Ask HN: What programming languages to pick up for Internet of Things projects?

C because [1], but Javascript is also being used in that space, Lua is small and beautiful, Python is everywhere, Forth can be implemented in 42 bytes of Forth...

[1] "Pointers are real. They’re what the hardware understands. Somebody has to deal with them. You can’t just place a LISP book on top of an x86 chip and hope that the hardware learns about lambda calculus by osmosis."

So many comments about using C, but I think the question may be a bit too broad to make a sweeping generalisation. IoT is such a broad term it's like saying 'what language should I use for a web-app?'.

What are you expecting of your IoT projects? What sort of hardware are you thinking of running on? Is power usage a concern? Performance? What languages are you most comfortable with already?

I don't have the answers for these, but knowing may help you figure out what to use. The truth is, these days you have so many options, it's a bit similar to asking what language to use for a web-app, and the decision may follow a similar path. Does anybody build web-apps in C anymore? If so, why?

It depends. If you're making an attempt at future-proofing yourself, you gotta start at the bottom with "C".

If you're just looking to pick up your first project in the category, consider something simple like a RaspberryPI + Python.

You are looking at a simple embedded hardware platform, so C is going to be 90% of project. A few project may use C++. Even more fringe outliers might be assembler and Ada.

It is impressive how much people hate Java. It is currently used in billions of devices already and it is the obvious high-level language to go.

There's not many answers besides "C".