If programming languages were exes

 

[ Please excuse this ridiculous flight of fancy. This post occurred to me yesterday while I was hypoxically working my way up Claremont on a bike. ]

An common game among the nerderati is to compare favorite computer languages, talking trash about your friends’ favorites. But what if programming languages were ex-girlfriend (or -boyfriends)?

Perl 5

Perhaps not the most handsome ex, but probably the most easy-going. Perl was up for anything and didn’t care much what you did as long as it was fun. Definitely got you in trouble a few times. Did not get jealous if you spent time with other languages. Heck, Perl even encouraged it as long as you could all play together. Perl was no priss, and taught you about things that you shouldn’t even describe in polite company. The biggest problem with Perl is that nobody approved, and in the end, you dumped Perl because everyone told you that you had to grow up and move on to a Nice, Serious Language. But you do wonder what might have been…

Perl 6

Never actually went on a date. Stood you up many times.

Python

Trim and neat, Python really impressed you the first time you met. Python came with a lot of documentation, which was a breath of fresh air at first. However, the times when Python’s inflexibility proved annoying started to mount. After one PEP talk too many, you decided to move on. You still remember that one intimate moment when Python yelled out “you’re doing it wrong!” Relationship- ender. Mom was disappointed.

C++

C++ seemed to have it all. It knew just about everything to know about programming. If you heard of some new idea, the odds were that C++ had heard of it before you and incorporated awhile back. You had many intellectual conversations about computer science with C++. Thing is, C++ seemed kind of rulesy, too, and it was hard to know what C++ really wanted from you. Most annoying, whenever you didn’t know what C++ wanted, it blamed you for not “getting” it. C++ also seemed to have a bit of a dark side. Sure, most of the time C++ could be elegant and structured, but more than once you came home to find C++ drunk and in bed with C doing some truly nasty things.

C

C is not an ex. C is your grumpy grandpa/ma who gives zero f@#ks what the kids are doing today. C is the kind of computer language that keeps a hot rod in the garage, but crashes it every time it takes it out. It’s a wonder C is still alive, given its passtime of lighting M-80’s while holding them between its fingers. Thing is, it’s actually pretty fun to hang out with C, someone who can tell good stories and get its hands dirty.

PHP

Looked a lot like Perl, just as promiscuous, but never said or did anything that made you think or laugh. Boring. Dumped.

Haskell

The weird kid in high school that sat alone and didn’t seem to mind be ostracized. Everything Haskell ever said in class was interesting, if cryptic. There was something attractive about Haskell, but you could never put your finger on it. In the end, you couldn’t imagine a life as such an outsider, so you never even got Haskell’s phone number.

Excel

Wore a tie starting in elementary school, Excel was set on business school. Funny thing was that beneath that business exterior, Excel was a complete slob. Excel’s apartment was a pig sty. It was amazing anything ever worked at all. Pretty boring language in the end, though. Went on a few dates, but no chemistry.

Java

Man, in the 90’s everybody was telling you to date Java. This was the language you could finally settle down with. Good thing your instincts told you to dodge that bullet, or you’d be spending your retirement years with a laggy gui for an internal app at a bank. Ick.

Javascript

You were never that impressed with Javascript, but you have to admit its career has taken off better than yours has. Seems Javascript is everywhere now, a celebrity really. Javascript has even found work on servers. At least Javascript is not hanging out with that ugly barnacle, Jquery as much as it used to.