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A comment on The future of C# and Visual Basic [video].

Re:The future of C# and Visual Basic [video] by bhouston on Monday November 03, 2014 @11:11AM (#8551512)
C# is neat and I used it as my primary language for a good 6 years from 1999 to 2005, and then a little bit since they -- maintaining legacy projects. But a platform specific language it isn't the future in my opinion, it is just too limiting. Python, JavaScript and other types of cross platform languages, even if slower and sometimes more annoying to debug, is where the money and the future is.
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Re:The future of C# and Visual Basic [video] by Someone1234 on Monday November 03, 2014 @11:44AM (#8551738)
JavaScript, yes. Python? Python isn't particularly popular and there aren't many Python jobs around. It also isn't a particularly popular language on any platform but Linux (so while technically cross platform, if few use it on other platforms is that relevant?).

If you've been ignoring other languages to concentrate on Python of all things in the last few years then you have missed the gravy train. Object C, Java, and C are the most popular, and both Java and C are cross-platform (and better still actually used cross-platform unlike Python).

As an aside I see significantly more Java, PHP, and C# jobs than any other language (mostly for web-apps). Then after those I see pure mobile development (Java-Android, and Object C).

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Re:The future of C# and Visual Basic [video] by dagw on Monday November 03, 2014 @12:17PM (#8551986)
Python isn't particularly popular and there aren't many Python jobs around.

Where have you been looking? Maybe if you only focus on pure web-dev, but I see Python and Python jobs everywhere. But I will concede that many of those jobs are science, engineering or analysis jobs that primarily involved programming python, rather than pure programming jobs.

It also isn't a particularly popular language on any platform but Linux

That is not my experience at all. Of all the cross platform scripting languages (Perl/Ruby/PHP/Lua/Javascript etc) it is by far the most popular on Windows, and certainly the best supported. I can probably also name a half dozen big commercial Windows apps that use Python as its main scripting language.

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Re:The future of C# and Visual Basic [video] by Someone1234 on Monday November 03, 2014 @12:30PM (#8552094)
> Where have you been looking?

The normal places you'd find developer jobs. I didn't check the Python forums or other Python specific job boards.

> Maybe if you only focus on pure web-dev, but I see Python and Python jobs everywhere.

That's strange. In what industries? Doing what?

I see C engineering jobs, tons of webapp jobs (PHP, C#, Ruby on Rails, etc), Java for all the things, VB.net for business desktop applications, and so on. I cannot think of the last time I ran across a Python job except they're occasionally listed as a "useful skill" in a SysAdmin job advert.

> Of all the cross platform scripting languages (Perl/Ruby/PHP/Lua/Javascript etc) it is by far the most popular on Windows, and certainly the best supported.

I see a decent amount of PHP on Windows and it seems to be very well supported. JavaScript I guess more so but that seems like an odd thing to list in that context.

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Re:The future of C# and Visual Basic [video] by grandsham on Monday November 03, 2014 @01:04PM (#8552322)
> That's strange. In what industries? Doing what?

For one, Python is very big in the GIS space. Python is one of the main scripting language for ArcGIS, which is the main software platform that GIS folks use.

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Re:The future of C# and Visual Basic [video] by ninjaplease on Tuesday November 04, 2014 @05:56AM (#8555949)
Python is rapidly overtaking R as the language of data analysis.
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Re:The future of C# and Visual Basic [video] by bhouston on Monday November 03, 2014 @12:48PM (#8552205)
I am in the computer graphics industry and specifically I am usually operating in the visual effects market. Python is the main code used for custom tools in this market by far -- it is the glue that ties things together. The CPU intensive tools are C++ of course, but everything else is often Python.

The reasons: It is cross platform (VFX is a mix of Linux and Windows, leaning more towards Linux at the high end), there are Python integrations for each major desktop 3D editing tool, and there is Qt for the GUI. You write one and use in multiple different places.

Python is huge in this market. I guess it may not be elsewhere, but generally if you can use Python for a tool, you do. It avoids the pain of C++, which is really horrible across distributions and OSes.

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Re:The future of C# and Visual Basic [video] by sswaner on Monday November 03, 2014 @01:12PM (#8552380)
According to IEEE, Python is nearly as popular as C#, 5th overall. http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/top-10-programmi...

And TechPro rates it #1. http://tech.pro/blog/1885/top-10-programming-languages-to-le...

There are many surveys that may show other rankings, but it is very hard to argue that Python isn't popular.

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Re:The future of C# and Visual Basic [video] by WorldWideWayne on Tuesday November 04, 2014 @12:16AM (#8555240)
I really like working with C#, .NET and the Microsoft platform in general because I don't have to cobble together my applications and workflows from dozens of questionable open-source tools and components (unless I'm building the front-end for an ASP.NET app!) I also wish building a rich, robust, high-quality web app were as easy as working in WinForms.

It is too limiting though. For now, the web (and native mobile) looks like the future. Although, I don't want the web to be the future because I think that HTML/JS/CSS is a horrible way to build an app. Hopefully a better "web" will come along with some kind of universal runtime. I could totally specialize as an iOS/Android dev and escape the current web, but I'm not a big mobile user - I'm surrounded by huge screens all day and I really don't use my phone much.

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