C, Perl,
Python, Java and
LISP — the dominant languages in open-source
development. This list has changed over time, but slowly. Java bumped C++
off of it, and Python appears to be recruiting people who would otherwise
gravitate to LISP (which used to be much more important than it is now).
Smalltalk and Prolog are also popular in small but influential
communities.
The Real Programmers who loved FORTRAN and
assembler have pretty much all retired or died since 1990. Assembler is
generally no longer considered interesting or appropriate for anything but
HLL implementation, glue, and
a few time-critical and hardware-specific uses in systems programs.
FORTRAN occupies a shrinking niche in scientific programming.
Most hackers tend to frown on languages like
Pascal and Ada, which don't
give them the near-total freedom considered necessary for hacking (see
bondage-and-discipline language), and to regard
everything even remotely connected with COBOL or
other traditional DP languages as a total
and unmitigated loss.
