, because it will be almost impossible to uproot JavaScript. Eventually there will be JavaScript byte code compile targets for every major language and we can stop bitching about it. But until then, if you really need to, you can learn JavaScript. It's not the best tool to use, which is why I hesitate to advocate for it as something to learn unless you're a web developer. Unfortunately if you are a web developer though I'd say your best choices are Dart or JavaScript.

 

Aha, you are hoping that Google will implement good improvents so the rest of the world needs to follow the new standards, because, well, Google rules the world. But what if they will implement bad 'improvements'?..

 

So according to you the reason Javascript is bad is because of its syntax? Mh, I do not find that too big of a deal, I would rather worry about security and functionality when using a language.

 

I hope the future will bring a lot of good improvements we can all enjoy on a awesome free and open web.

[Builder]

Aha, you are hoping that Google will implement good improvents so the rest of the world needs to follow the new standards, because, well, Google rules the world. But what if they will implement bad 'improvements'?..

 

So according to you the reason Javascript is bad is because of its syntax? Mh, I do not find that too big of a deal, I would rather worry about security and functionality when using a language.

 

I hope the future will bring a lot of good improvements we can all enjoy on a awesome free and open web.

I'm sorry, what? You don't find its syntax to be too big of a deal? JavaScript is also not very secure, hence JavaScript injection vulnerabilities. 

 

I didn't say they'd make good improvements, I'm saying that as it stands Dart is a better language.

[Maximation]

I'm sorry, what? You don't find its syntax to be too big of a deal? JavaScript is also not very secure, hence JavaScript injection vulnerabilities. 

 

I didn't say they'd make good improvements, I'm saying that as it stands Dart is a better language.

 

The syntax is certainly not the most important part of a language, right? Or..?

 

Edit: What comprehends the 'syntax', according to you?

[Builder]

The syntax is certainly not the most important part of a language, right? Or..?

 

Edit: What comprehends the 'syntax', according to you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntax_(programming_languages)

[Guest]

Latin

 

Please don't let me be the only one on this forum who knows Latin

[Maximation]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntax_(programming_languages)

But is it the most important part of a language?

And what is bad about the syntax of JavaScript then?

[Builder]

But is it the most important part of a language?

And what is bad about the syntax of JavaScript then?

The syntax is inconsistent and messy. It makes an absolute hash of LISP. 

 

Yes, syntax is one of the most important parts of a programming language. 

[Maximation]

The syntax is inconsistent and messy. It makes an absolute hash of LISP.

Yes, syntax is one of the most important parts of a programming language.

What in its syntax is inconsistent and messy?

Can you give me some examples so I know what inconsistency in programming languages looks like?

[LarsReviews]

Spanish. oh wait......

Learning programing languages isn't a problem for me, but learning spanish is hard. i hate it

[oc0110]

Right now Java and C language is most commonly used, but in the future they may start using Python more and more.

[Peeeeeeeeeeynk]

Woah! what happened here?

[Nuluvius]

Woah! what happened here?

 

[NeatSquidYT]

JavaScript if you like web design.

P.S. Flash is complete shite and obsolete, but can be used well in some web pages.

[Maximation]

Woah! what happened here?

 

Discussions. Pretty common on a forum.

[Maximation]

-snip-

Hey, it did not really get out of hand. There was just a pretty on-topic discussion going on.