Skip to content

Comment on Poll: How many programming languages do you command fluently?

Comments

Very vague, ill defined question. You've not defined what you mean by 'programming language', nor 'program', nor 'nontrivial', etc.

Most people are probably using a bunch of languages without realizing it (SQL, Bash, Make, Tex, Regex, Yacc, etc) which aren't necessarily general purpose but can produce nontrivial programs. Also, there's no clear distinction as to what makes a `general purpose` language, so it would still be unclear if you limited the scope of the question.

I know a bunch of different assemblies and a bunch of lisps, but I don't consider them each unique languages. It'd perhaps be a stretch to consider C#, Java, Vala, D and C++ as unique languages too, since they're mostly different dialects of the same language (i.e, primarily imperative OOP with generics and iterators). I don't really need to change the way I think when switching between these languages, only remember the variations in syntax and vocabulary, but using the same ideas to reach my goal.

On the other hand, I've switched to using functional languages in the past 5 years or so, and it has massively changed the way I think. So much that I struggle to 'effortlessly produce programs' in OOP languages because they lack the capabilities I've come to expect, but I'm no less 'fluent' in them.

I'd go as far as saying that the distinction between named language with syntax and a library or API is pretty vague too. For example, I'd consider OpenGL to be a language, although it's just a bunch of functions and types which behave the same in whatever syntactic face you use. One could argue that any API is actually a "DSL" (popular term which means basically nothing.)

AboutSource Built by g1lg1l

Hackerly is an independent reader for Hacker News, built on the public HN API. Not affiliated with Y Combinator.