I spent the last year building a software tool that automagically analyses and categorises gait (walking) patterns based on 3D motion capture trajectories. Prior to that I had no real (read real as 'worthwhile') goal so my programming was bitty and I didn't do a lot. The tools was built in Matlab, an engineering application with its own 4th generation language. Since then I have found Python which, terrifyingly, is actually
fun to program in.
The reason why I don't program in C (I know the basics of the language) is because I spend more time fixing syntactical errors than I do coding. Python allows me to code bit-by-bit, try things and when I'm happy only then do I compile. There's a lot to be said for interpreted languages.
P.S. I had to learn Visual Basic back in college. I still cry at night sometimes.
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