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While it looks rather silly on the surface to have so many different languages (and it certainly makes our jobs as developers more difficult), there was a reason for creating each and every one of them. It's the same reason that there are aisles of similar-looking tools at any hardware store: you use a different tool for a different need, and if the tool you need doesn't exist, you create it.
Sure, you could keep adding stuff to the frameworks of the general-purpose languages to cover every possible eventuality, but that adds complexity and slows down the language. There are also situations that the general-purpose languages are simply not suitable for (i.e., functional languages).
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...And the reason so often is a bad one. #1 reason for inventing a language: ego. Yes, I mean you, Larry.
The single language idea is theoretically attainable through the all-enveloping runtime. A language is, or should be, a minimal set of statements; a few conditionals, assignment, sub/function and of course expressions. The vast and seemingly random collection of built-ins found in some languages are so much more manageable sorted into a structure of runtime APIs. But geek egos being what they are we'll continue to see a stream of fad "languages" each with its enthusiastic herd of fanbois.
Emerald On Runways, anyone?
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Collin Jasnoch wrote: But sometimes using a nail gun to hang a picture frame will do more damage than good.
Good point.
John
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A skilled craftsman can make a house with only a few tools, and yes it is usually built better then someone using power tools.(I've built a few things in my time  )
However if your building a trailer house which needn't pass the test of time (the homeless people need a trailer NOW!) then you build it with power tools.
In this time of disposable... everything, there is becoming less need for hand drills (even though they make a smoother hole) and more need for drill presses (just put the hole here).
Operating systems - built by stable language.
Most short life cycle Software - MegaLanguage.
High End Long Life Software - built by some stable language.
Cell Phone apps. - MegaLanguage.
I would hate to be the one to rewrite all the molecular modeling software, however it could greatly benefit by an update into a functional language. But there are only a handful of people in the WORLD who do this type of programming, and they do it with hand tools, love, and a lot of coffee. So to them it is Art.
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Ideally, we should have fewer languages. Seriously, what is a difference between VB and C#? However, I can't imagine a single language that would be good for all programming scenarios: for instance a system language needs to be close to hardware (think C), but a web scripting language needs to be as far from hardware as possible (JavaScript).
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Lets say there is a such language, will you use other ones?
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If there was a perfect food, would you eat anything else?
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Grape Ice Cream is perfect for the first day. But after you eat it a few times you long for plain vanilla ice cream. 
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Ah, so you made it then! 
Yeah, it's definitely best fresh, and in small doses.
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continue your thoughts: f**k off standards! lets everyone will make things different. It's so cool if there were 100 browsers and it's so interesting to write html for everyone of them!
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Not sure how that follows from what i wrote...
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Kamarey wrote: Lets say there is a such language
One that is close to the hardware and far from it at the same time? 
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I would, but frankly speaking I don't think we'll be able to use it. Since its mere existence would prove that all principles of logic known to humans are unsustainable, which would cause World War X and total destruction of planet Earth. Heck, forget about us and Earth, whole universe would collapse killing all living forms (including Bob) in the process!
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Languages may fall into disuse, but they don't cease to exist. Things that were written in languages that are now "dead" are still around even though maybe no one can understand them.
Furthermore, a language exists once it has been defined, even if no one uses it and, in the case of programming languages, even if no compiler or interpreter exists for it.
While I agree that the use of fewer languages in active development projects is a good thing, I could not choose "We should work towards far fewer languages". So I voted for "It should stay as it is now"; whereby if a language is expressive and easy to use and is useful across a broad range of application domains, then it may supercede several other languages. (Language Darwinism )
Plus, I disagree with the "s" at the end of "toward". 
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I think the 's' should remain, but be followed by the word "having"...
We should work towards having far fewer languages.
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One word .. Legacy
The only thing unpredictable about me is just how predictable I'm going to be.
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Ideally there should be one language only, not meter if it's the programming one or other. What's bad if everyone understands everyone?
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Surely that's More Languages == More Problems
The only thing unpredictable about me is just how predictable I'm going to be.
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Perhaps it's More Languages => More Problems.
Sad but true: 4/3 of Americans have difficulty with simple fractions.
There are 10 types of people in this world: those who understand binary and those who don't.
{o,o}.oO( Check out my blog! )
|)””’) http://pihole.org/
-”-”-
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That's backward; More Problems == More Languages
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Just because someone wrote something in the language I know doesn't mean I will understand it.
WarePhreak
Programmers are tools to convert caffiene to code.
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But is someone wrote in language you don't know, this does mean you won't understand it.
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So I learn a new language. Most of it is syntax anyways or concepts peculiar to the strength of that language. Most of programming is applying the same general concepts (not language specific) over and over to solve each problem.
WarePhreak
Programmers are tools to convert caffiene to code.
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Ideally we should live in the perfect world in which we don't need programming languages at all and where we can make things work the way we want simply by looking at them. But then again we don't live in such world, so we have many programming (as well as natural) languages and everybody can choose the one (or few) that (s)he likes or fulfills the needs.
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