84 Options Considered
| Best (productivity-enhancing, well-designed, and concise, rather than just popular or time-tested) programming languages | Price | Current stable version | Platforms |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | 2.0.0 | Windows, MacOS/iOS, Linux /Android/Termux, *BSD, Solaris/SmartOS, HaikuOS, lots of others | |
| - | 6.1 | - | |
| - | 1.11.2 | - | |
| - | - | - | |
| - | 1.71.1 | Linux, MacOS X, Windows, BSD |
Madsen Altamirano's Experience
It is good for simple scripts and whatnot — not very good at all for large, important projects. However, if I need a serious scripting langauge, SHell is the only sane option (or BASH). Since I'm not running around trying to write scripts for everything, Python does not offer much use for me. Please do not implement your web browser or terminal emulator in Python. And please don't ask me to port our whole project codebase to Python! However, it is a very good language to begin learning to program. The simplicity of the syntax and the excellent documentation are worthy of praise that other languages do not get. As others have said, it's almost like Pseudocode — meaning the user can focus on the logic behind their program. In this regards, I might use Python to learn a new concept. For an example, I could learn how to send things over TCP using Python, since it focuses on the logic. This is why Python is great for beginner programmers — and it's readily available, even on their Android phone with PyDroid and QPython — both great mobile IDEs for Python. Yes, there are "science" and "numeric" uses in Python. But overall, it isn't the experienced programmer's first-pick programming language. It is geared more towards the beginner, miscellaneous scripting, and logic-focused design. Combined with these reasons and its ranking as one of the slowest languages ever created, I believe Python should be avoided for serious programming. See More
All objects including functions are first-class objects
Functions have attributes and can be referenced and assigned to variables. As Guido points out in his blog, "One of my goals for Python was to make it so that all objects were 'first class.' By this, I meant that I wanted all objects that could be named in the language (e.g., integers, strings, functions, classes, modules, methods, etc.) to have equal status. That is, they can be assigned to variables, placed in lists, stored in dictionaries, passed as arguments, and so forth." See More
Good introduction to data structures
Python's built-in support and syntax for common collections such as lists, dictionaries, and sets, as well as supporting features like list comprehensions, foreach loops, map, filter, and others, makes their use much easier to get into for beginners. Python's support for Object Orient Programming, but with dynamic typing, also makes the topic of Data Structures much more accessible, as it takes the focus off of more tedious aspects, such as type casting and explicitly defined interfaces. Python's convention of only hiding methods through prefacing them with underscores further takes the focus off of details such as Access Modifiers common in languages such as Java and C++, allowing beginners to focus on the core concepts, without much worry for language specific implementation details. See More
Interpreters for JS, Microtontrollers, .Net , Java & others
Python is not limited to just be cross platform. It goes far beyond all high level languages since it can run on top of several other frameworks & architectures : Examples of interpreters: Standard (PC Win/Lin/Mac, ARM, Raspberry, Smartphones): CPython usually, but some more specialized for smartphones: Kyvi, QPython, ... Web Browser JS : Brython, PyJS, .Net : IronPython Java: Jython Microcontrollers with WiFi like ESP8266 or ESP32: MicroPython Can be statically compiled (instead of interpreted) with Cython. (Do not mix up with cPython) With python, you're sure your code can run (almost) everywhere, from 2€ computers to the most expensives. So, for instance, with Jython you can access the Java libraries with Python language. See More
Elias Van Ootegem's Experience
Even though the question tries to define "best programming language" in a particular way, these questions will always suffer from fanboy-ism. This recommendation isn't too different. Productivity-enhancing: Golang compiles to native, as one of its core design criteria was to build a language that would spit out fast binaries. This usually means dealing with a lot of lower-level nitty-gritty stuff. To get around this, the language has an impressive array of standard packages that allow you to do basic things (like reading/writing files) in a couple of lines, all the way through to writing an HTTP/RPC server that handles some requests, and unit test it. Being able to do this within the standard ecosystem of the language, with a simple toolchain is, by any means, productivity enhancing. Another thing that is productivity enhancing is: there's no runtime to set up (no JVM, no nginx, no interpreter stealing CPU cycles), the compiler is fast, and you either run the binaries locally, or just spin up a container. Either way, docker doesn't really slow you down much (top-tip: use scratch containers). The development cycle (write, test, build, debug) is short and sweet, allowing you to get on with things. Well-designed: The design follows the KISS principle. Some things take time getting used to: curly brackets are not optional, there is no ternary operator, and the most hotly contested language feature: no exceptions. The core design team followed the rule that no feature would make it in to the language unless they all agreed it was needed. Result: classes aren't there (but composition through embedding is a big plus), and ducktype interfacing is all the rage. There are no generics, but interfaces + type assertions/type switches can be used most of the time instead. Overall, the grammar is simple, the number of keywords very limited, but the language does not feel restrictive. Powerful, yet simple, that looks like the hallmark of good design to me. Of course, part of the design is the optimised runtime (GC, routines, channels), which get even better with each new release of the language. Something that isn't listed as a key feature that I really like is how some packages contain functions that you shouldn't use. I know, it sounds weird, but stay with me: The language designers understand the importance of predictable, and symmetrical API's. That's why the strings and buffers packages will have the same functions within them (for consistency). It shows someone thought about usability, and it genuinely feels like a nice touch Concise: Like most modern languages, go is concise. Not as concise as some, but one could argue there's a line between concise, terse, and plain silly. Golang walks that line carefully. Some people may complain that the error handling is a bit verbose, and yes, it adds 34 lines each time, where a language with exceptions would add, erm... 34 lines, too (try, catch, handle). Either way, if you can write a service providing a basic RESTful API in ~50 lines, whilst still being readable and maintainable, then I'd consider that language to be well designed and concise. See More
