It all started a few weeks ago when an attempt was made to characterize different programming languages based on their salient attributes. The result was a family hierarchy that strangely resembles A&W's burger family, except that our creation didn't end up destroying a perfectly viable mascot like the A&W bear. That aside, I'll offer you a few pointers on how you can describe these languages.
Eiffel is the single father, the patriarch of the programming language family. He's like a washed-up, unappreciated middle-age man on the verge of a mid-life crisis. It's only a matter of time before he buys a tacky sportscar or a flashy new IDE in a misguided attempt to regain virility he never really possessed. Furthermore, he's always cautioning his children by setting up pedantic rules and conditions for them to follow.
Java is like an upstart kid - he's young, and proud of the enhancements he's made to the object-oriented features passed down from his father. Of course, coming from a single-parent household, he has only single inheritance available to him. The vigor of his youth makes him robust, easily capable of adapting quickly to new situations and platforms.
C is like the old grandfather of the family. He's very set in his ways, but extremely efficient at doing the things he's done for so many years. However, his old age lends itself to several difficulties, including severe memory problems and a tendancy to give unhelpful and often unwanted pointers. Furthermore, he's always telling rambling stories about his glory days.
Prolog is like the geeky adolescent prodigy. He lives in his own world, and almost no one can really understand him. This may be because he has almost no social skills to speak of, and addresses almost every question in single word answers. At the same time, his reasoning abilities are nothing short of brillant, and seem almost like magic to the rest of his family.
Assembler is the baby of the programming language family. He speaks only in very short sentences that are almost entirely gibberish, unless you spend a long interpreting them. At the same time, this low level language doesn't waste any unnecessary words, unlike some of Assembler's more verbose family members.
Obviously, this list isn't anywhere near complete; the programming language family is an extended one. As you can imagine given the personalities described above, this family is also one that's rife with conflict - much as those who use these languages often argue over their relative merits.
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