Assuming eli is right and you're looking for the best linux distro for programming, I think the best today is gentoo because of its concept of slotted installation: it installs multiple versions of the same program and offers the ability to switch between the versions on the fly.
I have three different versions of GCC (and several other C++ compilers) on my gentoo workstation, two different versions of the boost C++ library, four different versions of python and three java VMs.
I can type, say, gcc-config 2, and the next compilation will use gcc 4.5.2 which is what I have installed in slot 2 for gcc, then I can type gcc-config 3, and the next compilation will use gcc 4.6.0. Then I can eselect boost set 1 and the next compilation will use boost 1.42, and I can switch back to 1.46 with eselect boost set 2.
Of course, perhaps not many programmers actually need the ability to test their code against multiple versions of the same compiler or multiple versions of the same library, but as far as programming needs go, this is great.