I've noticed this in the past, but a recent post [goats.com] (combined with the recent call to start new discussions) kinda prompted me to ask:

How many of you kids out there are programmers? I guess SysAdmin types count too, in your demented perl/bash concept of the art.

Also, what languages do you know, prefer, and which do your corporate overlords make you do for a living? What kinda projects do you do for work, and what do you do for fun?

...why do I feel like I've just created an application form for a geek dating service?

Not a programmer per se. Sure, I program all right, but because I'm a student the vital part is missing (i.e. being paid to program). That's my rationale for not calling myself a programmer. Because I'm not.

That said, my CV says Java, JXTA, C, C++, SQL, XML, HTML (ok, for you pedant geeks it is kind of a subset of XML, but technically only xHTML is, as HTML doesn't have to conform to XML's validity rules, so I can claim it), ASP, VB. I have thus far managed to avoid .NET

At present, I'm pretty much just using VB(A) and XML and in the traditional sense of hating what I'm doing, VBA is a pig and XML is too verbose. At present, C and Java look nicer alternatives.

For fun, I don't program. Because I'm not a programmer. Methinks setting a new lab record of 7 mugs of coffee in 15 mins is having an effect.

My main languages are Java, C/C++, C#, and PHP. I'm proficient in javascript, although I hate it due to the lack of a good IDE, and I can wing editing PERL scripts, although the language gives me the heebie-jeebies [word-detective.com].

In the past I've made server-side superservlet-driven websites using Enhydra [enhydra.org] before the banality of it all drove me back to school. The job did teach me java better than any class ever could, though, and it's still my strongest language to this day. I presently use perl/php/javascript to work on an intranet I have a vested intrest in... and having a percentage stake in something compells one a lot more than getting an all-too-low hourly rate.

For fun I use C++ or C# to dabble in little game projects that often go nowhere, but sometimes show some flicker of eventual completion. My current project is a Master of Magic clone with some updates from the 320x240 8-bit days it lived in. I've got my isometric tile engine rendering, and an in-game mapeditor working. Yay!

I also like moonlit walks on the beach and kitties.

...why do I feel like I've just created an application form for a geek dating service?
I'm a SWM, 34, looking for...

But really, I'm a database programmer using the outdated Clarion development application. It's a small company (2 of us) and we are moving into the world of ASP and Access files, everything running on the Internet.
I am also the webmaster of our church's website so I know the HTML and Dreamweaver stuff.
My idea of fun(???) is joining a fantasy football league with my old college friends. I won last year so now I have to defend my title. I'm currently grabbing all the player stats, putting them into Excel with the point formulation to decide who I want to pick. Since I have to miss the draft I get to pre-rank my picks. Now I have to decide who I want 1st, 2nd, .... etc. I hate it.

I'm not a programmer. I'm a software engineer!

What's the difference? Same as between a barber and a hair stylist (i.e. $20 an hour)

I'm currently working in C++ and Java, but in the past I've done everything from Assembler to JavaScript. Started off on Unix, worked on macs for a while, then windows, then unix again.

All things considered, I prefer Java.

For fun I stay as far away from programming as I can get.

How many of you kids out there are programmers?

Oi. I'm not a kid, yo.

what languages do you know, prefer,

What've you got?

which do your corporate overlords make you do for a living
Actually, right now, I'm pretty much getting paid not to write code. It really sucks.

When I do get paid to write code, it's a grab bag of the usual stuff plus some enterprise level half-crippled scripting languages.

what do you do for fun?
Write message board bots.

I'm a programmer, yeah.

I try to avoid the question "what languages do you know" (except on resumes, where it's simply unavoidable), because I see little sense in it. I can tell you what I've used recently (C++, Java, a couple SQL dialects), and then we can sit around and argue which of them are programming languages and which are something else... But then again I can pick up about anything you'd throw at me if I have a good reason, so who cares?

In Response to mea37 (#8377):

Good points... and really, isn't the language you know best the one you've been using for the last two weeks?

In Response to mea37 (#8377):

I try to avoid the question "what languages do you know" because I see little sense in it.

Hallelujah! Tell it to the people!

What language you know is never a relevant question - any programmer (let alone software engineer - and, yes, I know the *real* definition) worthy of the name should be able to start coding in a new language within half an hour and have it pretty much mastered in a week.

The relevant question is what have you actually programmed. The fact that I've written fraud detection systems for financial institutions tells you something about what I'm capable of. The language it was written in doesn't. The latter, however, is easier for personnel departments to quantify.

Cheers,
Graham

In Response to albionsoft (#8432):

Heh... that's also a good point. Why've I never heard 'What is the most impressive thing you've ever coded?' at interviews, though? Sure, it's not quantifiable on a bare chart for the business majors (Hrmm... A peer-to-peer filesharing client? That's a 75th percentile task... but disqualifies you legally, sorry.) but the business majors shouldn't be the only ones hiring the techs...

