In this episode we’ll be talking about popular languages in 2019, some common traits they share, and deciding which ones to learn next.

“‘Sharpening the Tools’ is the section of the show where we discuss what tools we’re using, concepts we’re learning, and generally how we are continuing our learning in software development.”

“Sharpening the Tools”
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Erin:

Finished with JavaScript Objects. Started digging into Python a bit just because.

Dave:

Office Olympics, remembering to take care of your physical self.

“Opening the Toolbox”

Episode Outline
===============

According a TechRepublic article, here are the 10 most popular programming languages as of December 2018:

1. Java
2. C
3. Python
4. C++
5. Visual Basic .NET
6. C#
7. JavaScript
8. PHP
9. SQL
10. Objective-C

We wanted to take a cursory dive into some of the different languages if you’re curious about them or trying to figure out which one you want to learn next.

Erin has experience with: JavaScript, C#, SQL, Python (minimal), and Java

Dave has experience with: JavaScript, (minimal) PHP

Lots of languages are based C in some ways, borrowing some ideas and syntax.

Compiled vs. Interpreted languages –

• Interpreted means executed directly – JavaScript, Python, PHP
• Compiled means it gets translated first (into machine code or similar) before it’s executed – C, C++, C#, Java, Objective-C

Static vs. Dynamic (Timing)

• Static typed languages are those in which type checking is done at compile-time
• Dynamic typed languages are those in which type checking is done at run-time

Weakly Typed vs. Strongly typed (Behavior of variable types)

• Strongly typed means a variable will not be automatically converted from one type to another. (explicit conversion is required)
• Weakly typed means variables can be implicitly coerced to unrelated types

Strongly typed languages: Must use explicit type declarations when declaring variables

• Examples: Java, C#

Dynamically typed languages:

• Examples: JavaScript, Python

JavaScript, Java, and C# are popular Enterprise languages and are very well established.

While Java and C# are server side languages, JavaScript is both a client side and server side language (Node.js).

Python and R are popular for Data Science

PHP: Hypertext processor: an early web language that’s pretty widespread throughout the internet, especially due to use of popular CMSs like WordPress.

Objective C

• A general-purpose, object-oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style messaging to the C programming language. … It was selected as the main language used by NeXT for its NeXTSTEP operating system, from which macOS and iOS are derived.

10 Best Programming Languages to Learn in 2019 (for Job & Future):

https://hackr.io/blog/best-programming-languages-to-learn-2019-jobs-future

References
==========

Top 10 Programming Languages as of December 2018:

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/10-popular-programming-languages-developers-should-learn-in-2019/

10 Best Programming Languages to Learn in 2019 (for Job & Future):

https://hackr.io/blog/best-programming-languages-to-learn-2019-jobs-future

Strongly typed languages vs. dynamically typed languages:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2690544/what-is-the-difference-between-a-strongly-typed-language-and-a-statically-typed

Semantics v. Syntax

C influence on other languages

https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/135544/why-are-several-popular-programming-languages-influenced-by-c

What does it mean to say a language is C-based?

Extra Links
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