[fpc-other] What would your second language be and why?
Graeme Geldenhuys
graemeg.lists at gmail.com
Sat Dec 6 12:54:03 CET 2008
On Sat, Dec 6, 2008 at 12:48 PM, Marco van de Voort <marcov at stack.nl> wrote:
>
> First, on what primary grounds do you select the language? Commercial (iow
> something to put on your resume) or technical skills?
It's something I would like to put on my resume and that makes me
employable in other areas. Make no mistake, my current job using Free
Pascal is rock solid. Delphi / Object Pascal developers are scarce in
this country, and I am the sole developer at the moment, plus I worked
for this company before some years back. So our relationship is very
good and trusting.
So my choice for learning another language is not out of fear of
loosing my job, it's simply my enjoyment of programming and wanting to
learn new skills. I have used Object Pascal and Delphi for the last 10
years and thoroughly enjoyed it - and will continue using in for the
foreseeable future. I've just rewritten our flagship product using
Free Pascal and we have a lot more (smaller) projects in the pipeline.
> But first, decide if you want to target larger or smaller companies.
> Smaller companies are less rigid in their language ways.
I'm not a big fan of large companies. Where I work now, we have around
35 employees. That's one of the largest "small" companies I worked for
over the years.
> So, the commercial angle. Well, blindly selecting, VB.NET or C# then. Maybe
The project I just rewrote was partially implemented in VB6 (by me
many years back). I sure hope VB.NET has improved on that? :-)
> if you have a feel for the industry that you go to (say they are not
> typically MS shops, but IBM or Sun), Java could be a choice too.
I have worked for a few MS shops (abroad and local), but I'm really
not a fan of MS. In South Africa the software companies are quite
varied, though the open-source uptake is huge at the moment.
> Don't try to rationalize a commercial decision with technical arguments. It
> is pointless.
You are correct on that point. :-) But I would still like to enjoy
what I learn. ;-)
> either MS or Sun/IBM. The size of the C# language scares me a bit though,
> specially the heaps of modifiers, and new syntax every two years. Though for
That's a very good point. I don't know much about C#, but from what I
have read, many people seem to agree on that point.
As for the C language. I really enjoyed that (many many years ago).
But since I got hooked on Delphi / Object Pascal, productivity has
increased a lot and the syntax is just so much easier to read. So I
doubt I would return to C any time soon.
Regards,
- Graeme -
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