What Programming Languages do you use?

**Leitz** · #1 May 6th, 2017, 12:24 PM

I'm seeing some potential for building the community within the community, if you're interested.

Addendum: I've probably missed a bunch, but am trying to focus on what we might collaborate on. If we can add languages let's do so.

Addendum #2 How could I have missed Javascript and SQL? Yikes! Trying to see if there's a way to add them to the poll.

**« Spenser TR »** · #2 May 6th, 2017, 01:49 PM

I can see you're not limiting to compiled languages so we're going broad here. I haven't been a dev for a long while now, but it's how I started in tech. I won't vote since I don't currently code, but this thread makes me smile.

Way back as an undergrad I messed with Fortran and Pascal. And BASIC of course. Later when I finally got into tech as a coder I did Visual Basic, C#, and for the web HTML, CSS, JS and ASP. I also worked with SQL, XSLT, and briefly touched Ruby before I switched to Human Computer Interaction work as I got into MS and PhD stuff programs to that.

If you're looking to form a coding group, good on you and best of luck. If you're looking to form a we-make-software group, in life I'm a principal user experience architect and "available as a resource."

JimMarn · #3 May 6th, 2017, 02:58 PM

I don't currently code either, but I have coded in AmigaBASIC and VAX Pascal, along with Quick Pascal.

There might be rumors I programmed in Quick C... before OO and ++ and I hated it. Oops.

ShawnDriscoll · #4 May 6th, 2017, 03:15 PM

I've played around with most programming languages, just like I have with most RPG game mechanics. FORTRAN77 was my first go-to language for random-generated Traveller stuff. I wish Python was around back then. I don't bother with any other programming languages anymore.

**Leitz** · #5 May 6th, 2017, 04:05 PM

Most of my languages have been in the C based family which is why I didn't even think to add R, Haskell, Scheme, etc. All currently awesomely useful languages.

Part of my personal frustration is that what I enjoy most, Ruby, is pretty useless for sharing code. Almost no one runs the interpreter on their machine and even in my work domain Ruby is problematic. Still, it's fun.

That's one of the reasons Spenser TR might get thrown under the "usability tester" bus. I know a few folks are doing more and more in Python, not a bad language. My personal lean would be towards Go if we wanted to share something; it's compiled code and doesn't require an interpreter on the user's machine. It does have to be cross-compiled against major OS versions like Mac, Winderz, and Linux. Not sure if there's an issue with Winderz 7 vs 10 though. Here's the start of a simple character generator in Go.

**« Spenser TR »** · #6 May 6th, 2017, 05:19 PM

In case we're not on the same page as far as user testing...

User testing ( in my world ) is a profoundly different thing that Quality Assurance, Load Testing, or anything algorithmic like that. In the HCI world, user testing is about taking users through tasks using your thingy, and seeing how that goes. There's way more to it, but that's the gist. What lanugage ( or whatever ) you use to make your thingy probably has no bearing at all on how it will do with user testing. To use a physical example - you can make bike out of aluminum, steel, composite, or cardboard... and I'd still recommend doing some user tests.

The aluminum bike won't be "better" or even "usable" just because it's aluminum.

Full-on user testing is involved. For stuff we do for Traveller in our off-hours, it's probably more like doing what's called a "heuristic analysis," which is a lot like playtesting in game design. An expert review, maybe the UX guy shows it to the buddy sitting next to him in the coffee shop. It's looking at an interface or flow and putting what you see and experience up against best practices and all that, making sure things are not-awful. Coders are just as good at this ( usually ) as user experience professionals are at coding

they are distinctly different skill sets, and proficiency in putting together a code for a user interface is not at all related to the good design of that interface. We've all been reading and writing for a very long time, but few of us can write novels.

You can think of it as coders being the people who design and build the engine of a car, user experience peeps being the ones who design the lines, the interior, the dashboard, and any sort of interface between the thing that makes it "go" ( the engine/powertrain/whatever ) and how that going is experienced.

Serious coding efforts spend a lot of time in front-end and interface design, done by pros, because it matters. For a long long time the people who coded also did the interface. As things got more complicated with interfaces of all kinds, as users got more sophisticated and demand more tightly-design experiences because they see such things everywhere it's really, really rare that the guy who designs and builds the engine also designs the interior of the car... gauges, lights, labels, feedback, and all that.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread about coding languages...

ShawnDriscoll · #7 May 6th, 2017, 05:54 PM

I put my Python code behind a Windows EXE loader, so people I send programs to for testing don't have to install anything (except for maybe a font or two that a GUI might use).

agorski · #8 May 6th, 2017, 06:48 PM

All my Mac and iOS apps have been done in Xojo. I'm a hobbyist and the Xojo IDE is orders of magnitude easier to grok than Xcode.

You can trade your email address for a download of Xojo and create anything you want and run it in the IDE (or in Xcode's iOS simulator).

You need to buy a license to create standalone apps or binaries to upload to iTunes Connect, so I expect to remain the lone Xojo programmer here.

Ishmael · #9 May 6th, 2017, 08:09 PM

I don't code anymore, but a number of years ago, I used FORTH, and I'll probably end up using FORTH again in my retirement.

**aramis** · #10 May 7th, 2017, 04:16 AM

I dabble in Python and Javascript.

I'd done some C++ and C, but not recently.

I've put a toe in the water with Swift.

I learned several flavors of basic over the years TRS-80 Mod I, Applesoft (Apple IIe, IIgs, and it's clone on the Adam), Microsoft obasic (CP/M), VaxBasic (on a VMS/Vax machine), VMSB (Mac 68K), Q-Basic, QB-64, Chipmunk Basic.

I mostly program to work out statistics.