I opt for C. Whatever language x I learn or tinkle with,- I always return back to roots. Maybe because it’s good to know that in forever-changing world when compilers and new languages are spawning like a mushrooms after rain,- there’s always a “stable” shelter where you can return to. Or maybe my old and degrading brains are happy that they will not be punished any more with parsing new (and usually strange at first glance) programming concepts. Or maybe because GCC has hundreds of switches from which every user could find suitable ones at particular time moment.
C is turning 50 years right now. I’ve heard news that Linux kernel developers will be shifting from a C development to Rust,- in the long perspective. But I doubt that C will loose firm grounds any time soon. There’s too much hype about new languages (including Rust). I don’t say that Rust is bad. I’m sure it’s cool due to memory-safety guards included. But if you will use correct GCC switches,
for example, -fsanitize=undefined and others- it will be half-way to the correct C code. Maybe somebody will add in the future option -fsanitize=compile-time, to even stop compilation if semantic checks of memory safety fails,- then Rust will have no added value to the language “party” hehe :-)
Anyway, when Rust, Go or any other highly hyped new bombastic language will make it’s way into microcontrollers,- i.e. when even 80% of microcontroller manufacturers will start to produce Rust compilers for X board in the place of C compilers,- only then I will say that C has been conquered. But I doubt about that because manufacturers can’t even agree to build all boards with 100% support of C standard library (and it’s understandable, because sometimes they can’t, due to hardware limitations), so speaking about something more complex is empty ripples in the water.
Gotta love that Perl 5. I spent quite a bit of time learning and using it while I Pakistan back in the late 1990s. Arguably I might have been better of in the long run with something else, but the there was a lot of interest in it further up in the organisation, so I ran with it.
I always wonder, why Smalltalk is forgotten in list of languages (even it brought such things like, IDE, xUnit, TDD, UI windows,…) It reminds me, there was anniversary recently . See: 48 years of Smalltalk history
Algol 68 is very interesting - had some influence on C, etc.
2 Years ago, I wrote a bit about it, and also how to use it (easily) on Windows. Includes a specific editor for it - here: Algol 68
I never used Algol 68, but I learned ALGOL W in 1975 and used it for a few years (on an IBM 370/165 mainframe, in those different times).
Algol was a precursor to Pascal, and Turbo Pascal was pretty big for several years on early PCs. I had fun with it at the time, but I’m probably not alone in thinking that Embarcadero have now made Delphi quite annoying.
I’d not heard of Lazarus, but just looked at the website. Apparently, it’s open-source (GPL/LGPL) and cross-platform, which is attractive. I’ll try it.
And no, I’m not volunteering to build an Exercism track…
About some exotic languages. Some time ago I had created several programs for my project using Power Query M language. I was impressed that I could create relatively complex queries. Then I have solved several Exercism problems in this language!
Snobol - string manipulation language. From the 1960’s. If you pick the right problem, you can write Snobol so that it looks a bit like a BNF definition of the text you are working on. The following is not exact Snobol, but…
‘(’ any1 ‘+’ any2 ‘)’
would match text such as-
(33+total)
and would set any1 to ‘33’, any2 to’ total’
I wrote a summary of it, plus how to download for Windows, and with a pre-configured editor: Snobol - Mike Parr
But there is a tension here: What was Exercism originally conceived to do, @kytrinyx? I’m sure you’ve said something about it before. If it was to prepare people for a software development role then I can see the benefit of, for example, the JavaScript and C# tracks, but what of the others?
Who benefits from SNOBOL4, Seed7, TRAC or even Mouse (all languages that I’m wanting to add sometime, BTW.) Doesn’t it tend to degenerate into an exercise in programming language nostalgia?
And, for that matter, do I want to spend my remaining years (I’m 64 but not a Commodore) maintaining arcane language tracks (I’m having a hard enough time with the current COBOL, 8th and Euphoria tracks).
You make your own choices! At 60+, I feel we’ve earned that right.
I’m a bit older (at 68), and I have my hands full with Julia, R and a bit of Python (while dabbling quietly in more things). There are other languages I remember fondly. I, personally, don’t want to create a track for them, but other people may choose differently.
Volunteer-driven efforts would fall apart pretty quickly if we all wanted to do the same thing.
Stockholm syndrome? PL/I was the first language I ever got paid money to write. Don’t miss it in the slightest. You made me think about PL/I for the first time in 20 years — my, those were a blissful 20 years.
My own Stockholm syndrome is for APL — the first language I ever learned (for twisted reasons that should never be repeated anywhere). There’s something glorious about crafting a flawless ten-character program that nobody in the world can understand, including yourself an hour later. If someone insane managed to craft an Exercism track for APL, I’d be the first to try it.
It reminds me, there was anniversary recently 
. See: