Actually, that’s not the question. I would ask you what’s the problem you want to solve.
Recently some guy created the Python 3 Wall of Shame, which it’s supposed to expose a problem with Python 3 being released in 2008, but currently most of the packages don’t support Python 3 but Python 2.
"Python surged hugely this last year — more than any other language. […] I’m not convinced. I suspect part of the new adoption comes from Perl programmers who are throwing in the towel."
"Programming language Python has become programming language of 2010. This award is given to the programming language that gained most market share in 2010. Python grew 1.81% since January 2010."
"Let’s try an experiment. Think of a project you use all day. Maybe it’s Rails or Python or something. Now, name 4 people on the core team without looking them up. I can’t do that for anything I use."
Man, sadly I agree: there are not famous programmers.
I can remember once, I was having a coffee with a good friend and I started to comment the new OpenBSD weblog (undeadly, back in the days!), made in C (werid) by one guy. I remember saying: “You may know that guy, he’s Daniel Hartmeier”.
That was an awkward moment. Even explaining he programmed OpenBSD’s Packet Filer (the first initial version, at least), it didn’t help at all.
So, if you’re a programmer, no matter how good you are. You’re not likely to be famous. Let’s face it.
"Some people, when confronted with a problem, think “I know, I’ll use regular expressions.” Now they have two problems."
—
From Jamie Zawinski, on comp.lang.emacs.
Seems that the now they have two problems kind of quote can be quite adaptable (s/regular expressions/threads/), but today it’s as true as back in 1997.
The now they have two problems is one of my favourite, followed by History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as XML (a Karl Marx quote evolved).
The “Rule of Least Power” suggests choosing the least powerful language suitable for a given purpose. It’s nothing new, just another flavour of the KISS principle of design (Keep It Simple, Stupid), but it’s an interesting idea anyway: Overall, the Web benefits when less powerful languages can be successfully applied. Because the web must be reusable data not tied to a complex language, I might add.
I’m not sure if this idea can be applied to other fields, because when you have a cool hammer… everything starts looking like a nail. Let’s say you hammer is Java and you won’t solve the problem with some PHP lines, even when you can do it.
Well, not. Actually I was the guy working like crazy from 9 to 15, but all this hard work was possible just because we had a nice set of 122 automated tests, and I can’t miss this opportunity to say: I told you!
The pre-production machines were supposed to be ready last Thursday to start the integration of our shiny SOAP web service into our partner SaaS platform (woah, look at me! I’m using modern buzzwords), but the machine wasn’t operational until Friday.
After that, our partner started today the integration, one week after we have planned to. So, let’s say we had the need to make things right today (no matter who gets hurt).
Besides that, isn’t easy working with Australian technicians because the time difference with Spain (+8 hours).
Fortunately today was my best programming day in some time and we had automated tests to do the quality control of the different changes we had to introduce in our web service. Without that stuff, which very often is treated as useless waste of time, we wouldn’t have been able to validate those last minute changes and the project would be either delayed or buggy (or both!).
To sum up: people out there, program your tests because they’re worth your time!
After… a year and a half? I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s too much time, I’m programming again. Professionally I mean.
It’s a small project, with the downside that we have little time to finish it and move to production state, but I’m having some fun coding a SOAP service in PHP, with some testing in Perl.
First thing I’ve noticed is yeah, I still know how to do it, and the second one is damn, I mix Perl and PHP code. But the most surprising part is that SVN is really addictive.
No, seriously. I’m sure that every disgusting task in your job would turn into something better just with a SVN alike interface.
Today my workmates were talking about Fortran and Cobol in the coffee break. Yeah, I know it’s scary.
I wasn’t really on the conversation, but I said something like I learnt Cobol 85 when I was 14, and I don’t keep a good memory about it, although it had some advanced stuff then.
That ended the conversation with all of them staring at me: When did you learnt to program?. My answer was: I was 13, and learnt almost all I know from an Olivetti Gwbasic interpreter (more or less heh).
Seems that my answer was surprising, and the younger of my workmates asked: Why?. I remember it like one of the most important times of my life: Because of a silly program to change the screen color pressing space that my cousin wrote on a ZX Spectrum. I saw potential.
And the funny part it’s that I’m not alone. One of my workmates confessed he was there with us because of the same home computer from the 80s.
