Nigerians and Programming Languages

Through out my over 16 years (Since February, 2001) of programming professionally I have only met one person in Nigeria (now a friend and a colleague) that uses less popular but effective programming language. Most upcoming programmers prefer to use popular programming Languages without making any form of research to see if it fits the area of programming they would want to embark on. I think the real reason for this is that Nigeria is not a programming country besides no real guidance on this kind of stuff. But things are changing though.

When I decided in 2001 to go into programming professionally I knew I wanted to develop business applications for the end users. Programming Languages like Visual Basic 6, VB.Net, Clarion, where at my disposal to use. Back then Visual Basic 5 & Visual Basic 6 were quite popular. So I started with Visual Basic 6. It was easy to learn and program with. I soon discovered that while using Visual Basic6 you are not totally in control. That ease of use comes at a price. A lot of stuff are written for you by the Visual Basic 6 Compiler underground and you can not do anything about it. The drudgery has been encapsulated for you. I did not like that. Beside, just developing a little application can result in very large end product in size.

So, I moved on to Clarion Programming Language. Clarion was great for a while. I really liked the concept behind the Clarion Compiler. Where the Database, Compiler and Report Engine comes in one package and all three are inter-related. I discovered also that the Clarion Compiler has some of the reasons why I left VB6. Moreover its quite pricey. Anyway, the Clarion Compiler is the best RAD tool I have ever used. Anyway, down the road I have used  and still use C#, Java, Javascript, PHP, HTML, HTML5, Python, etc. for various projects. At first some of them were 'forced' on me mostly because they were good fits or the clients wanted those platforms used for maintainability purposes.

Some years back I was introduced to Powerbasic For Windows (Formerly Turbo Basic by Borland) by a friend. I did my own investigations and thought it was perfect for me. With Powerbasic For Windows you write everything from scratch using DDT or SDK style coding and the end product is always really small in size - The Programmer is in total control and really the "Consultant Secret Weapon".

I am not saying those popular programming languages are not good. They are great compilers! I also use them and I love some of them. At least some of them gained their popularity because of the amazing things programmers can do with them.

Choose your compiler very carefully. Don't go with the buzz so much.

Happy coding life. :)



Comments

  1. That's educative and informative. Keep up the good work #FredrickUghimi #Mega-Net Software

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  2. Good one for upcoming programmers. Keep the candle burning

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  3. Hello Solomon, thank you for comments. We sure would keep the flag flying. :)

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. Thank you for sharing your journey with us

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    Replies
    1. CEKAL, you are welcome. Thank you for your comments.

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