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As an opposite of Which programming language do you really hate?, whats your favorite programming language to work with? What is the one programming language that you get somewhat excited for if a new project comes up that uses it?

Before you say "The best language for the task", thats not what I meant. We all like a language, this is simply asking for that. This is not about what task it would be used for

I can't believe this hasn't been asked before

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Poll questions work better in this system if they're community wiki. – David Thornley Sep 23 '10 at 22:03
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@David: No, not really. meta.programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/8/… – TheLQ Sep 23 '10 at 22:04
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If there were ever a question that's too subjective, even for Programmers, this would be it. I'm rather disgusted that someone has earned 200 rep points just for posting "C#" and a generic placeholder comment about how great it is (one that could easily be substituted for any other language.) – Aaronaught Sep 24 '10 at 14:22
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The reason for CW for poll questions is to cut down on the rep-whore abuse that can happen. Polls in this system work best if one person gives one answer ("LOLCODE!") and other people vote it up. Without CW, that one person stands to rake in a lot of rep just for being the first with the popular choice, while others are tempted to post their own identical answers rather than upvote somebody else's. – David Thornley Sep 24 '10 at 14:50
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@Nick: That is incorrect. No one earns reputation on questions that were started as CW. Already-submitted answers only become CW if a moderator converts the entire beast. And is it any surprise that the answerers aren't rushing to convert their answers to CW? – Aaronaught Sep 25 '10 at 13:38
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closed as not constructive by ChrisF♦ Dec 28 '10 at 14:35

As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or specific expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, see the FAQ for guidance.

44 Answers

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ActionScript (3)

I have started my programming experience with ActionScript 1 quite a while ago and followed the development of the language with much pleasure. In my opinion, ActionScript 3 combines many good things from different languages and forms a strict yet very flexible language.

While I use many other languages and each of them has some better point (this can be applied to every single programming language though), like Python with its great simplicity, I still have the most fun when working with ActionScript.

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Make

(The language of Linux Makefiles)

It's the most widespread somewhat declarative language today. Coupled with standard Linux console utils, it is capable of integrating several components into one complex system, with just a moderate need to write a lot of accompanying cruft.

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C

It used to be C, Python and Go since Go's introduction. Now I see myself slowly moving toward C, Go and then Python. Go code is simply more readable. But I simply love the small, potent and sharp C.

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Befunge

Useful? No. Easy to use? No. Fun and interesting? Hell yes.

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Unix Command Language: sh/bash/zsh

The UNIX shell is most people's main access to the UNIX operating system. The Bourne shell (sh) and it's decenents (bash/zsh) have a strong and powerful syntactical language built in supplying various features usually found only in more sophisticated general-purpose programming languages, such as control-flow constructs, variables, comments, arrays, subroutines, and so on. With these sorts of features available, it is possible to write reasonably sophisticated applications as shell scripts. Often, writing a shell script is much quicker than writing the equivalent code in other programming languages. The many advantages include easy program or file selection, quick start, and interactive debugging. A shell script can be used to provide a sequencing and decision-making linkage around existing programs, and for moderately-sized scripts the absence of a compilation step is an advantage. Interpretive running makes it easy to write debugging code into a script and rerun it to detect and fix bugs. Non-expert users can use scripting to tailor the behavior of programs, and shell scripting provides some limited scope for multiprocessing.

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I absolutely hate bash scripts. Terrible syntax, confusing syntax, evolved and forked so much you don't know what works where, terribly verbose, case sensitive with little documentation, and space sensitive. I'm not saying its not useful, I'm just saying that its horrible and painful. – TheLQ Oct 6 '10 at 14:35
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Forth

because it lets you create your own words that function as a subroutine.

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Anything other than what I'm using at the moment, whatever that may be.

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DNA & RNA

OK, so it isn't easy to write original code in, but think about this: it only takes 80m of genome to exert mind control.

And HIV is only 9749 nucleotides long...

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LiveCode/RunRev

Has served me for just about every possible eventuality for the last 10 years; it is sufficiently flexible that there are always a multiplicity of ways to get things done, so one doesn't spend donkey's ages scratching about for the 'exact' syntax.

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LiveCode (originally Revolution) hands down. Nothing comes close.

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Warning: you are inviting downvotes if you are duplicating an existing answer. Rather you should upvote that answer. – grokus Oct 6 '10 at 14:57
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LiveCode

A modern descendent of HyperTalk that helps programmers be more productive than many traditional languages by requiring a lot less code to do the same action. While it may appear verbose at first, the high level coding and lack of punctuation and braces actually makes it quick to code in.

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C/C++

The C and C++ languages have the largest codebase (the Unix, Linux and Windows Operating Systems and most of the application for them), are fast, efficient, powerful. The one and only possible choice for a real programmer.

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up vote -1 down vote

IEC 61131-3

It's a language for programming PLCs. It combines 5 different languages (graphical programming and text based languages) with one data model. For every object or function you write you can choose the appropriate language individually.

It is perfect for programming complex real time controllers. The newest version is fully object orientated.

For me it is a pleasure to program in that language.

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-1: First, IEC 61131-3 is not a language, it's a spec for the capabilities of 5 languages. But the capability is like, "you will be able to do x, and maybe y, and still call yourself compliant." You have no hope of porting any given implementation from one to another. About the only useful thing the spec did was standardize the data types. Now if you'd said one particular implementation of the "standard", like Allen-Bradley's, etc., then OK, but the spec itself is terrible compared with main stream PC programming languages. – Scott Whitlock Nov 17 '10 at 3:37
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Scott, maybe I should have said CoDeSys - an implementation of the 61131-3 standard - which is quite common in Europe and runs on many different PLCs (not on Siemens, of course...). I think a comparison of a highly specialized language with a very common main stream PC language is unfair. The standard may be bad and far away from a common PC language, but it's much better than nothing. Show me any better alternative in the PLC world. – chrmue Nov 17 '10 at 11:54
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