Programming

Rust, it is a pleasure to work with and far more flexible in where/what it can run then a lot of languages. Good oneverything from embedded systems to running on the web. Only really C and C++ can beat it on that, but those are farlesss pleasant to work with. Even if it is not as mature in some area quite yet, it just gets more support for things as time goes on.

DotNet Core as a whole (C# + F# + other languages that are being ported to compile down to a DotNet binary).

Because it has all the things Java promised us - frictionless, painless, cross-platform programs - but is implementing it far better than Java ever could.

Honestly, DotNet Core is now at least a half-decade or more ahead of Java in terms of the base platform and C# language functionality/ease-of-use. The only advantage Java has at this point is it’s community ecosystem of third-party features and programs.

Lisp, the language that has them all.

C, because it can run everywhere and I won't be limited on the things I can make

Python. Not even a competition. My love of programming quadrupled the day I switched to python and it's getting stronger and stronger. I have now 10 years of professional python experience and around the same of C++ with occasional C#. A few projects in Go and Java. They all have ups and downs, but... Not even comparable how much everything is more elegant and simple in python

Python. I'm in data science. Sure I could write all that code in C or C++, but my time spent coding all that extra boilerplate is better spent on analysis.

I've already made this choice. Switched from C++ to Go, and now I never want to touch another language at all. Since I'm not writing kernels or embedded, Go is pretty fast for everything else. Not very popular in gamedev, but that's just a lack of 3rd party libs, specifically native graphics support.

As for other languages, I can't justify unnecessary complexity that is generally welcome by those language communities. Go is straight simple yet powerful, and I admire that.

C, can build any other language from that :D

And if i am gonna be miserable, may as well inflict as many vulnerabities on everyone else while I am at it.

It would be C++. Its versatile enough to do everything with it.

Rust:

• It covers all bases, from embedded to backend to webdev to gamedev.
• I could create libraries with it, which can be called from other languages.
• It's good.

For me it would be C++.

I'd probably pick something esoteric and then just stop programming, tbh. I enjoy being a polyglot programmer, and learning many languages and learning from many ecosystems is incredibly interesting to me, far more than hyper-specializing in a single language would be.

COBOL because I am a fossil

Scala. Expressive, concise, can scale from simple to sophisticated. Sufficiently powerful - has metaprogramming, advanced types. Runs on a world-class runtime and takes advantage of a huge, mature package ecosystem that isn’t going anywhere.

Assembly, so I can shorten my lifetime quite a lot

For me it would be C/C++.

I'm already resigned to using C for the rest of my life 🤷🏻‍♂️

Ideally I'd choose Rust because I enjoy working with it, but don't have enough time to commit to it at the moment. But being Practical I'd probably say Java, its easy to get stuff going and has been around forever so it's easy to find solutions etc.

I know this is a harmless "what if" but let's be encouraging people to explore more languages not to choose a single one to be everything for all time.

Unison. If it were to gain mainstream adoption, it would change the world. It’s a crazy futuristic idea and no one else seems to even remotely be approaching the same thing.

C, because I can find a compiler or interpreter for other language written in C (I may need to run a few steps to get there), and thus work around your silly and nonsense question. Seriously, I use multiple languages because there is no one true language to rule them all. I use C++ for problems where bash would be wrong, and bash where C++ would be wrong. And some python, cmake, lua mixed in for good measure. I'm looking at Rust to add (rust doesn't like the way our system designed so it is hard to figure out how to implement it)

I'd love to take Haskell, but there's neither enough support nor enough jobs. Same with most functional languages really. But nothing else compares.

Lua.

Don't call the ambulance, it's too late for me

Java. It's familiar, it's the one I use most at my job, and I'm not in love with any other language enough to choose something less pragmatic.

Kotlin without a doubt.

Gives you more flexibility and freedom that most scripting languages. The syntax is clean and concise, the tooling is amazing and can compile to JVM, JS, Native and WASM.

Typescript. I greatly prefer C-Style curly brace languages over Pythonese langs. Also the typesystem is incredible, as it allows you to be as precise or not as you want which is a huge boon.

I don't really want to do everything in one language but if I did have to pick it would probably be Julia. It's slightly simpler than Python, and significantly faster without relying on APIs written in C. And has some really great features like broadcasting, multiple dispatch, and a good type system. The only place I feel like Python has it beat is quantity of libraries and support network, which both basically come from the same origin of just having more users. I'm hoping more data science types switch over in the next few years, since Julia is already great for most things mathematical. And I hope that momentum allows Julia to perhaps reach out to other domains.

Rust, hands down.

I would be torn between Python and Rust.

The case for Python is that I'm already very experienced in it (nearly 20 years), there's a good job market out there for it, and the ecosystem is one of the best in existence. It's like a comfortable well made jacket, maybe a tad worn in some areas but very functional. And it's not standing still, with a community that's committed to constant improvement.

Rust is more fun. I like the way it's been put together. It can also be used in more areas. There are some niches (wasm, low level, kernel) where Python just doesn't work. It has been able to benefit from the years of mistakes from Python and other languages on things like how it handles Unicode strings. I don't know it as well as Python, but I barely get a chance to work with it so that could change quickly in time.

Clojure, can't stop using it, so fun to use!

For personal preference, assuming I didn't have to worry about getting a job, Lisp no question.

Otherwise, I'd have to go with C++.