Okay, it’s time for a confession. I love object-oriented languages. I really do. There’s enormous power in them. The combination of C++ and Qt (or Python and PyQt, etc.) a wonderful way to take advantage of existing classes. The C++ based KDE desktop environment has everything you need for a desktop application that will look and feel like other KDE apps.
But when I sit down to dash out an app or script, I go procedural no matter what the language. C++? Python? PHP? I do straight procedural code. I just want to accomplish a quick task, not build a foundation for a greater application.
I tell you this so that you’ll understand my picks for my go-to languages. They are:
No doubt some of you will cringe at the thought of PHP. Yes, it has security weaknesses for web applications, yet there are still a ton of web sites based on PHP. Wordpress is a PHP application, and countless sites are built upon Wordpress. Nevertheless, I’m familiar with PHP because it is very C-like. And it has, in my humble opinion, the best online documentation of any language. The documentation contains examples and user-submitted samples and tips.
So, I told you my top three picks. I ask that you take our poll and make one pick and provide more information in comments as to why you chose that language, and which other languages you pick in addition to your favorite. There are too many language to include all in the poll, so if your favorite language does not appear, please comment instead.
