Programming Languages

Programming Languages natevw has used:

Timeline Graph

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

2024

BASIC

QBasic

Pascal

VisualBasic

LOGO

6502 Assembly

TI-BASIC

PBASIC

C++

LISP

Javascript

XSLT

Perl

PHP

Objective-C

bash

Erlang

x86 Assembly

AppleScript

Python

BASIC

1993–2000

I learned to program in BASIC on an Apple /// as well as its Apple ][ emulator, and continued to write silly little stuff with it as I collected TRS-80, Commodores and others cheap at garage sales.

QBasic

1997–2002

Mostly just played Nibbles and Gorrilla Wars, but did make/start some more useful apps on 286–486 DOS machines.

Pascal

1997

Probably a little unfair to claim this, since on my Apple /// it took half a dozen floppy swaps to compile Hello World and I soon moved on.

VisualBasic

1997–1998

I wanted Microsoft's IDE so badly in Jr. High, but fortunately it was too expensive to ever have at home. Will not admit involvement in a failed project that required this in 2007.

LOGO

1998

My $5 TRS-80 Color Computer 2 came with a cartridge and we happened to have some old LOGO instructional workbooks around. Didn't see much potential.

2002–

It took me a frustratingly long time to figure out pointers, but once things clicked... I could at last become fluent in the computer's native language!

6502 Assembly

2002

Dabbled in this a bit by poking raw opcodes from BASIC, but didn't get much working.

TI-BASIC

2002–2005

I stubbornly learned Calculus aided by the same scientific calculator I was given in 5th grade, but learned enough to prank high school friends and aid some college homework crunching.

PBASIC

2003

Used this during a FIRST Robotics competition to program the standard controller each team built around.

C++

2003–

Had a few false starts, but Object Oriented (and graphical interface) programming clicked for me while learning FLTK in C++. Learned the ups and downs of its templates and latched onto RAII principles in later years. Still considering it for some map geometry code.

LISP

2005

Read and typed just to become familiar, but I appreciate the 21st century, thanks.

Javascript

2005–

Proud to say that my first Javascript project was to make our wedding's save-the-date page look Flash-based without Flash.

XSLT

2006–

Love/hate this "language". Getting sick of its verbosity and XML-ity. (That's redundant, eh?)

Perl

2006–2008

Used for several big projects in my first programming job, so it became my go-to scripting language whenever I gave up on plain shell scripts (i.e. every time I started anything in Bash).

PHP

2007–

Been using for small projects off and on for a while. Don't care for the language itself, but appreciate that it's almost as widely deployable as static HTML.

Objective-C

2007–

Totally in love with this language, but its marriage to Apple's platform complicates things.

bash

2008–2009

HATE HATE HATE. (As a "programming language".)

Erlang

2008–

Read the book over Christmas holiday, Hello Worlded a bit. Getting into CouchDB lately, so I might be back.

x86 Assembly

2009–

Haven't written anything yet, but learned to read it for some reverse engineering.

2009–

I was very excited when this came out, read CSP and did some prototyping in it, but now just wishing it were closer to production-ready.

AppleScript

2009–

While the syntax makes learning the full language difficult and the "standard library" is designed to thwart production work, this odd little invention has grown on me a bit.

Python

2010–

Actually dabbled a bit in late 2009, but becoming serious about using (and at risk of becoming a serious fan) this year.