All in all I have found things about each that I have liked and things that I have disliked. And with any language the end result really relies on the programmers mastery of the language. A programmer has to truly understand the strengths and weaknesses of the language they are using and the proper way to code around both.

Although I prefer coding directly to the hardware using assembly, not having to rely on the operating system’s view of how things should be done, I don’t prever having to write my own windowing, menuing, etc. systems each time.

I prefer C++ because it gives you the power when you need it and there are adequate libraries available. I would rate C++ a 2 on Grant’s scale because there are some things that I miss from some of the other languages. The most notable being nested procedures from Pascal.

Dylan, Python, and Ruby are a few of the langauges that are currently of interest to me.

Like others I appreciate the fact that it will let you do practically anything (for instance, I’ve recently learned about “Placement of Objects” (10.4.11 for those of you following along in Stroustrup’s C++ Programming Language book).) The negative side of the C++ is that it forces you to be very careful with both design and implementation. (When you stand up and declare “I’m in charge here” you best be ready to deal with _everything_.)

I think I’d enjoy working on ‘greenfield’ C++ code on a project that was going to use the STL wisely and had a _great_ architect leading the project.

Objective-C++ (a mix of Objective-C and C++) appears to work nicely though I haven’t done much of it. Need a C++ object in your Obj-C method? Do a new on it right in the obj-C method. Want some Obj-C object in your C++ code? Do a [[Class alloc] init]. Mix and match.

To a certain degree, lately I’ve been less interested in the language itself and more interested in what libraries and development facilities (IDEs, etc.) are available for the language… this doesn’t mean I’m only seeking out the mainstream stuff.

2) I’d really like to be able to work on a project big enough to really learn more about SmallTalk — that doesn’t seem likely, though. And, from what I’ve heard, it doesn’t seem like SmallTalk solutions are very easy to deploy.

On the scripting side of the world, Lua seems very interesting. I’d like to do more with it. (I toyed with some sample scripts when reading through one of the introductory Lua books a while back.)

Yeah, you heard me right.

You’re the programmer… write the code! Make this machine do what you want and need it to do! BEND IT TO YOUR WILL!

2) Language I’d like to learn? Javascript. Actually, it’s not javascript, per se, but ECMAScript.

Now, to answer your questions.
#1. I would rate C++ a 2. I can do just about anything with it, it suits me well, and it runs fast. The only downside is that sometimes it takes you a while to get there, unlike Colt 45. (For the youngsters, one of their other slogans was “Colt 45 Malt Liquor – It gets you there quicker”). $0.99 for a double-deuce and you are off to Shangri-la.

#2. I am split between Lisp and Ruby (with/without Rails). I’ve never been exposed to Lisp other than seeing some code snippets on the net, but it looks very cool and I am left with the impression that there is something special just beyond my edge of understanding, that once I took the next step, I would reach programming Nirvana.

For Ruby, it looks like a very quick-to-implement language that does OO in a way that suits my brain. For example, to find an absolute value of a number, in java you would have
Math.abs(number)
and in Ruby, you would have
number.abs
This just feels more intuitive to me.
The downside to Ruby is that while you might be able to crank out functionality quickly (unlike C++), the performance is poor (unlike C++).

Going back to your initial premise of the “Next Big Language” – if a language existed that felt like Ruby, but had the performance of compiled C++, I would be a happy camper.

Maybe you meant cout {{ “stuff”. Well, Windows might prefer Console::Write(“stuff”). Qt land might like QTextStream out(stdout) {{ “stuff” instead. Hmmm… And that’s just printing a simple line.

For upcoming languages, I like to get usable output as quickly as possible. C++ may be flexible, but it’s slow. PHP remains my favorite fastest-to-usable language. C# is what I’ve been toying with now and have been mostly impressed by it.

Anyway, I too was going to run some polls on the Seapine bloggy thing, I’ll have to see if I can find a WordPress poll module of sorts and make Tim install it. I hear we can do that sort of thing.

It’s not a 3 in my book because it’s flexible enough to almost always do what I need it to. Using C#, sometimes there’s things that are “too” low-level for it to do, so you need to link in a C++ component.

It misses a #1 spot partially due to that flexibility. You want to print a line? Oh, just printf(“stuff”). -er wait, that’s C, but still supported. Maybe you meant cout

What do I think of C++? I rate it a -1. I really wanted to rate it an eleventy-billion, but since Grant’s rating scale is so goofy, that would actually be a bad score. I could go with a negative eleventy-billion, but it just doesn’t sound as cool.

What language do I want to learn more about? I’m going to have to go with Assembly. There’s nothing like a good quality PUSH and POP.