P2 - Choosing a language

Choosing a programming language

In this blog we shall be looking into what influences a developer when choosing a programming language, there are many factors that must be addressed when choosing a language, these include:

• Time constraints
• Organisational policy
• Suitability
• Availability of trained staff
• Reliability
• Environment (Hardware, Operating system)
• Development and maintenance costs
• Expandability

Time Constraints

Time constraints in programming can cause problems if the programming software used is very hard to use and takes a long time to programme. When a developer is deciding what language they want to use they will decide on how much time they need. If a developer does not have much time to create a programme then they would use an easy programming language that has predefined code in it, predefined code is code that has already been written for ease of use, an example of predefined code is when a button is double-clicked on a form in Visual basic, this instantly creates a button click event in the code view rather than having the programmer waste time typing in all of the code.

Organisational Policy

If a developers organisation has a policy in which it can only use software provided by other companies, for example most schools and offices have policies with Microsoft so that they can get a discount on their software as they have to buy their products in bulk, so if a developers organisational policy means they can only use software from one given company then they will have to use that companies software or they could void the policy for the other software they own.

Suitability

When deciding on a programming language the developer must decide what type of language would be most suitable for the programme that they are making, whether it would be more suited to a procedural, object oriented or event driven programming language. Once they have decided on the suitable type of language they will then decide which software they will use dependent on the other factors that are listed above.

Availability Of Trained Staff

When choosing the programming language the developer must first look into how many of their current staff know how to use different programming languages and how well they can use them, if their are no staff trained to use a selected programming language then the developer would have to pay more money out to pay freelance programmers. To avoid this extra cost a developer would have to select a programming language that all staff know how to use or pay for them to be trained in it.

Reliability

Reliability is a key factor when choosing a programming language, this is because dependent on the programme that is being made an unreliable programming language could cost lives, for example a programme that operated a nuclear reactor, if the program had bugs and the reactor malfunctioned it could cost lives. But even in less life threatening conditions a reliable programming language would be most suited for any job because if it costs a lot of money to fix any bugs that are found in a programme then it would be counter efficient and the developer would lose out on money in the long run. Whereas if the developer chooses a reliable language they would be spending more on the programme but would not have to worry so much about the maintenance costs of the created programme.

Environment

The hardware of a computer can affect how efficient the programmers are, this is because programming software can take a long time to do actions if a computer is not up to specification. The reason why a computer can run slow is because the programme has hundreds of tools, predefined code and procedures that it has to load in all at once, this process can take even longer if the user is opening a programme to edit it. Also the operating system is a factor that the developer must take into account when deciding what programming language they shall use. This is because some programming languages are not supported by certain operating systems, for example Apple do not support the use of flash on their Mac operating system. This could also be the case with certain programming languages and operating systems.

Development And Maintenance Cost

The cost of development and maintenance will be taken into mind when the developer is deciding on a programming language, this is because if the language is not reliable but easy to use the development cost would be low because the developer would not need to spend as much on employee wages, although the cost of maintenance would be high because they would have to keep making updates to fix bugs that occur. Oppositely if the language was reliable they would spend more on employees but less on maintenance, this could reduce costs in the long run.

Expandability

When deciding on a programming language the developer would have to think on whether or not they would need to expand on the programme. If they are intending on developing a programme that has additional expansions then they will probably aim to choose an easy to edit language, this would allow the developer to edit the code to create newer versions of the programme for either adding additional content or fixing bugs.