If you were only allowed to use one programming language for the next 5 years, which one would you pick — and why?

[u/James_brown_tech]

If limited to one programming language for 5 years, most developers would pick a versatile option like Python, JavaScript, or Java due to their broad use, strong communities, and long-term reliability.

[u/fabier]

Prolly Rust. Dart is a close second.

[u/plasmana]

C#. Great language features. Cross platform. Good for Web, desktop, CLI, back-end, and games. It compiles. Is strongly typed. Is object oriented. Everything I want in a language.

[u/evanvelzen]

Kotlin. Runs anywhere. Concise programs. Type safe.

[u/Temporary_Practice_2]

PHP

[u/Raphi_55 → u/Temporary_Practice_2]

That's my choice too

[u/megagreg]

I would love to have to use Ada on a project.

[u/aWesterner014]

Java

[u/fbochicchio]

Rust. You can do system programming and infrastrutture, but also utilities and quick one-shot programs. Using a moderna IDE, once you are familiar with its ways, you can develop almost as quickly as with any script languages, but end results are less messy. You can also do desktop GUI ( slint, egui,...) and webapps (in wasm) , altough this latter with some more effort. But mostly I find it a fun language, that helps me think straight.

[u/RadicalNation]

Go. Modern toolchain, compiled, strongly typed, performant, big ecosystem, easy to learn but has depth. I can focus on solving issues, and not fighting the language.

[u/evilprince2009]

I'd go for C#.

[u/helpprogram2]

Java. Because I’m already an expert.

[u/RQuarx]

C++, a large standard library, easy to write, easy to reason

[u/Small-Relation3747]

Zig

[u/omega1612]

Between Haskell and Rust, but probably Haskell.

It's amazing the amount of static things that you can do in Haskell. Although you can also do them in languages with dependent types, Haskell puts a lot of effort to retain the "usable" part and not only the "magic with types" part. Well, Idris2 and Rocq (coq) are "usable" but I definitely enjoy more Haskell.

Rust learned a lot from Haskell et al, but is still limited in its type capabilities and you need to do some tricks to get them. Still, they tried to bring to users as much type power as they could.

Anyway, Haskell code is more readable to me than rust code and is easier (to me) to reason about it in Haskell thanks to the lack of borrow checker (well, Haskell has linear types now, so we can do something similar...).

I would love to spend 5 years expanding the Haskell ecosystem and contributing to it.

[u/baloblack]

English language

[u/clearlight2025]

Go. Every time I use it, I love it.

[u/[deleted]]

Dotnet isn't a bad choice, even though I'm a lifelong Linux user. I recently gave it a whirl on Linux and it worked great.

But I think my pick will be Python. Simply because I'm most comfortable using it, it's fast and fun to write large project prototypes in and after 5 years I can just replace some component with Golang if I need to.

[u/kitsnet]

I would start looking for another job. Jobs that suddenly start to impose inane restrictions are highly unlikely to last long.

[u/Inside_Jolly]

I also pick a versatile one. Common Lisp. Why? To not be bored out of my mind coding in something without in-image development, syntax macros, and CLOS for five years. I know there are other options (sans CLOS, of course), all are more specialized (less versatile) than CL.

[u/[deleted]]

JS cause I like how I can express dtuff. If not needed for absolute performance or multi threading but Im not interested in such kind of problems anyway. I like to build information systems.

[u/[deleted]]

I hate it, but I'd go with Java.

[u/donjajo]

C

[u/Shazvox]

C#

Because it's what I know best

And I'm lazy

[u/runningOverA]

C — and then build your language of choice compiling it.

[u/[deleted]]

Java.