The question was inspired by a total mind-bender of a comment on the Computer Science Canada forums – how does one create a boat in turing? It got Tony Targonski, a blogger at compsci.ca, thinking about which watercrafts best represent which programming languages. Turing, obviously, is a kayak; human powered, great for beginners and very Canadian.
Check out the rest of his is comparisons. Most of them are dead-on.
Java is a cargo ship. "Will carry a project, but not very fun to drive."
Perl is a tugboat. "Powerful enough to tug Java around, in 80 characters or less."
PHP is a bamboo raft. "A series of hacks held together by string. Still keeps afloat though."
Some great additional suggestions are showing up in the comments, as well.
jpc: "Python would be a catamaran. Light and functional, with conspicuous spacing."
Gianni Chiappetta: "Coldfusion is like a sinking vessel; No longer functional, and everyone is jumping ship."
Winter: "Lisp is sort of like a hydrofoil: everyone's first reaction is 'How does THAT work??'"
