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Programming Languages

Programming languages are artificial languages created for humans to create computer software and resolve problems. In general, artificial languages are simpler than spoken languages but more precise.

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Language classification
Historic Languages
Traditional Languages
Emerging Languages
Language features
Future development

Learning languages

Making software applications implicit requires you to learn a programming language. Before you do you must understand this is not an easy task and it will require significant effort. To learn a new language you have to learn these things:

Logic – already presented;
Paradigms – the conceptual design;
Syntax – the words and rules of the language;
Semantic – the way we create statements;
Packages – standard library and components;

Example: Next is a complete program written in Python:

# compute factorial of n
def factorial(n):
    if n==0:
        return 1
    else:
        return n*factorial(n-1)
# call factorial function and capture result
result=factorial(5)
print(result)

Note: The programming languages and computer languages are synonyms. However I think a computer language signify languages more close to the machine while programming language are more abstract.

Language classification

Computer languages can be categorized by the complexity and purpose in [1-5] generations:

A: Close to machines

1GL – First Generation:
2GL – Second Generation

B: Close to humans

3GL – Third Generation Language
4GL – Forth Generation Language
5GL – Fifth Generation Language

Examples:

Machine code is 1'st generation language;
Assembly is 2'nd generation language;
C is 3'rd generation language;
Java is 3'rd generation language;
SQL is a 4'th generation language;
Haskell is a 4'th generation language;

Info: A language once implemented can’t be changed too much, or if you do you can loose your customers. So to make improvements you need to create a new language from scratch. Therefore today we have numerous computer languages competing for usability or performance.

I have organized programming languages in 6 categories each containing top 5. This was a research project I have done in 2017 using Google+ surveys. I will try to update this top every year using Twitter since Google+ is gone now. Follow me and vote when I post articles about it. The link for twitter the little bird icon on bottom of this page.

Disclaimer: In next classification, the languages are ordered of our estimated technical value not in order of popularity. For independent popularity index you can study the: official tiobe engineering

A: First class compiled languages

These are very efficient languages for creation of native applications on diverse platforms. These languages have static types and all are curly bracket languages from C family except Nim.

Go – default for Google cloud;
Rust – Mozilla native language;
Swift – specific to Apple OS;
Nim – statically typed system language;

B: Traditional compiled languages

Assembly – second generation language;
C/C++ This is the king of computer languages;
Fortran – fast language created by IBM
Ada – very robust language designed for US army
Pascal/Delphi – my first computer language;
D – A very fast system language;

C: Virtual machine or interpreted

JavaScript – default language for web;
Python – the most easy to learn language;
Java – open source language created by SUN and maintained by Oracle;
C# – default language for Microsoft Visual Studio;
Dart – client-optimized programming language for apps on multiple platforms.

D: Java Virtual Machine (JVM)

Kotlin – a new computer language created by Jetbrains company;
Scala – this is also a functional language;
JRuby – a dynamic language derived from Ruby;
Groovy – a dynamic language for website back-end;
Jyton – a Python dialect that can run in JVM;

E: Dynamic Languages

Julia – is a new dynamic language similar to Python but faster;
Ruby – a language created for dynamic website back-end;
Python – a very popular dynamic language;
Perl – a scripting language created for command line and back-end programming;
Lisp – a functional language that is very dynamic;

F: Functional languages

Scala – this is mentioned second time here so it is a functional language for JVM;
Haskell – this is the most pure functional language similar to OCaml;
OCaml – one of the first functional languages;
Closure – this is a functional language similar to Lisp that run in JVM;
F# – this is a functional language for Microsoft Visual Studio;

Historic Languages

Languages that have more then 40 years are considered traditional. That is before the Internet was born. That was the golden age of classic computer languages: { Fortran, Lisp, Simula, Algol, Pascal, B, C, C++, Forth, Scheme, ML, Smalltalk. } Two of these languages remain very influential: C family and Algol family. Functional languages are derived from Lisp and Object oriented languages are derived from Simula.

Ace-1945 Computer
design by Alan Turing

Traditional Languages

Next computer languages are less then 40 years old. Let’s review some of them. Maybe you will find a language that you can learn to create your next project with it. I will update this list from time to time with new languages I find worthy.

