Ok...one important one is missing: ABAP (from SAP).

If you look at the job market the most common ones are:

Java, C/Assembler (microcontrollers) and C++...and some Haskell maybe.

Ok...and scripting languages such as PHP.

The vast number of open source projects, the Eclipse framework with plugins for everything and a handy plugin mechanism to develop your own plugins...the strong community and the joy of progamming without pointers. You can also debug into everything and see how every library works inside....there is a plugin for Eclipse that even de-compiles on-the-fly for the case you haven't got the source code of your libraries.

The only drawback is doing things like DirectShow or driver development which is a bit slower and unreliable using the Java Virtual Machine.

If you are doing C, this is only a good idea if you are interested in electronics and playing with soldering irons......it is only useful for hardware-level programming.

I am too biassed to give a comment about learning something from scratch. I am not sure whether you necessarily need to know the lower layers for the majority of work that needs to be done. The majority of "open tasks" in the it world is donkey work...the rest maybe some more demanding jobs where you really need to be aware of the lower layers and even hardware.

The more demanding a software project, the more you need to be aware of "everything" such as the hardware restrictions and the lower levels such as the compiler, virtual machine in the case of Java for instance or even in assembly/(assembler?) language. On the other hand there could also be "demanding" software projects that are demanding as far as the overall system and pure software architecture is concerned..for those jobs you would not even need to know a particular programming language...in theory...and just draw uml diagrams. Those people are called "software architects" and in the end really just draw diagrams and the rest is done by the "lower layers" .

kebabman wrote:

Toby, what is that a diagram of? I fail to see a logical pattern to a lot of it, and there's glaring omissions if it's an 'evolution of languages' eg C++ evolved more from objective C which evolved from C which evolved from B. objective C isn't on there and neither is B, and it says that C++ evolved from smalltalk 80 just because smalltalk 80 was one of the first object oriented languages I'm probably missing the point of the diagram

To be honest I have just looked on Google for a random diagram....couldnt find the one I was after.

I looked at the top...and saw as Haskell and Java.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/StammbaumProgrammiersprachen.jpg

now everyone knows why google is my friend when matt gets in work mode

I have had a poster once.....that was really detailled and contained a really precise timeline and showed how they all evolved .

Aspect oriented programming.....good question. Is this another direction and the successor of object-oriented programming or just a design pattern?

Have a look at http://www.hivemind.org.

I think Java will not be replaced that quickly as othr languages were replaced by new ones in the past....as this time it is just too strong through the community, all the handy gadgets/plugins, the free development tools...the available code and libraries and its Microsoft-freeness.

AOP will come.....because software is less and less monolithic and software is more and more a "matrix" of various modules that need to interface with other systems...nobody builds isolated systems from scratch anymore...you always have to connect with other systems. The other thing is the testability....sometimes you can not simulate a whole system and need to break it down..even just for testability - an average programmer probably spends 90% on debugging and testing and 10% on programming......hm...ok and documentation is also a big part...that I forgot.

What a shame nobody has managed to build a REAL virtual machine in hardware yet...all the people who have tried failed due to the dynamic memory allocation

C
C++
lil bit of C# seeing as though its basically VB.net with a bit of C syntax mixed. (Framework 2)
VB6
VB.Net

Might be learning Perl and SAP if i move jobs ^_^

what i would really like to work on is C# and ASP.Net tho. But if you dont have working experience noone cares what u want

I was meant to learn Pascal for my computing GCSE or A-Level, I can't remember which, but I didn't do very well. The teacher was African and she wasn't very good. Her accent and lack of English lead to most of the class just messing around during her lessons.

Probably why I didn't pass that course with a very good grade. Didn't fail, just not a good grade.

JCL and COBOL
I know, sexy