ast week a friend of mine forward me a post in which the development language was compared to a boat. It was inspired by a recent forum post, and has lot of fun so I decide to share.

Turing

Turing would definitely be a kayak (thank you for comments). It’s small. It’s human powered. It’s often used as a beginner “boat”. And it’s also very Canadian.

Original photo by naokomc

Java

Java is a cargo ship. It’s very bulky. It’s very enterprise~y. Though it can also carry a lot of weight. Will carry a project, but not very fun to drive.

Original photo by cfarivar

Perl

Perl is a tugboat. Powerful enough to tug Java around, in 80 characters or less.

Original photo by xeeliz

Ruby

Ruby is difficult to describe. It’s sleek, sexy, and very fun to drive. Here’s a picture. Very trendy.

Original photo by Tony Falcon

PHP

PHP is a bamboo raft. A series of hacks held together by string. Still keeps afloat though.

Original photo by permanently scatterbrained

C

C is a nuclear submarine. The instructions are probably in a foreign language, but all of the hardware itself is optimized for performance.

Original photo by Ryan C. McGinley

C-sharp

Like a luxury cruiser. Sleek, good looking and quite comfy. However, not very fast , expensive and somewhat limiting.

Python

Undeniably beautiful and elegant in the water, tends to be solid and reliable. Will work with little intervention, but also provides sails to help you go that little bit faster.

HTML

HTML isn’t really a programming language boat.

Original photo by ascendeddaniel

Javascript

Like James Bond Q Boat. It’s small but powerful and it’s really easy to get yourself killed trying to use it.

FORTRAN77

A concrete boat that still lurkes under the surface. You wouldn’t want to set sail with it though. Try navigating around it.

There’s a lot more to the list, and it’s all up for discussion. You can read more opinions on the forum.

My big question is why PHP is a bamboo rafting, and why Rails is better that PHP.
Maybe they didn’t look at PHP5? They are many good frameworks and I really enjoy working with it.

Anyway I thinks PHP is a fishing trawler. Not fancy, not super speedy, but it does exactly what it’s supposed to do, takes a lickin, keeps on tickin. And, it’s cheap.

How would your favorite programming language fare in open waters?