Of course, I live in the magical land of Logica.

In Response to mea37 (#8377):

I try to avoid the question "what languages do you know" (except on resumes, where it's simply unavoidable), because I see little sense in it.

As Graham said.

Plus, as I said "what've you got?".

As long as it's Turing complete, it'll do what I need it to. How much effort it takes to do one thing or another is the only real difference after that.

Well, as long as it's not COBOL.

In Response to mcgrue (#8325):

I remember master of magic. that game was sooo bug ridden but boy was it fun. look forward to seeing you get it working :-)

I used to work in Business applications doing Enterprise Java nightmares, and now I work for a coinop company on a golf game...hopefully to be in a bar near you.

Previously for fun, I worked on the worldforge project [worldforge.org] but recently work has kept me too busy to do much anymore. Hopefully at some point, I will begin to contribute again.

In Response to mcgrue (#8439):

A good interview question I was asked was, "What was the hardest bug you ever had to track down and how did you fix it?"

After that, we ended up chatting about a lot of interesting things we had run into in the past.
Good times.

In Response to zamphir (#8464):

Well, as long as it's not COBOL.

Or LOGO.

Frigging turtle.

In Response to albionsoft (#8432):

I think the project I was most proud of was the homepage/hosting system for theglobe. I really liked the internal architecture I put together for it, especially the second generation one that pretty much never saw the light of day after I left.

Although doing stuff for Goats is fun, you lose the thrill of working on big, large-scale systems....it tends to be a series of smaller projects.

In the spirit of the revised discussion,and because I've posted about it multiple times before, I'll refrain from repeating the languages/environments I work in here.

Let's face it folks, it's been said that programmers are a wierd lot to begin with, and being one I'll be the first to agree, but the true test of any programmer's ability is not the languages they can code, but their perceptions of and solutions for any current situation. Personally I'm a network geek, I started at IBM as an RS-6000 Specailist and I've picked up a couple of programming languages along the way, but it all boils down to the versatility of the human sitting in front of the box with the magic smoke genie in front of it, not the language that particular genie might speak.
Flame if you must, but there's a hardware geek's point of view.

In Response to jon (#8469):

"Enterprise LOGO turtles".

'Scuze me while I go file a patent....

In Response to zamphir (#8497):

And they magically solve Object-relational mapping? I'll buy a dozen!

I am not a programmer. I have been forced to learn various programming languages, and chosen to learn (or try to learn) other languages on my own. I am an engineer, but a civil engineer, not software or computer. As such, in college I was required to learn FORTRAN. This was far too much of a headache, and so the professor also taught C at the same time (i.e., all assignments had to be done twice, once in FORTRAN and then in C). I didn't really get the hang of either, unfortunately. Then, in a later class, I had to learn a smattering of Visual Basic. This also did not interest me greatly.

When it came time for a senior project that involved writing a program to analyze concrete mix proportions, I chose to do it in the one language I had ever actually been successful with: Javascript. Of course, the advantage here was that I could add functionality to the otherwise busy-work assignment by making it part of a web page, thereby making it available to all students, not just those who understood C or FORTRAN or Excel or whatever. See results [usc.edu].

What do I do for fun? Music or gaming, not programmer. See first comment of this post.

Asking what programming languages someone knows is kind of like asking them what languages they speak. Sure, i know some german, but i'd never last in a german-speaking country for long. Knowing how to say, "My hat is brown" wouldn't help me much.

Similarly, i won't say that i know applescript because i've only ever really done very simple editing to get it more in line with my needs. I don't think that qualifies as knowing a language.

To answer the discussion's question though, i have experience with FORTRAN (similar experience as Clan Hanna but with engineers at Purdue), C, C++ (currently my language of choice due to school), VBA, HTML (enough to do posts and ebay stuff), and whatever the Ti-83 uses. I am a god on the graphing calculator.

In Response to zamphir (#8464):

Anything but COBOL [wanadoo.nl], eh?

In Response to mea37 (#8533):

I once knew a guy who made a calculator in this [muppetlabs.com] to prove to me that he was a genius. Since he'd never coded, I was fairly impressed by his skill, but moreso by the utter waste of two weeks on his part.

In Response to mea37 (#8533):

Yeah. For the right fee schedule.

Alrighty.

Hate uni, so I was determined to learn on the job. I'm pretty much all ms-based. I like SQL and C++, particularly ISAPI programming and the like, and also am pretty proficient at the whole dhtml/javascript/asp thing. Got a kick up the bum and told to use .NET, but I only use it for C++ ATL Server apps (isapi derivative). Never even attempted any of that managed code stuff.

Also recently (last year or so) been doing mfc app work.