Just like I have 5 different hammers in my toolbox (Estwing, benchhammer, rubber hammer, plastic head and lead shot filled) I have a whole bunch of languages in my toolbox too.
Picking one is based on what I intend to do with the resulting product, familiarity and the speed with which I wish to get my result. If it is code that will run in production for many years I will pick another language than if it is a quick-and-dirty I need the answer now type thing.
Every language, your favorite too, has its pros and cons.
If there were a single, perfect language I do not doubt that it would overrun the world of programming in the time it would take to spread the news.
But languages are trade-offs. Space, speed, readability, maintainability, expressiveness. All of those (and probably more) can be changed enough to give a spectrum of possibilities, and with enough spacing between those in the various dimensions you end up with a large number of viable languages.
And that's good. A lisp programmer will solve something in a completely different way from a C programmer or a prolog programmer. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
In the end all that matters is that your solution produces correct results (and not just in the logical sense of 'correct', also correct for all the other parameters).
As long as it performs well for you everything else is premature optimization ;)
Incidentally, I put out a little challenge on this exact subject:
This opens up a second front: In addition to "is it the best choice for this task", it allows you to discuss whether the language is actually Pareto optimal for this task. Even "the best language for the task" may be able to use some improvement.
Comments
Yes, it is pointless, because there is no 'best'.
Just like I have 5 different hammers in my toolbox (Estwing, benchhammer, rubber hammer, plastic head and lead shot filled) I have a whole bunch of languages in my toolbox too.
Picking one is based on what I intend to do with the resulting product, familiarity and the speed with which I wish to get my result. If it is code that will run in production for many years I will pick another language than if it is a quick-and-dirty I need the answer now type thing.
Every language, your favorite too, has its pros and cons.
If there were a single, perfect language I do not doubt that it would overrun the world of programming in the time it would take to spread the news.
But languages are trade-offs. Space, speed, readability, maintainability, expressiveness. All of those (and probably more) can be changed enough to give a spectrum of possibilities, and with enough spacing between those in the various dimensions you end up with a large number of viable languages.
And that's good. A lisp programmer will solve something in a completely different way from a C programmer or a prolog programmer. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
In the end all that matters is that your solution produces correct results (and not just in the logical sense of 'correct', also correct for all the other parameters).
As long as it performs well for you everything else is premature optimization ;)
Incidentally, I put out a little challenge on this exact subject:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1073333
I find the concept of "Pareto optimal" a useful one here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency
This opens up a second front: In addition to "is it the best choice for this task", it allows you to discuss whether the language is actually Pareto optimal for this task. Even "the best language for the task" may be able to use some improvement.
Sorry to derail, but it's going to bug me all day if I don't ask.
What do you use a lead-shot-filled hammer for?
It's a recoil free hammer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_blow_hammer
Thank you :-)