java

eclipse

C#, Visual Basic

Visual Studio 2008

HTML- XML-XSLT

java script

.NET

What's a language?   It is a way to represent the logic of a program in a human readable format.   In the end, they all compile down to machine code and run.  It's the only way things work.

How do you pick a language?  Usually based on the deployment environment, the experience and background of the developers doing the work and the cost of the available toolsets, the framework you want to use etc.

In the final analysis, there are successful applications written in each and every one of these languages.  The one you select is up to you.

I have programmed in a lot of languages.  Some of them I can still use, but would rather not.   I'm personally attached to strong data typing and avoid VB projects unless I am translating OUT of VB.

I am VERY BIG on PATTERNS.  I think that these are a great contribution to the state of the art, and teach them and use them constantly.

Lastly, I have written a lot of "code generators" to accomplish things that are complex.  I have tools to generate data classes from the database metadata to save me time when I am building a new application from scratch. 

In the analytics section you will see that I have some bizarre code generators that use database meta data and specifications to generate complex SQL statements.  These are primarily used in dimensional constraint analysis where the user is running an analysis and then wants to "drill down" into the data.  About the only way to do that is to create the query from the constraints and that means code generation.