

How to Pick a Language - coreyrecvlohe
http://web.mac.com/jimbokun/iWeb/Site/Blog/AB35C167-7755-4113-938C-968F65256D76.html?_

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gdp
I feel like this is what would happen if you took every language under the sun
and asked people who had never used them to offer commentary. It's just full
of strange gaps and claims about differences between languages that just
aren't even really true any more, and yet misses issues like "memory safety"
from the discussion of C vs. JVM-languages, for example.

~~~
tryitnow
I like the intent of the post, but if what you say is true, I'm disappointed.
This sort of information could be useful for newbies, but it seems like
something that should be in a wiki, not just in an article where it's just one
person's opinion.

Does anyone know a good example of a language comparison that is accessible to
someone who is completely new to programming?

~~~
gdp
I'm sure many have tried, but language comparisons actually devolve into
uselessness very quickly, because the things we can quantitatively measure and
compare about languages are mostly not the things that people care about in
practice. For example, I can tell you what classes of errors are possible in
Javascript programs versus what errors are possible in Python programs versus
what errors are possible in Haskell programs, but it doesn't really seem to
affect peoples' language choices. Language comparisons tend to devolve very
quickly into arguments about personal taste and little else. I wrote some
thoughts on this subject a while ago:
[http://plsadventures.blogspot.com/2009/08/simple-patterns-
fo...](http://plsadventures.blogspot.com/2009/08/simple-patterns-for-better-
arguments.html)

~~~
gdp
In fact, having re-read my own post from 2 years ago and found myself still
agreeing with it, I find myself wanting to travel back in time to paste that
link to the author of the linked article before he wrote it.

