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What languages and tools non-professional-programmers (non cs) in here use ?

The question title may probably sound a little misleading, so let me clarify. I'm asking what tools and languages are used by those of non-professional-programming capability, non computer scientiscs and not by people who have a degree in something else, but live of programming primarily. In other words, I'm interested by answers from people who don't live off programming, but have to do it every now and then.

Non-scientiscs are welcome to answer too. I'll even welcome answers from lawyers, if some should find their way here. Just please state your discipline.

This is not a qustion what languages were you taught at school/college, since many often view those as necessarily evil, and don't use those in their work. Nor is it a question which tool/language is best or anything in that direction. So answer freely; I'm not going to downvote (just the opposite !) anyone who says he/she uses Notepad. Since people who aren't professionally connected to computer sciences usually have a little different way of thinking, I'm hoping this will be one of those few question where Vim/Emacs will not be amongst the top voted answers. On the other hand, I expect for example, LaTeX or Excel to come out quite close to the top.

I know that there aren't that many of others here, but still, I hope a few answers will pop up.

I had trouble deciding where this should go, to SO or SU. Theoretically, this is a forum for professional programmers, but I also noticed some other professions in here - therefore I'm asking it here. I think it is still better suited there than on SU, but I will not object if the admins decide on moving it to wherever they see fit.

Edit: to clarify what seems to be the most confusing part. What target audience am I interested in?
It is somewhat vague, I agree, but let's say that I'm interested in those who while programming don't show their code to others, and don't live of selling their code directly. For example, biologists who program just to make some calculations, and then sell those, would be my interested subject. He often doesn't show his code to anyone, it is merely his tool, and he doesn't off selling that code. It is merely his way to get the results he needs. Nobody's interested in his code (which is why it's often so ugly), just the results that come out of it.

I know I identified "cs people" as "professionals", which may not always be true, but it was a rough distinction which had to be made - otherwise half the answers would be on the topic of who is what.

Rook
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  • Related: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/38239/practices-for-programming-in-a-scientific-environment – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Aug 30 '09 at 14:31
  • @dmckee - yes, I saw it. I agree, it is somewhat related, but still there are a few differences. First, the author was mostly interested in programming languages, while I'm interested in other tools, for example, Excel, Latex ... and such. Second, he was at the beginning aiming at some professions. And third, as I've stated, I'm aiming primarily at people who don't spend most of their time programming but do something else. For example, and this is true, believe it or not, I've never met a non-programmer who uses version control of any kind. I hope I – Rook Aug 30 '09 at 14:40
  • clarified a little who I'm interesed in as my target audience. – Rook Aug 30 '09 at 14:40
  • If you are interested in tools other than programming languages, why the "programming-languages" tag? –  Aug 30 '09 at 15:15
  • @Neil - I didn't say I wasn't interested in programming languages. Where did I say that ? – Rook Aug 30 '09 at 15:48
  • I've been in IT for 18 years. I'm not a computer scientist. I don't sell my code. My code belongs to my employer. Your question actually annoys me and I feel it's quite arrogant. Your edit does not help. I also don't see the point and I voted to close it... – gbn Aug 30 '09 at 15:50
  • I really don't know what is so hard to understand about this question. So far I'm getting answers from programmers who have trouble understanding that there are *others* out there, who don't live of programming. Here, let's put it as simple as I can state it. I'm interested in *people with engineering or science degrees (apart from cs) who program but don't live of selling their code*. They are not exactly an audience for which this site was made, but nevertheless, over my stay here, I noticed such people here. – Rook Aug 30 '09 at 15:57
  • @gbn - do you get paid to code ? To me it is equal to selling your code. You live of programming. Would, if I substituted "selling your code" with "living of your code" be better ? – Rook Aug 30 '09 at 15:58
  • @gbn - You also didn't state what is it that annoys you about my question, and what part you find arrogant. I'm not a native english speaker, so if you feel something is wrongly putted, I'd be glad to rectify it. – Rook Aug 30 '09 at 16:06
  • @gbn - for example; I'm an engineer (non cs), who programs to get some results for his calculations. Even if I program at work, that code has nothing to do with my employer; he doesn't hold any rights to it; it is simply my personal tool (instead of excel, for example) to do some resistance or some strength calculations, in which my employer is interested in. I could do (theoretically) those calculations by hand (as people 50 years go did); and for that I get my salary. In these fields the employer sometimes holds rights to a method of calculation (mathematically speaking - for example, – Rook Aug 30 '09 at 16:08
  • the scientific article in which it is published), but that is all. – Rook Aug 30 '09 at 16:09

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It's interesting that you distinguish computer professionals and computer scientists. There is a world of difference between the two. Most career programmers look down on computer scientists as not being goal-orientated enough, whilst computer scientists return the favour by seeing career programmers as insufficiently skilled, seat warmers if you will.

There are plenty of tools for abstracting the creation of programs, but they are generally very biased towards the actual trade being perform (eg. Game Maker for games!)

Rushyo
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I primarily use #develop to write .NET applications with the Boo Language.

Everything else is mostly C# in Visual Studio 2008.

Inisheer
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I'd say that it depends strongly on discipline. In the disciplines I interact with, people program in Python and Matlab. R is also quite a popular tool.

Unfortunately, it seems that people tend to learn a language and stick with it, so the people who learned matlab use it as their hammer, and boy is it the wrong tool in a lot of cases. Stick with something more general like python if you can.

Paul McMillan
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  • It depends on the discipline, of course - that was one of the reasons for the question :) Also, yes, I agree about the "matlab" comment - but as I said, those people are not programmers. To them it is something "they have to do" but usually don't like doing it. I don't expect to find C for example in here; it is a low level language. Too unknown - after all memory management is something abstract to most. To people who value results, high level languages will be closer. They do not value programming as such, just getting the results of calculations which are impossible to be done by hand. – Rook Aug 30 '09 at 15:11
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While I don't qualify, I do know two other people who are not computer professionals yet do a fair amount of programming.

One does numeric computation for engineering applications, using mostly Fortran, I'm told.

The other does business process modeling, using J. He sees it as a substitute for Excel that doesn't suck. I think he also writes a fair amount of Emacs Lisp, since he lives in Emacs -- even more than me!

Alec
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I admit, I'm struggling to spot a correlation between "professional" vs. "non-professional" and tools/platforms used, but then, I don't believe that "CS degree" equals "professional", or vice-versa.

Rob
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