Major Programming Language
 

Hey guys,

I was assigned a project in intermediate programming class and I had some questions to ask, I couldn't find a "general" board where I could post this so I thought here would be the best place.

The question only states:

"Today’s Major Languages: What’s being used and for what?"

I have to create a presentation on this project (10 minutes) and I was just wondering what the most popular programming languages that are used today.

Thanks

Re: Major Programming Language
 

Well, homework questions are a bit taboo here but I'll answer it.
This is my opinion and observation on the matter:
C++ would be the most used language. Used for gaming and commerical software.
Others such as JAVA and Visual Basic .NET are very popular (you are more likely to get a job as a JAVA programmer than a C++ programmer in some countries).
Specialist languages are used alot as well. PHP (server side scripting) and SQL (Database Queries).
That is my two cents, I wonder what others have to say about it.

Re: Major Programming Language
 

http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/20.../09/22/Cobol5B
Add Fortran to the list as well.
They have a 40 year head start over say Java, so they're not going to disappear any time soon.

Re: Major Programming Language
 

Can you use web languages? If so talk about HTML and JavaScript and maybe even about the dangers of ActiveX controls...

Re: Major Programming Language
 

HTML is a markup language, not a programming language -- its just a script that is interpreted by a browser.

Re: Major Programming Language
 

Fortran is used in Engineering fields these days to help in solving equations etc. Some of the old school languages are used still, for example COBOL is still used in legacy mainframe systems. But they are not as popular as they were say 30 years ago.
Actually, I have a couple of friends that are COBOL programmers looking after mainframes. But I still don't think it is a common language. More of a niche language.

Re: Major Programming Language
 

Strictly speaking I don't think I'd call an HTML page a script; it's too declarative.

My employer uses a lot of Visual Basic 6 (though not for new developments, thank Eris!). For more recent projects they're switching to using a lot of C#. Outside of my team Java's more popular - by the looks of career opportunities in my area, Java's the best way to go.

C is still a major programming language, although these days it's mostly academics and systems programmers that appreciate it and there's a weird general perception that it was 'replaced' by C++.

Historically, FORTRAN and COBOL have been a big deal, as well as the likes of RPG.

Another major player, particularly in terms of web development, is Perl - not one to miss off anyone's top ten list. It holds the universe together. Even my Windows-centric employer has at least one major system written in Perl.

Nothing else particularly major springs to mind though. There are others I'd like to mention but I think they're minority languages at this point and would just be confusing the issue.

Although not strictly a programming language, if you're looking at major / important / widely used computer languages more generally, you should also mention SQL (The Structured Query Language, used to interact with most relational database management systems).

Hope this helps!