Comment Go Ruby And Javascript (Score 1) 466
First I will address Python because that is what 80% of the comments are about. The reason I chose not to use it on a regular basis and used RUBY instead is because of the whitespace significance. Coming from a C background, I did not like it. Funny thing, after using HAML for a few years, I now think it one of the most awesome things about it.
I have been thinking about this very thing for quite a while and here is where I am on it.
1) Javascript. once upon a time, there was hope that frontend web work would have a choice. Those days are gone. If you work on web frontends, you are using javascript. Coffeescript can make it more convenient but if you don't understand the core concepts, you will be at a disadvantage.
2) RUBY or PYTHON. I learned RUBY years before RAILS came out. The backend was slow and the libraries were not as fleshed out as Python but I liked the whole idea of programmer happiness. I just saw something there that that looked like the future. I think PYTHON would be just as good, both are portable and will get you a lot of milage.
3) GO. If I could only learn one language, it would be this one. While not a perfect language, I think this will be the dominate language for systems and maybe scripting for years to come. I always had a dislike for the verbosity of C++. I like the pedigree of the founders. I love the idea of the cheap "threads" ( not really threads but even more useful I think ). It has most of the things I love about Erlang but in a more human readable form. I like the idea of a language that can be procedural , object oriented AND functional. I never minded the hiding of pointers in JAVA too much, I just hated that you could not get around it. Systems programming sometimes need to use real pointers. I think the parallel nature of chip designers makes this THE language or at least language type of the future.
Just my 2 cents.
