Worst Programming Languages to Learn in 2018

Traditionally, everyone tries to determine the best programming languages to learn in 2018, considering such factors as employability, the amount of job opportunities, how broad is the audience of this programming language, and so on. Nevertheless, in this episode, we’ll come at this topic from another angle and determine which languages you better steer clear of in 2018.

Coffeescript

Coffeescript, which was released nine years ago, is a programming language that provides a new syntax for JavaScript. The golden rule of this language is “It’s just JavaScript.” The main point is that there is a straightforward equivalent to every line of CoffeeScript. You can easily use any existing JavaScript library seamlessly from CoffeeScript. Nevertheless, the main question is still unresolved: “If I already know how to write good JavaScript, why I actually need Coffeescript?” That’s bitter truth right there. This language won’t be able to improve your code tremendously. Unfortunately, Coffeescript hasn’t become so popular as JavaScript. Besides, this language performed poorly in both growth and community engagement.

It’s been almost ten years since the release of this language and there are more and more versions and languages of JavaScript to choose from. Additionally, there’s a lot of cool things happening with JavaScript right now with various projects and frameworks. The majority of developers would rather spend their time learning something new as they’d be able to create something new. That’s probably one of the main reasons why Coffeescript is not so popular among the programmers.

Time is an invaluable resource. So we need to spend it reasonably. In order to avoid any pitfalls and misunderstandings in future, you need to concentrate on the most effective and promising projects. That’s exactly why Coffeescript is not the best choice.

Dart

Dart is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language that was developed by Google in 2011 and later approved as a standard by Ecma. Dart is a programming language using C-style syntax that transcompiles optionally into JavaScript. Usually, this language is used for developing server, mobile, and web applications as well as IoT devices.

Dart is relatively new language, though it can’t be an excuse. Even if we compare Dart with Swift, which was released three years earlier, Swift became much more popular.

Nevertheless, one of the main reasons that can prevent a programmer from learning it is the scarcity of job opportunities. Dart came in dead last in terms of the number of companies using it in their stacks.

Probably the biggest disadvantage of Dart is that the longevity of this programming language greatly depends on Google. Despite the fact that it has its own strong points, unfortunately it can’t stand out from the competition.

That’s why if your main goal is to learn a language with a large and passionate community as well as stable future and plenty of job opportunities, Dart is not the best programming language to learn.

Lua

Lua is an open-source, multi-paradigm, embeddable scripting language that was developed in 1993. This programming language is actively being used in such domains as gaming and web servers. Despite the fact that Lua is 25 years old, it’s still used by many developers. However, is it a good language to learn in 2018? Let’s see.

One of the main factors of a programming language’s success is the number of job opportunities it may offer. And despite the fact that there are companies that mention Lua as a part of their tech stack, this programming language can’t boast of being as successful as others languages that came around the same time.

In case you want to embed a scripting engine in a program you’ve written in C, Lua will be highly useful. Additionally, if you want to get a scripting language on a platform where all you’ve got is a C compiler, you definitely will need a help of Lua. Nevertheless, Lua is one of the languages that you will or not will find useful.

Lua is in demand in web services and gaming, though it actually bad in terms of community engagement and job opportunities. Anyway, if you’re looking for a programming language no growth and an overabundance of developers to demand, you definitely need to pay your attention to Lua. On the other hand, if your goal is to master a programming language with much less competition, a broad community, and steady growth, you have to keep looking for.

Perl

Perl is a family of high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. There are two languages in this family: Perl 5 and Perl 6. Initially, Perl was developed in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. However, now we’ve several languages that continue to be developed independently by different development teams.

This programming language has been one of the major competitors of Python. Nevertheless, there is a majority of things that you may find useless with Perl. On the one hand, it’s pretty easy to use (as with Python), though sooner or later you’ll probably find yourself tearing your hair while looking at Perl code that someone else has written. Perl is not actually easy to maintain. That’s why it’s actually a pain in the ass.

Context, data structures, as well as a host of other features make Perl an expressive language, but at the host of readability. That’s why Perl is so hard for learning. No wonder, so many people choose Python as a first language to learn.

On the other hand, we need to take into account the fact that Perl provides a programmer with an opportunity to do anything he wants. However, Python recommends the one obvious way to do things. In case Perl comes with a code that is hard to read and maintain, it might take the pleasure out of coding for various developers.

Objective-C

This programming language is probably known for every programmer. Objective-C is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style messaging to the C programming language. Mainly, it’s used by Apple for both iOS and OS X operating systems development. Despite the fact the majority of developers, Objective-C is still in-demand. But is it a good idea to start learning Objective-C in 2018?

In 2014, since Swift release, the popularity of Objective-C has been declining. However, it’s necessary to admit that despite the age and the increasing popularity of Swift, Objective-C is still good in terms of the job market. If you already know this programming language, you’ll easily find a job. Nevertheless, there are also a lot of developers, who know this language, to choose from. And that makes it essentially a buyer’s market.

Before choosing Objective-C, weight up all the pros cons. Don’t be lured by all the current job opportunities as the main disadvantage is that it’s no longer growing.

If you’re a beginner in coding and just start your career as a developer, Objective-C won’t be the best solution. The companies that need Objective-C developers may not need them when you’re done learning it. That makes learning Objective-C quite risky bet. Taking all these facts into account, a beginner developers might consider choosing other programming languages to learn.

The Bottom Line

As the proverb goes: “Tastes differ.” Some may accept our point of view, some may not. Honestly, there can be no objective answer to the question of best and worst in a programming language. Nevertheless, we tried to consider all the main factors of a successful language, as well as covering such questions as “How long will a language will be in demand? How wide is the audience of the language? How many job opportunities will it provide?” Hopefully, our advice will make your developer’s path stress free and as pleasant as possible.