What are the top 3 programming languages that you think every engineer should learn in 2026?

@ryanlpeterman

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Haskell

Why it worked

The video leverages the credibility of a renowned figure (creator of Lua) to discuss a relevant and forward-looking topic (top programming languages for engineers), making it engaging for a technical audience.

Summary

The creator of Lua discusses the top programming languages for engineers to learn in 2026, highlighting Haskell for its functional programming capabilities and contrasting it with C. He also touches upon older languages like SNOBOL4 for their unique features.

Structure

1Introduction of the topic: top programming languages for engineers
2Discussion of Haskell as an incredible functional programming language
3Comparison of Haskell with C regarding efficiency and correctness
4Mention of learning assembly for basic machine understanding
5

Original caption

Top 3 programming languages to learn in 2026 This is Roberto who is the creator of the Lua programming language. This clip is from the longer conversation I had with him all about how programming languages are designed. Full conversation on my YouTube and Spotify (link in bio)

More from @ryanlpeterman

Product placement

Lua (programming language) - creator is Roberto. This is mentioned as the creator's work, but not acted upon in the video. It merely appears as context for the speaker. Haskell (programming language) - is discussed as an incredible language for learning functional programming. It is acted upon as it is the subject of discussion and recommendation. C (programming language) - is mentioned as a contrast to Haskell, implying it takes longer to make efficient programs. It is acted upon as it is part of the discussion comparing programming languages. SNOBOL4 (programming language) - is mentioned as an old language with pattern matching, interesting to see old languages. It is acted upon as it is part of the discussion comparing programming languages.

Call to action

Full conversation on my YouTube and Spotify (link in bio)

On-screen text

Creator of Lua Top 3 languages every SWE should learn in 2026 the Peterman Pod Haskell C

Transcript

What are the top 3 programming languages that you think every engineer should learn in 2026? Haskell I think is, is incredible language. It has everything you need to really learn about functional programming. There is an old joke in the Haskell community that if you write a program in C, you will spend one week to make it efficient, and then you will spend one year to make it correct. In Haskell, you spend one week to make it correct, and then you may spend one year to make it efficient. It has some truths. C or learn some assembler to have this idea of what a machine does, how it does stuff at exactly the basic level. The one language that this is very, very, very old. SNOBOL4 is one of the first languages to have pattern matching. Sometimes it is interesting to see old languages because nowadays a lot of language tend to be too uniform in some aspects. And so it's interesting to see some older languages.