The 10 Programming Languages That Matter

Here then are the ten most important languages of all time, the order does not necessarily matter:

10. Fortran

For its uses in scientific computation and numerous applications, Fortran has been pretty much unparalleled.

The less well-informed like to make fun of Forttran in their spare time, but boy! A good scientist with Fortran can run circles around these ignoramuses with two hands tied behind their back any day while they hobble along saying, “Fortran is a joke”.

So, be informed. Read you some Fortran and get computing!

9. Haskell

Remember, folks, I said order doesn’t matter here in this list.

I have a suspicion that Haskell might be a more important language overall than placing it in ninth position would seem to indicate here.

Remember, these are not even positions, they are simply seats around a Round Table of Programming and Computation, these are all peers in the grand hall of computing.

Haskell, where to begin? Its uses in functional programming, well-thought out scientific underpinnings and practical application move computation inexorably beyond the old days of Basic and Pascal.

You can try Haskell here

8. Coffeescript

Coffeescript might just rescue the masses from Javascript, and even if it does not, it has shown the masses of unwashed JavaScript programmers out there that you can have your cake and eat it too, and that computation does not have to be some dark art with unpredictable results and the usability of a saw gun.

Besides, the elegance of Coffeescript is almost unmatched, out of the other languages in this list. So grab you some coffee, and get rolling. Trust me, it’d be one of the best things you ever did as a programmer.

7. Python

Boy oh boy, I love Python, can’t imagine a world without it as a programmer. Anyone who tells you Perl is better, or even Ruby, you better question their logic and critical thinking skills.

From scientific computation, to web development, to games and scripting, Python is almost unparalleled by its applicability, with maybe the exception of good ol’ C.

Remember, guys, I said the ordering of this list does not matter. I for one would have Python much higher ranked than 7th place if these numbers meant position any more than I’m using them here simply for enumeration.Python, you are a good boy, like a nice, trustworthy bulldog, that’s right, here’s a bone for ya!

6. Erlang

Eh, Erlang is nice, nicer than most programmers realize. You can do all kinds of things with Erlang.

Eh, you might even bake cakes and make nice omelettes with Erlang. Niceness all round. You can do web development, games, networked apps, I don’t care. If code can do it, Erlang can do it.

If you miss everything else from this post, at least remember to give Erlang a try, otherwise you won’t ever know what you missed!

5. OCaml

Similar in some ways to Haskell, but infinitely more usable and infinitely more practical.

Where Haskell elevates your thought processes, OCaml introduces good practices and quality code with immediate practical benefits. A coder that can grok OCaml is a coder who has seen the light. Be warned though, OCaml is not your everyday language. It requires real smarts. In my ratings, it is far ahead of even Haskell in its importance and elegance as a language.

4. C++

C++ is immediately useful and applicable. People like to pile on both C++ and Java for being entreprisy, what a joke though in the case of C++.

C++ is nothing like Java. A good C++ hacker can outcode an entire army of Java fanboys, and any fanboys of any other language for that matter.

The problem is, most people don’t understand C++.

It’s truly not a language for the uninitiated.But, from programming space ships, to coding important computer networks and systems, nothing, not even C, beats C++.

If you don’t grok C++, you’re missing out, big time!

Stroustrup has got to be one of the least understood geniuses of our time. Later generations of programmers will sneer at you C and Perl fanboys, sneering at C++!

3. Ruby

The elegance of Ruby is immediately obvious. You can try it here.

Like Lisp, it has a certain intoxicating quality, though not as strong, and for a phenotype of programmers, it strikes just the right balance between power and elegance.

If Roger Federer were to design a language, it’d be something like Ruby, effortless and unpertubed. Gone are the days and bane of COBOL, VB and other sorry carcasses of programming languages. Ruby is leaving everything else in the dust, with the exception of golden old Python. No you don’t! But even Python struggles to match Ruby’s sheer elegance.

2. C

C has achieved almost mythical status among elite programmers. That’s because the semantics of C readily translate to the thought process of how your average programmer might think through a task, even though the syntax does not.

For the patient though, C offers many rewards, including the literal power to control the machine! Any machine!

Without C, it’d still be back to the Stone Age for the whole programming tribe. Here is a succinct C primer to get you going.

1. Lisp

Ah, Lisp, so beautiful, so inscrutable, and so misunderstood by mere mortals. Write off Lisp at your own peril.

If you haven’t coded Lisp, at one point or other, you probably haven’t coded yet. You might think you have, but you really haven’t.

Anyone who ignores Lisp condemns themselves to reimplementing half of the features of Lisp on their own in their own buggy version of a Scheme or Racket that barely works, but there, at last you’ve coded some Lisp, whether you realized it or not!

So elementary, so peerless, Lisp is the granddaddy of other star languages like Python and Ruby, and many other good ideas since. And if Lisp won’t cut your cheese for you, between C and OCaml, you really should be able to get anything done. If not, check out Elixir or Rust, the fantastic new kids on the block!

I gotta run now guys, now, get to coding!

About

I work with code and big data to help startups and big companies make hard things easy. Visit my blog, Tomahawk’s Digital Cheatsheet, to learn more about my adventures with big data and how you too, can become MacGyver.