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Discussion of the Week: "What is the most fun coding language?"

Michael Tharrington on November 30, 2023

In this weekly roundup, we highlight what we believe to be the most thoughtful, helpful, and/or interesting discussion over the past week! Though w...
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kaamkiya profile image
Kaamkiya

Thank you so much! This made my day :)

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michaeltharrington profile image
Michael Tharrington

Hey!! So happy to hear that. And really, thank you so much for writing up this discussion!

I'm sorry if I mistakenly hijacked your topic, btw. 😅

I did change the formula for the title of my post in this series in an effort to grab more attention — previously I'd have called this Discussion of the Week - v11 — but I really wasn't expecting folks to comment with their most fun coding languages here.

So, any onlookers, I'd love to hear your choices in the thread of my post, but also make sure to participate in the original post:

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Alvaro Montoro

Depends on your definition of fun.

For me, PHP is incredibly fun, because it is really flexible and you can do anything you want... for good or for bad (and unfortunately older versions allowed the bad things often.) Also, CSS is super fun. You can do magic with it beyond styling web pages.

...but those two languages seem to have bad rep (more like general misunderstanding, but won't fight that right now.)

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Henrik Sørensen

I really just ignore most of the bad rep. some languages get. Often its because the one criticizing try to do stuff the language wasn't designed for, or press the boundaries of its use. I often make an allegory to a tools chest. You can definitively get a screw in with a hammer, but why not just use the screwdriver instead. Languages are like tools, and most languages have pros and cons. Some are more arcane than others, and some are specialized for a particular task. For instance you can code scripts in postscript.

make the file factorial.ps:
% Factorial function definition
/factorial {
% Expect the number on the stack
1 exch { % Start with 1 and the number n
mul % Multiply the running total by n
1 sub % Decrement n
dup 0 le % Duplicate n and check if it is less than or equal to 0
} { exit } ifelse % If n is 0 or less, exit the loop
loop % Loop until n reaches 0
pop % Remove the last 0 from the stack
} def

% Example usage: Calculate 5!
5 factorial

% Print the result

and then go
gs -q -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE factorial.ps

...But why ???

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alvaromontoro profile image
Alvaro Montoro

Agreed. But being able to do things that the language was not designed for (e.g. doing CSS Art or creating a FSM with HTML+CSS) is part of the fun.

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henrik1969 profile image
Henrik Sørensen • Edited

I absolutely agree. I do stuff like that all the time just for the heck of it. Besides its a very cool way to test the capabilities of the language. That is actually why I found out that postscript can be (mis)used to "outsource" codebits to a postscript capable printer ;) ...

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Eljay-Adobe

For practical fun, as I've mentioned before, Python, D, and F♯ are all great fun languages.

Back in the day, I had a lot of fun programming in 6502 assembly, but I had even more fun programming in 68000 assembly (which was an absolute joy to program in).

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henrik1969 profile image
Henrik Sørensen

I really think it depends on what I am trying to do.
Overall I mostly code in C++-17 simply because, that is the language I have worked with for the longest. I do write scripts in bash. And sometimes small things in Python (I am currently learning that one) But the most fun language that is a tough one. I actually find c fun because you can go void (*f[SIZE1][SIZE2])(void *); (and yes I know it is a big no no, but :D its fun)

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Lev N.

I find Dart extremely fun. I added Perl to my “to-learn” list because of @sedwin97 ’s recommendation.

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Sedwin97

I thought my comment would scare people off. It was not my intention to encourage someone to learn this language, but I'm glad I could have an impact.

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lnahrf profile image
Lev N.

It actually made me want to learn it! I like languages that give you the freedom to screw up (and come up with extremely hacky solutions).

All great inventions started as unstable hacks (in my opinion).

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manchicken profile image
Mike Stemle

I’m also a big fan of Perl.

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bui378 profile image
Alain

Dear devs.
I am glad to send my oppinion on this discusstion.

For me, Vue.js is very incredibly fun language. Vue has all advantage of React and Angluar. Of course, other developer's overview will be different with me.
Anyway, Vue will be grow the best langauge.

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Julien Dephix

Hi Alain.

Vue is a Javascript based framework, not in language in itself. ;)

That being said I worked with Vue for a little less than 5 years and it was a great experience!

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bui378 profile image
Alain

Hi Julien.
I have 4 years of experience with Vue.

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manchicken profile image
Mike Stemle

The one I get to use to build cool stuff!

Right now I am still going strong with JavaScript (CommonJS form), and Rust is still fun to work with as well.

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Ralph Hightower

It definitely ain't APL! That is a Write-Only-Language

Since the majority of my coding career, it would have to be C, C#, C++.

awk is a very useful tool.

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tandrieu profile image
Thibaut Andrieu
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weiqingteh profile image
Weiqing Teh // CG BOSS

JavaScript mostly if you are working in Web Dev. I feel learning C# is fun too if you are into making games in Unity.

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Deolawage

For me, it is Css.
It so fun to learn and use, one can use it turn the most boring websites to pretty interesting ones.