The Question
if there were 5 languages that everyone should know what would they be?
I'll pick languages that are still relevant/useful in modern computing.
One
A language that is Object Oriented and provides a REPL. Most people think OO is just about classes and inheritance. It isn't.
Smalltalk is the canonical language when discussing 'object oriented languages'. It is purely object oriented. Every single item is an object. But it has no place in 2011. There are two languages that encapsulate the OO paradigm and are still relevant:
- Python
- Ruby
Which is better is up for debate.
Two
A shell scripting language for automating tasks.
- BASH
- ZSH
Three
A processing language for filtering vast amounts of data. This will teach you to be liberal with what you accept, and conservative in what you send. You'll also learn a great respect for the power of regular expressions.
- AWK
You don't even need to be an expert in awk to benefit from it.
Four
A declarative/functional language.
- LISP
- Erlang
Not everything needs to be a for loop, or a while loop.
Five
???
Languages You Don't Need (Most Likely)
C - I'll explain why later. But, basically, we have big hardware now, C will slow you down. Unless you need speed have another pressing need.
