Screw your favorite programming language
Okay, maybe the title is a bit harsh, but this battle between developers and their programming languages is really annoying.
“Rust is the future, it’s safe, it’s the best!11!!”
“C is the godmother of languages and still the best!”
“Haskell is the way!”
“Javascript and vibe coding trust me bro!”
“Go is easy and effective. Its just the best”
It’s just a tool. I have my favorites too, but I would never go to war for them. Use the best tool for the job. If there are several, use the one you enjoy the most.
Where does this thinking come from?
Twitter. Or X.
Okay maybe it’s a bit more complex and a bit older but holy shit social media really brings out the worst in people and it’s the same with software developers. Gatekeeping wherever possible. Everyone has THE right opinion.
On top of that, we humans love to compare things.
“Mine is better, bigger, stronger, smarter, blah blah blah”
And Tech Twitter is a very special bubble. Most of the time I love this bubble. Peaceful, interesting, focused on technology and extremely motivated to learn. But sometimes there’s this toxic “I know better” opinion and then it gets really ugly really fast.
One language to bind them all
But does it exist? The “best” language that everyone talks about? The one that is objectively better than all the others? A language that has the power to bind them all?
Of course. C.
All joking aside. C is cool and certainly one of the most important and influential languages of our time, but the best? For some things for sure, but certainly not for everything. Otherwise we wouldn’t have languages like C++, Rust or Zig that try to improve and/or replace C.
Rust!
Nope. The syntax is really an attack on my retina and before I start a major project in Rust I’d rather write Assembly. Nevertheless, it’s an important language, the Borrow Checker is a cool thing and there’s a reason for the hype.
Zig baby!
Okay, I’m biased here. I love Zig, the syntax, completely compatible with C, great build system, low level etc.
I think and hope that this language will become much more popular. But the best? Certainly not.
Go, simple and effective!
I like Go very much. It’s simple but you can still do everything with it. But I can understand people who find it boring. My first choice for any backend, especially in the web area.
I could go on like this forever, but I think you understand what I mean.
Summary
Use the language that does the job best and that you prefer to work with. But don’t idolize the language. Don’t get too attached to one language. There are many, many very good languages. It’s okay to have your favorites but at the end of the day we all like different things and everything is subjective. Except of course the fact that Javascript is a crime against humanity.