Language Appeal

What makes one language more popular than another? Why would a language like ‘C’ be so visible and popular amidst today’s advancing 4th generation languages? Methinks the same reasons why English is such a popular communication language today…

Tear and tear. Look the same but quite different. Tear has more in common, phonetically, with bare while the other is closely related to beer. Hair and hare. Red and read, the past tense of read. Break and its past tense broke, yet brake and braked, as applied to a motor vehicle which came to a sudden stop.

So we have a range of words that break all the rules and it has been said, more than once, that there are more exceptions to the rule than not in the English language. And let’s not even consider the variances in English, which we all assent to being, by and large, English. American English, British English, South African English and then Spanglish and the like.

Yet with all it’s complexities, it’s gaining popularity around the world. One reason [out of many] why it continues to be so popular is because you can do so much with it and still be understood.

I sed tht i’d b l8. w8 4 me. c u sn!

There are times when de-intellectualising a conversation can be welcomed.

In most other languages you can’t even do half of what i’ve just achieved above. Yet, most anyone reading would understand what’s been typed. And for the non-legalistic in us, that’s enuff. And more. It’s a sign that we can explore boundaries of that one human domain of ours which is so sacred and yet so vulgar: communication.

So if a programming language, regardless of its complexities, gives us the freedom to create within itself, it will prove to be popular. Classes, templates [aka. generics], polymorphism, reflection; facilitating the art of creating in order to communicate is of paramount signifigance in terms of a language’s popularity. But it depends on “what” you want to create.

Adressing memory, pointers, embedding assembly; different kinds of creational facilities but again, oriented towards enabling your creative side in effecting communication.

C#, C, C++, Java, php, perl, vb, sql, python, shell, delphi, ruby, fortran, smalltalk, erlang, cobol, tcl… they all remain popular, within their own right, contrary to any “silver bullet” promotions in any one particular language because they continue to provide the programmers with their creativity fix as part of getting the job done. When the language becomes so inhibiting that there is one and only one way to do something, it shall quickly die a welcome death.

“What do you mean i can only ever have one type of Class: sealed?!” 😮

One reply on “Language Appeal”

hebrew’s pretty cool too- they adapted the verb to ride (a horse) to say, “to put on glasses” (ie because the glasses are riding on your nose)..cute huh!! 🙂

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