I got this interesting meme from Tim.
1. What was the first language that you learned/used?
Commodore Basic V2 (the one included with the Commodore 64).
2. What is your favorite language and why?
Ada95/2005. Because is an industrial strength language that is HIGHLY readable and could be good enough to serve as a first language. And even better, you can have an ISO certified compiler for your platform (GCC’s GNAT) that is able to produce binary code at a speed comparable with C (I found it: 16K iterations of Erathostenes’ Sieve had similar times in both C and ADA).
3. What is you least favorite and why?
COBOL; too dense, wordy, and clunky. Another one would be Perl, because it looks like garbled text 😀
4. What language would you like to learn next?
I would like to keep learning Ada95/2005. Then, perhaps Python. Also, I would like to be good at shell scripting and awk.
5. What language do you have no desire to ever learn?
Java! I hate it with a passion because it has a c-like syntax, an thoroughly bloated and inefficient virtual machine, and because it is not Free Software.
Tim: BTW, FORTRAN could be made good with the RATFOR preprocessor employed in the famous Software Tools book.
6. What language do you think is the best to start learning programming with?
ADA. Because you have excellent, industrial class tools, it is reasonably easy, it is readable, and it teaches you good programming habits. Python would be good, too.
7. What method you prefer, functional or OO?
I hate object-oriented programming. I would like a procedural language better. 😀