Just interested in what other languages members of the board use besides Java and the reason why.
I’m currently learning C# which is pretty fun :point: but besides that, Java is my first language. I’m mostly learning it for my Uni course as we cover Java, C# and PHP.
Why learn other languages?
I can code in Batch, AutoIt, Html and, PHP/MySql. Can’t really offer a reason for the first two, Other than they make life easier. The latter ones are obvious for web development, So I use them for my website(s). I only picked up Java recently because I figured if I want to program, I want it to work on both of my computers. Not just my Win7 desktop. An despite how many na-sayers are out there, Java code looks a lot like AutoIt to me.
Waiting on Rust 1.0, the more I read the more I like it.
Occasionally some Clojure because of stuff like http://gorilla-repl.org/ and because I need some lisp mind-blowery in my day.
I’m also looking at Forth because it’s just strange and very intriguing.
Rust does look promising. I keep meaning to take a closer look at it but have been putting it off. Likewise for Julia.
Learning a LISP like language is a useful thing to do if you go deep enough to start thinking about code as data in a meaningful way. A similar experience is being able to write a minimal compiler. Or using extension languages.
FORTH was an excellent language for the day and is another code as data language, but quite different from LISP.
: ( 41 word drop ; immediate
That says define a word “(” which is executed at compile time ‘immediate’ which reads a word (bytes) until ASCII 41 “)” is found and then drop them all. That’s how a comment might be defined in a default library. In fact a fair number of ‘basics’ of FORTH are really library defines.
Timothy Lottes is working on a forth-like: http://timothylottes.blogspot.ca/2014/08/strict-aliasing.html
C, C++, C#, Python (rarely), PHP, Javascript, Dart.
Funny coincidence is that I wrote an article about this yesterday. 
Nice little article there 
PHP, HTML, JavaScript, C#.
Why? I used C# for Unity, and PHP, HTML and JavaScript are neccessary for web dev, and I think every programmer should at least know the basics.
I’m actually in the process of learning about Unity due to C#. Not a huge fan of it if I’m honest as I love coding as much as I can and I feel that it takes something away. It is still a great tool if you want to create something fast
Yeah, I know what you mean. You want to have control over all the lines of code you write, and Unity doesn’t provide you with that as much as for example Java does. But like you said, it gives a nice platform for quick development, and it shows what you’ve accomplished with the nice scene graph. Because I think it can be hard to see what you’ve accomplished if you just look at the code you’ve written.
And after I quit Unity and decided to go back to Java development, I decided that I won’t try to make a 3D game in Java, since Unity gives you a lot of tools. But I’ll stick to Java for 2D games.
C++, not anymore, HTML JavaScript PHP, guess why. Others when necessary for a special case…
C++ - very rarely, I use it only when I need to use some native code (and call it via JNI) or do purely platform specific thing.
PHP - I prefer it over Java when it comes to website servers - much easier to use, without need to learn many weeks or even months to actually be able to make even a simple site like in Java.
Haxe - I HATE JavaScript, so I use this language instead of it when I want to do something in JS. Somewhat similar to Java, but have some small, irritating flaws and lack of good IDE.
XML - if we can this language, XML in my opinion is very good for serialization, properties and anything else like this.
Used:
Using now:
I find that the more background and more different languages I learn, the easier it is to learn new languages.
currently know :
Java - obviously
scraps of HTML
scraps of JS
Basic
python
learning:
C++
Scala because it is interesting. Javascript + HTML for the occasional web application at work. I also do a fair bit of SAS programming for work. SAS is a language for statistical computing that is pretty common in the pharmaceutical and financial industries.
I learned programming with GameMaker, though that was more like understanding the logic of games. “How can numbers represent something in a game world?” (I was young at that time ). I started with it because I wanted to make games, because World of Goo.
I moved on to Java, because Minecraft.
I tried out C++, because performance, but hell no.
Also learned Html (guys, it’s not a programming language… It’s like you’d say: “I programm Essays! And Pictures!”. Yeah it has syntax, but that’s not what programming is about 
) and JavaScript, because Summer Internship and Web.
Learned Scala, because I thought it’d be cool. It was, but only after the second attempt (Don’t simply translate Java into Scala syntax, that’s not what learning is about). Got a little bit into functional programming style that way.
Finally (hehe) learned Haskell after repeated attempts, because Brother. My mind was finally able to understand what functional things are about.
I seemed more flexible in understanding things that are different and it felt easier to understand new things and therefore could easily learn scheme (guile / racket) (LISP dialect). I still love the idea of simplicity + extensibility. It works so well.
Tried to learn a little bit of languages with proofs in them, that is, at first, Idris and later Coq and Agda, but struggled to understand them. I’d need to invest much more time in that
Learned PHP, because school and school project. I’m currently taking a break of writing PHP code (for a program for my school).
And I recently learned about Mathematica and the Wolfram Language, which looks extremely exciting!
Looks like a lot of people here know a wide range of languages, which is really cool!
I’ve been learning more of C# this week and due to being so similar to Java I’ve picked it up very fast. Obviously I have a long way to go but it’s falling into place nicely so hopefully I can start adding more languages that I know :)!
Mathematica is awesome.
I am not too diverse with programming. I tend to stick with Java, although I have been meaning to get deeper into C/++. I also do some python every full moon, and have been messing with BASIC recently.
Java for evening fun
PHP for evening work project
Javascript (web and Rhino) for work
HTML for work
XSLT for work
VBA for work
SQL for work
I don’t really prefer one language over another, they are all good for solving specific problems. I used to study/work with C++, Basic, VB6 and Lisp, but I don’t use them anymore actively.
Mike