Decaflon

The best programming language... hmm...

To me that depends on what you're trying to accomplish.

At times, PHP is the language of choice for me.

Sometimes a little C Sharp with .net is what's called for.

Just this weekend, for old school memories, I busted out some basic programming on my Commodore 64 to blow the dust off my machine.

It was a lot of fun.

basic on a Commodore 64... memories... good times, good times.

Overall, I'd say that C#/.NET is currently the best language as it can do pretty much anything you throw at it very well, not to mention that it is extremely well designed along with great documentation (and C#'s elegance is topped only by Ruby). Its only real weakness is that there aren't *official* ports to OS X and Linux although Silverlight may change that to some extent. I tend to stick with PHP or RoR for web apps though because I prefer the LAMP setup to IIS/SQL Server.

However, like seanrox said, it depends on what you're doing as some languages are better than others at certain things like Ruby with data manipulation or Assembly for speed.

Maybe a better comparison would be "best programming technology" since much of the power of C# comes from .NET, and you can also use VB and Python for that (and soon Ruby for .NET should mature).

1. Ruby
2. Javascript
3. ... yeah, that's it.

If I could use those two exclusively, I would die a happy hacker.

Best in regards to what?

For optimal performance Assembly is best! No one uses that anymore except for on embedded devices, or as a teaching/learning excersize.

There's dozens of high level languages that are very easy to work in and very powerful but they require big installs, interpreters, or large un-optimized executables as output.

Java is the most portable programming language currently, but it also suffers from poor performance. .Net is very very powerful and positioned similarly to Java but it also has performance issues, bugs, and a huge amount of bloat.

It's always a tradeoff.

Java and .NET performance is actually pretty good. Beats the crap out of uncompiled/scripting languages. And in terms of resource usage, it's a lot easier to create a memory leak in a C++ app that it is in C# because everything's managed code.

I generally work with PHP for my websites, and then ASP/.NET for web applications... how come people seem to prefer C# to ASP avec .NET ...?

I generally work with PHP for my websites, and then ASP/.NET for web applications... how come people seem to prefer C# to ASP avec .NET ...?

I'm not quite sure what you meant by this...ASP.NET is a web development framework based in .NET; it is not an actual language.

I'm not quite sure what you meant by this...ASP.NET is a web development framework based in .NET; it is not an actual language.

My bad haha... I meant VB compared to C#, sorry :)

Well as far as preferring C# to VB.NET, that is mainly because C# is the cleaner language. Essentially, they're the same (which is why you can write an automated converter between the two languages pretty easily). VB is meant for people who are new to programming, which is why its terminology is quite a bit more verbose than C#. This has two effects: 1) It makes it easier for non-professionals to understand since the code says pretty much exactly what it does, 2) Makes it more difficult to read and navigate because there is so little white-space. An added benefit to using C# is that it has a more common syntax (similar to C, C++, Java, etc).

I'm not sure I'd say VB.net is going to make any difference at all to newcomers. I'm certainly no programming-spring-chicken but I use VB.net for my ASPNET work because I find it easier to read through in that scenario.

For the same reason, I tend to use C# for applications.

I think it has something to do with the volumes of code. The biggest app I've written was probably only around 1000 lines of code whereas the biggest webapp I've written has been 50000 lines.

qbasic... duh...

I wouldn't claim it to be the 'best' programming by far, but I like ColdFusion. As far as speed goes it's a scripting language, but it's compiled to java bytecode the first time things are accessed, then that is run from then on until the file changes, so its pretty quick for a scripting language.

But, unfortunately, the code for it is pretty ugly, being a tag based programming language and all. There's a lot of code that's just written to make things work like that that could be ommitted if it wasn't tag based. CF has a scripting language too, but it's not as powerful as the tag side. Lots of top end sites out there in CF though, so lots of fun stuff to play with if you can stomach the tag based approach.

I've really been impressed by Ruby and C# from what I've seen so far. Ruby for the syntax, C# for syntax and performance. I think if I was to learn something else for fun I'd learn ruby; something else for work I'd go C#.

An impossible question to answer without knowing what situation you are looking for. With that said if you aren't coding in Ada you aren't coding at all.

PHP is generally the language in which I find myself dabbling most.

However, javascript is always good fun (especially when you throw a little Mootool/Prototype goodness into the mix).

I'm eying C#, though -- that's my next big undertaking.

At the moment PHP is my language of choice, but I'd definitely like to start dabbling in Ruby once I have a bit more time on my hands.

I've been trying out quite a few languages in different contexts, and it really depends on what you're looking for.

At the moment, I'm very fond of Ruby: it's very elegant, powerful and clean. Rails is an interesting framework for web development, although it requires much more deployment work than PHP (and its performance is not great).

Lately I thought about learning Haskell, seeking for better performance, and I ended up reading something about Lisp instead. Reading "On Lisp" felt like reading a spell book: the language indeed feels like magic, and it is truly powerful, but a bit unpractical nowadays, perhaps.

For Windows GUIs, C# is probably your best bet. Easy to learn, well documented and powerful.

VBA is the raddest thing ever.

I don't really understand this notion that people have of "PHP vs Ruby". I know both, but I prefer PHP--it's a personal preference. Even a greater issue than that are people asking what the best programming language is. What the application's purpose, environment, budget, scale, etc all need to be accounted for.

I agree with Rizza, it depends. If i had to pick i would stick with PHP.

Ok now.
Here is the answer: Which is the best programming Language?