Year	Name	Homepage
1983	Ada	http://www.adacore.com/
1986	Erlang	https://www.erlang.org/
1990	Haskell	https://www.haskell.org
1990	Ruby	https://www.ruby-lang.org/
1991	Python	https://www.python.org/
1993	Lua	https://www.lua.org/about.html
1995	Racket	https://racket-lang.org/
1995	Java	https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/
1995	JavaScript	https://www.ecma-international.org/ecma-262/6.0/
2001	Scala	http://www.scala-lang.org
2009	Closure	http://clojure.org
2009	Go	https://golang.org

Emerging Languages

These languages are not yet ready but promising. We are going to research these languages in our programming classes. If you wish you can learn these languages by yourself but only if you are not yet busy working for raising a family or having a busy life.

Year	Name	Homepage
2011	Dart	https://www.dartlang.org
2011	Elixir	https://elixir-lang.org/
2012	Julia	http://julialang.org
2014	Rust	https://www.rust-lang.org
2014	Swift	https://swift.org
2014	Hack	http://hacklang.org
2014	Crystal	https://crystal-lang.org/
2016	Nim	https://nim-lang.org/
2016	Kotlin	https://kotlinlang.org/
2016	Zig	https://ziglang.org/
2018	ELM	https://elm-lang.org/
2022	Carbon	https://github.com/carbon-language

Language features

To describe a computer language you can enumerate it’s features. These are characteristics or attributes that can be compared. Some languages looks like each other and create a family. Here are the most significant features.

FEATURE	DESCRIPTION	DETAILS
Syntax style	Different syntax styles can create a so called language family.	C, Algol
Programming paradigm	Is the programming style or concept.	Procedural, Declarative, Object Oriented, Logical, Functional
Execution mode	The way final program works	Interpreted, Virtual machine or Compiled
Type system	Data types can be defined during design time or run-time	Dynamic/ Static/ Gradual
Scope Model	How sub-programs and functions store local scope variables.	Dynamic (stack)/ Static (hip)
Parameters	The way we can use parameters in procedures and functions	Optional parameters, Variadic parameter, default values etc.
Dispatch	The way we identify a function	Function overloading/ Signature
Exceptions	The way we deal with errors	Exception handling (try) or not
Memory management	The way we allocate and free memory during execution	Manual / Garbage Collector / Reference counting
Character set	The characters we can use for keywords operators and constants	ASCII / Unicode

Future development

Why are we creating so many new computer languages? I will try to clarify this subject. To do so, I have search YouTube for a relevant video about the "future of programming languages" and I have found one. It is all about learning from history.

There are many computer languages out there and takes a lifetime to learn them all. The languages with the strongest position in software industry are: Fortran, C, C++, Objective-C and Lisp. New computer languages are created because old computer languages can not be fixed.

Once a computer language was used in production it is needed unchanged for support. If is changing too much then it becomes a new computer language. This is what happen to Niklaus Wirth languages. They have evolved too fast: Pascal, Modula, Oberon. All genial, all forgotten.

For developers is very difficult to switch from one computer language to another. Every new computer language promises to correct previous issues from other languages. Some languages may have new paradigms that may be even harder to grasp.

Bob Martin

Next video is about 1h +20min. If you have the time, I highly recommend this speech about the future of programming languages. This video is very popular it has now 23k views. I have enjoyed watching, it is very informative and fun!

Conclusion from this video: Sooner or later programming languages will be ruled by politicians. We will have regulations surrounding programming activity and probable the government will approve one or other language for most critical applications.

My opinion

Programming languages should improve communication between humans. We write and read the code, not the computers. The computer should do whatever we tell him to do. It should be able to compile any kind of language. The strive is to make languages that are efficient to compile but also programmer friendly.

In the future, programmers will avoid regulations and will create disruptive new, open source programming languages. There will be always rogue programmers. Rogue languages will be learned quickly by smart individuals who need jobs and will become influential because they will work better. The government do not like to spend money on technology so they will chose open source languages that can't be regulated.

Read next: Programming Paradigms