Higher confidence in code correctness and quality
Pure functions, immutable data structures, amazing compiler, clean and homologous syntax used for HTML, logic, and optionally to replace CSS, elimination of entire classes of bugs so you don't even need most unit tests. These factors lead to better code, better programs, higher confidence, and ultimately, more satisfaction. See More
Why do we keep seeing an overhyped unfinished alpha level language showing up everywhere? That answer looks like a financial incentive to promote the language, the Zig Software Foundation, that is making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from donations. To aggressively maintain cash flow, it appears any opinions that goes against their narrative is suppressed, attacked, or eliminated. All while the hype machine runs rampant. That isn't a language for the people, that looks to be a cash grab for the few that will result in nothing useful. Save yourself the headache and games, better to just use C or other languages with C-like syntax, can interface with C, and are actually useful. Better to not waste your valuable time on crap like Zig, false media hype, or getting scammed. ”If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” This blog has published 2 excellent articles on how Zig's claims do not live up to reality after more than 6 years of development. Article 1 Article 2 See More
ResourcefulShala's Experience
Say no to Zig, avoid getting scammed. Stay away from an overhyped unfinished alpha level language that is pushed so hard. Why? That answer looks like a financial incentive to promote the language, the Zig Software Foundation, that is making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from donations. To aggressively maintain cash flow, it appears any opinions that goes against their narrative is suppressed, attacked, or eliminated. All while the hype machine runs rampant and tries to push it down our throats. That isn't a language for the people, looks to be a cash grab for the few that will result in nothing useful. Save yourself the headache and games, better to just use C or other languages with C-like syntax, can interface with C, and are actually useful. Better to not waste your valuable time on crap like Zig, false media hype, or getting scammed. ”If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” This blog has published 2 excellent articles on how Zig's claims do not live up to reality after more than 6 years of development. https://mikefsn.github.io/2022/10/18/goodbye-zig.html https://mikefsn.github.io/2022/10/22/how-the-zig-team-pushes-a-narrative.html See More
C# can be used for Windows apps, Linux apps, OS X apps, Windows 8 "modern" apps, websites, games, iPhone apps, Android apps, Windows Phone apps, and more. If you want to create a cross-platform application, you can share most of the code and write one GUI for each platform. See More
On Windows, Visual Studio is the recommended C# IDE. It provides a very flexible GUI that you can rearrange the way you want and many useful features such as refactorings (rename a variable, extract some code into a method, ...) and code formatting (you can pick exactly how you want the code to be formatted). Visual Studio also highlights your errors when you compile, making your debug sessions more efficient since you don't have to run the code to see the mistakes. There's also a powerful debugger that allows you to execute the code step-by-step and even change what part of the code will be executed next. In addition to giving you all the line-by-line information you'll need in a hassle-free manner, Visual Studio has stuff you can click on in the errors window that will take you to the documentation for that error, saving you several minutes of web searching. In addition to all of this, Visual Studio has an intuitive, intelligent, and helpful graphical user interface designer that generates code for you (the best of WYSIWYG, in my opinion), which is helpful for new programmers. Being able to create a fantastic-looking UI with one's mouse and then optionally tweak with code helps make programming fun for beginner developers. Visual Studio also has the best code completion --Intellisense is every bit as intelligent as the name says it is. It, as well as VS's parameter hinting, is context-, type-, user-, and position-sensitive, and displays relevant completions in a perfectly convenient yet understandable order. This feature allows a new programmer to answer the questions "What does this do?" and "How do I use it?" right then and there rather than having to switch to a browser to read through extensive documentation. This allows the programmer to satisfy their curiosity before it is snuffed out by several minutes of struggling through exhaustive documentation. And for the more adventurous and text-ready developer, Microsoft does the best job of ensuring that everything, from interfaces and wildcard types down to Console.WriteLine("") and the + operator, is well-documented and easy to understand, with relevant and well-explained usage examples that manage to be bite-size yet complete, simple yet truly helpful. The reference site is easy to navigate, well-organized, clean and uncluttered, up-to-date, and fresh and enjoyable to look at, and every page is well-written with consideration for readers who are not C# experts yet want to read about changing the console background color. The best part? It's free! Visual C# Express contains all of the features described above, at zero cost. If you are a student, you can probably get Visual Studio Professional from your university, which also includes tools for unit testing and supports plugins. See More
