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[Boreal]

I've been getting into functional reactive programming lately, and I decided that my favourite FRP language doesn't exist yet

https://gist.github.com/boreal-games/5611c12e61b885a7fee7

[Tycho Brahe]

At the moment, Haskell by a country mile. I can write something in x lines of code using it that would take 10x likes of code in another language (e.g. Java, Scala, etc). On top of that, the strong type system combined with the fact that it has referential transparency makes it so much easier to reason about what my code is going to do, and believe that it's actually going to do it in practice! Finally, even though it's a pure functional language it often approaches the performance of C, and even when it doesn't it generally absolutely smokes other "high level" languages, such as Python or Ruby.

Other languages I'm enjoying are C/C++/CUDA for general high performace stuff, and Python for basic throwaway scripting which I'm guaranteed to not have to support.

[BatFastard]

Over the last 25 years I have programmed in dozens of languages. In some ways things are improving, but the expectations and complexity grow faster then languages improve.

For UI creation, Borland's Delphi was hands down the best language/environment I have ever used.
For back end, I prefer C++ but Java family of languages and tools might be better for commercial products.
I haven't done much web dev, nothing impresses me. Javascript is still very clumsy and hard to debug.

It really depends on the situation.

[ubik]

C.  C++.  LISP.  Blitzmax.

[Boreal]

[Gtoknu]

I don't know what's written, but I can guess each one of the descriptions...

[shellbot]

I love me some python, I find it perfect for smaller projects.
C++ is nice but too easy to over-engineer in. I know you should always plan ahead, but sometimes I just want to jump in; if you do that in C++, you'll pay.
C# is beautiful and I want to start using it again. However I like using Vim + Command Line and C# is best inside an IDE (from what I remember).

Fuck Java. I hate Java.

[BigThink]

C# C# C#  I will always love that language for some reason haha (probably because the syntax is so damn good and typesafe and all that stuff haha) 

[oldmanmike]

Haskell. Haskell is the worst programming language, except for all the other programming languages that I've tried.

Currently making a game in Haskell, so I might end up eating my words. But I avoided game development for years purely because I really wasn't feeling it with C++. But then Jonathan Blow was like "Big idea languages are impractical" and I was like "That's not true!" and so here I am.

[Boreal]

Haskell is a good language, but not for practical application.  It teaches you a lot of concepts that are readily portable to things like C++.  Usually these concepts carry over into maintaining cache coherency as well as isolating tasks for multithreading.

[oldmanmike]

Depends on how you define "practical application" and what you value in a language. Haskell's primary weaknesses (as far as I've experienced) is its finicky performance and lack of mature libraries for many real world tasks. I'm fine writing my own engine, so the library limitation is primarily a temporary one. Performance is pretty much just understanding what the hell GHC/RTS are doing with your code when you compile it, which is nothing new for high-level languages - it's just more true in the case of Haskell. Haskell has plenty of methods for acquiring good performance, they just don't come batteries included.

Other than that, I think it's practical. You just have to acknowledge that you can't port imperative sensibilities over to a purely functional language that defaults to lazy evaluation. You also have to get a deep understanding of the type system. That's hard, but it's an upfront cost that doesn't persist.

And once again, I might end up eating my words.

[Boreal]

I have to admit that it helped me a lot in getting good at metaprogramming, considering the C++ compiler basically has an embedded pure functional programming language.