[fpc-pascal] [OT] What would your second language be and why?

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

Hi

I know this is a bit off-topic in this mailing list, but I also know
that asking this question here will give me unbiased answers.
My daytime job is secure and I am a very happy Object Pascal
developers. I'm a firm believer in rather learning one language and
being very proficient in it, that being a "jack of all trades, but
master of none". I have learned and used my share of languages over
the years, but prefer Object Pascal a lot more than any of the others.

But  there comes a time, when I like to extend my knowledge a bit.
Pick up some new skills and maybe ever carry those skills over to my
daytime job and programming language.

>From the start I have been a big fan of the Java programming language.
To me, it's a very clean and well designed language and is relatively
easy to learn and understand. Just a shame the GUI performance was so
bad, though that was many years back. I don't know if things have
improved since.

Anyway, I want to extend my skills in the new years and start learning
a new language (make no mistake, Free Pascal is still what's paying my
bills every month, and that's not going to change any time soon). My
requirements is something that supports multiple platforms and that is
one of the mainstream languages. I don't want to learn some obscure
language like D or F# that nobody would hire you for - there just
isn't a commercial demand for such languages, no matter how good
features they have.

Anyway, what I see as mainstream at the moment is Java and C#. Both
seem to be well designed, commercially acceptable (from a job hiring
point of view) and appears to be clean code. Scripting / interpreted
languages like Perl etc are out! So for me, it seems a choice between
C# and Java. So far I am leaning towards Java, because it's more open
(no big giant monopoly hanging over it), been around for years and is
commercially viable. Development tools, documentation etc are plenty
full! Plus it's well supported on just about any OS and device.

* What's your thoughts between Java vs C#?

* Have you got a better choice in mind and why?

Regards,
  - Graeme -


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