why did you choose the programming language(s)you currently use?

So you have chosen programming language "x" so shall you tell us why you did so , and what negatives or positives it has ?

 

For web development I use PHP.
Because,

• PHP is FREE and Open Source
• PHP Runs on Windows, Linux, Unix
• Millions of Resources (Tutorials, References, Code Snippets, Ready Made Scripts) Available
• Bundles of Library/3rd Party Functions Available
• Comparatively lesser lines of codes required for same results
• Billions of websites and developers relied on PHP
• Secure Coding
• Small amount of Resources Used

 

For commercial enterprise-level development, I use J2EE and .NET.

For personal and startup projects, I use PHP 5.x with Zend or Yii.

 

Well I'll narrow the list down a bit:
Web:

• PHP - It's free, open source, syntax is BASIC like, easy to learn and because I dislike .NET
• jQuery - I know this is an extension to JavaScript but I use it because it's so simple.

Desktop:

• AutoIt - It's free, great community, I've used it for a long time and the syntax is awesome.
• VB6 - If I can't do it in AutoIt, VB6 can normally do it.
• C++ - The bees knees, I wrote my own language in this to remove any gaps from AutoIt and VB6.

 

I do PHP because that's what my clients use.

 

Is jQuery that important than ASP, PERL, Ruby, etc??

 

Never. ASP, PERL, Ruby, PHP etc are server side languages and the most basic one.

 

C# for me - mainly because I used C++ for a few years then caught on to how easy and powerful the .Net framework was.

 

jQuery is completely different to ASP, Perl, Ruby etc...

 

jQuery is not a 'programming language'. Its a javascript framework/library. Even javascript is not a 'programming' language, its a client-side 'scripting' language.

 

You're walking a fine line trying to differentiate between programming and scripting. They're effectively the same thing.

I use PHP because it's not Windows. I don't mind XP as an OS, but I feel linux is far more adept running a server, given that's what it was originally designed for. Also, the LAMP stack just wouldn't be the same without the L.

 

PHP, ASP, ASP.NET, PERL, Python, Ruby etc all these are server side scripting language. Do you believe, none of them is a programming language?

There is no basic difference between scripting and programming. Often a silent difference prevails. A script runs with the help of a interpreter (or an advanced program), while a program runs standalonely on an OS. But it never means, scripting and programming or scripting language and programming language are different.

 

What a coincidence half of the world uses php

 

This was another most important reason, why I selected PHP.

 

I chose ASP.NET for web development and .NET in general. Why has nothing to do with the advantages I will present, but with the fact that I enjoy the programming style of .NET platform. If I enjoyed another language I'd pick that one, regardless of anything else. The most important thing is to like what you do!

Advantages of ASP.NET:

1. ASP.NET being object oriented is more "organized" and maintainable than scripted PHP. Besides being fully compiled, ASP.NET platform offers loads of pure OO features like inheritance, polymorphism, overloading etc. Newer versions of PHP support OOP but its very limited compared to ASP.NET.
2. Development in ASP.NET is becoming more and more faster thanks to integrated VS environment, great debugging support and a lot of out-of-the-box controls.
3. Framework Class Library (FCL) is a huge asset compared to PHPs libraries.
4. PHP is more hackable than ASP.NET.
5. PHP promotes messy code and has poor error handling capabilites.
6. ASP.NET offers more powerful features to control entire HTTP pipeline in its different stages using HttpModules and HttpHandlers.
7. ASP.NET offers different methods to store session data.
8. ASP.NET is more scalable than PHP.
9. ASP.NET is more faster than PHP.
10. ASP.NET will cost less in terms of hardware to support and scale an application.

I'm not going to post a long list of disadvantages, but it's safe to say they exist too. Nothing is this peachy and easy on this world. Biggest dissavantge are the license costs (which in the long term are meaningless since you do intend to make money - first 2 projects should cover these costs) and the rough learning curve (once you have learned it everything is easier and done faster).

 

Still ASP.NET is able to run on Windows platform (specifically where .NET framework is installed) only. Needs lot of resources, needs .NET framework, costs enough for a freelancer to afford, processing time too high, 0% allowance of further development (ASP.NET can be developed and updated by Microsoft only) etc.
I never bothered to share 2GB+ webspace and 400+ MB RAM of my system, just for ASP.NET along with SQL SERVER. Moreover, IIS, the jewellery, you get with windows is really awesome. In either cases, whenever a simple mistake is made by you in coding, you've to see the everlasting 'Error 500 - Internal Server Error' page.

 

ASP.NET is good in its own place, and PHP in its own. Never try to compare. It's a bad practice.

 

C#, bit of C++, bit of PHP, HTML, CSS and XHTML (don't classify as programming languages but meh...). I did these because...well there's no other phrase to describe it; influence of peers.

 

I started out on Turbo Pascal. That's what they started us with in college. To learn structure and all that.

Yes, I'm that old.

 

No, you're not Old! Probably you're most common. Most of the programmers start with either Turbo C, or ASM or GW Basic. Specially who learn programming as a part of their academic discipline, but not as a vocational course.