Figuring out the right language for the job: branching out from C#

Question

I work in a Microsoft environment, so I can use my C# hammer on any nails I come across. That being said, what languages (compiled, interpreted, scripting, functional, any types!) complement knowing C#, and for what purposes? For example, I've moved a lot of script functionality away from compiled console apps and into Powershell scripts. If you're an MS developer, have you found a niche in your world for other languages like F#, IronRuby, IronPython, or something similar, and what niche do they fill?

Note: this question is directed at the Microsoft dev people since I can't run off and start installing LAMP stacks around my company, and therefore having to support it forever. :) However, feel free to mention any other languages that you found interesting to fulfill a certain task/role in your world apart from your main language.

Answer 1

Python/Perl/Ruby/PowerShell are great supplements to C#/VB.NET. If your boss hands you a text file and says insert it into the database once or twice, then any of Perl/Python/Ruby (I'm not sure about powershell but I imagine it is not that much more difficult) should be fine to parse it. Either way, for your main applications you will probably be stuck in C#. You can use one of the more dynamic languages to do code generation in C#.

Since you are in a Microsoft Environment, probably your best chance at getting your solution accepted is PowerShell. Next to that I'd say IronPython or something else that integrates with the CLR. But main issue is that for someone else to maintain what you do, they would have to know whatever language you are using. MS in the future has plans to use PowerShell a lot more, so it is probably easier to justify PowerShell then say Python/Perl/Ruby.

If you are just processing a text file for one time use. Or creating a one time code generator to generate all the code and then intend to maintain the generated code, then it doesn't matter. You are the one who will consume the results and if you save time using Perl then more power to you. But if you are doing something that will be used over and over again (like an active code generator where you change the templates and run the generator instead of maintaining the generated code) then other developers working on what you did will need to know the language you used. It is much harder to argue learning Perl/Ruby/Python in a Microsoft Shop. But PowerShell seems like the easier argument. I think the MS grand plan is that eventually applications will expose more functionality for power shell through commandlets. Assuming this happens then PowerShell is even more of a no-brainer because it will expose tons of scriptable functionality that you won't get any other way.