Ask HN: What is a programming language that you don't use at work but enjoy?

At work, I use Go and Python, but a short while ago I started learning Clojure and fell in love with the simplicity and a totally different approach to everything.

What is your favourite second language and why?

9 points | by dondraper36 5 hours ago

11 comments

  • nextos 33 minutes ago
    Mozart/Oz, see the CTM book.

    Dafny and F* are also evolving pretty nicely.

  • ocean_moist 5 hours ago
    BQN[1] (an APL variant). There is something really beautiful/elegant to me about composing higher order functions in a purely point free way. Array programming is a nice application of this, and this one has the best ergonomics.

    [1] https://mlochbaum.github.io/BQN/

  • sk11001 5 hours ago
    Go is lovely - it’s super pragmatic and things just work.
  • ironlake 3 hours ago
    Forth. I learned it very late in my programming career which started with Java. It just feels like home in a way that no other language ever has.

    Mostly useless tho

  • jarl-ragnar 4 hours ago
    Clojurescript. I used it to build an MVP proof of concept for work and now have to watch a small team re-write it using Typescript and Angular

    They’re still not at feature parity with 2x the team, 2x the time and 3x the lines of code.

  • purple-leafy 4 hours ago
    C!

    My job is typical web TypeScript + Python

    But in my spare time I’ve been deep diving C and loving it for the most part. Though I really hate strings in C!

  • stray 5 hours ago
    Common Lisp.
  • fastresearch 3 hours ago
    Swift and SwiftUI is fun for my own projects. I use Python and C++ for work.
  • sandwichsphinx 5 hours ago
    I really like Lua, it's simple and easy to compile
    [-]
    • pmontra 4 hours ago
      I use Lua for small scripts on my small server at home. I use it inside OpenResty, one file per URL, sometimes calling local programs and always printing HTML for the browser. It's small and it works.
  • metaketa 4 hours ago
    Crystal; compiled Ruby!