Why is it important to know about programming languages?

This article talks about the important differences between programming languages and their main tasks and uses. This is very important for all computer users, programmers and language developers.

Users must take care of this, even if it seems not likely to be true, because they use a computer for many things nowadays. For example, users always want to have a nice GUI for their applications, which must run as fast as possible, be easy to maintain, and cheap to develop. The last point is one of the most important characteristics the users are always looking for. Let's give an example: you are the administration manager of a coporations that sells furniture, and you want an exclusive application for your enterprise in order to improve the administration tasks between sailors, providers, etc.. The application can be written in many languages but, as the author says, there are languages that will take more time and development in order to achieve the same goals. My suggestion for this particular case will be: the program should be in SQL, because the needs involve a data base. SQL was developed for that purpose. Honestly, I've never used SQL, nor any other data-base-oriented language, but I'll suggest this due to the language's purpose.

Of course, programmers should have on mind what they are going to develop, and which language is the most suitable for the task. Even if they are hired for the example above, or if they just they want to have some fun, they have to know precisely what they need to do and which language to use. For the example of the administrator software above: it will be really nice to charge a huge amount of money to the user if the programmer develops the software in C, for example. But it will be a pain in the neck to write large amounts of code just to earn that money in one job, which will take weeks, even months to be finished and proven successfully. Also, if the user knows about languages, he/she will hire another programmer who charges less for the same taks and, of course, knows what the heck is doing.

Finally, but not less important, the language developers must know what they want to developed in order to offer a nice language. Their main task is to develop a usefull language. If they develop something really hard to undestand, learn and maintain, the language will be out of the market without been noticed. They must have on mind in which sector of software development want to participate, like Object-Oriented Languages, Data-Bases Oriented languages, etc.; and so many characteristics. If they don't do this, they will be developing a piece of junk that will not be used, wasting their time, and even money, doing so. For the same administrator example: if SQL had not been developed yet, the programmer had had used another language which could be harder to use for the task, and maybe the user will never get what he/she wants. But, regardless the fact SQL exists today, the developer can come up with a data-base oriented language and/or a better language than SQL is.

I hope this opinion wides a little bit your perspective of the article, and your suggestions, points of view, etc., are very welcome.