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Programming languages are used for controlling the behavior of a machine (often a computer). Like natural languages, programming languages conform to rules for syntax and semantics.
There are thousands of programming languages[1] and new ones are created every year. Few languages ever become sufficiently popular that they are used by more than a few people, but professional programmers can easily use dozens of different languages during their career.
Contents |
General comparison
The following table compares general and technical information for a selection of commonly used programming languages. See the individual languages' articles for further information. Please note that the following table may be missing some information.
Type systems
| Language | Type strength | Type safety | Expression of types | Compatibility among composite types | Type checking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ActionScript 3.0 | strong | safe | static | ||
| Ada | strong | unsafe1 | explicit | name based | static |
| ALGOL 58 | strong | safe | static | ||
| ALGOL 60 | strong | safe | static | ||
| ALGOL 68 | strong | safe | property based | static or dynamic (tagged union) | |
| APL | strong | safe | dynamic | ||
| BASIC | varies by dialect | ||||
| BLISS | none | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| BeanShell | strong | safe | name based | dynamic | |
| Boo | strong | safe | implicit with optional explicit typing | static with optional dynamic typing | |
| C | weak | unsafe | explicit | name based | static |
| C++ (ISO/IEC 14882) | strong | unsafe | explicit | name based | static with optional dynamic type casting (see dynamic_cast) |
| C# | strong | unsafe1 | explicit | name based | partially dynamic |
| Clean | strong | implicit | static | ||
| Clojure | strong | safe | dynamic | ||
| COBOL | strong | static | |||
| ColdFusion | strong | safe | implicit | dynamic | |
| Common Lisp | strong | safe | dynamic | ||
| Curl | strong | safe | name based | ||
| D | strong | unsafe1 | explicit | name based | static |
| Dylan | strong | safe | dynamic | ||
| Eiffel | strong | safe | name based | static | |
| Erlang | strong | dynamic | |||
| F# | strong | safe | implicit | name based | static |
| Forth | none | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| Fortran | strong | safe | name based | static | |
| GraphTalk | weak | ||||
| Groovy | strong | safe | implicit | dynamic | |
| Haskell | strong | safe | implicit with optional explicit typing | property based | static |
| Io | strong | dynamic | |||
| J | strong | safe | dynamic | ||
| Java | strong | safe | explicit | name based | static |
| JavaScript | weak | implicit | dynamic | ||
| Joy | strong | safe | dynamic | ||
| Lua | strong | safe | implicit | dynamic | |
| Mathematica | strong | dynamic | |||
| MATLAB M-code | dynamic | ||||
| Modula-2 | strong | unsafe1 | explicit | property based | static |
| Modula-3 | strong | unsafe1 | explicit | property based | static |
| Oberon | strong | safe | explicit | static | |
| Objective-C | weak | explicit | static | ||
| Objective Caml | strong | safe | implicit | property based | static |
| Object Pascal (Delphi) | strong | unsafe1 | explicit | name based | static |
| Oxygene | strong | unsafe | implicit | static | |
| Oz | dynamic | ||||
| Pascal | strong | unsafe1 | explicit | name based | static |
| Perl 5 | weak | implicit | dynamic | ||
| Perl 6 | partially implicit (explicit for static types) | dynamic with optional static typing | |||
| PHP | weak | implicit | dynamic | ||
| Prolog | strong | dynamic | |||
| Python | strong | safe | implicit | property based | dynamic |
| Ruby | strong | safe | implicit | property based | dynamic |
| S | strong | dynamic | |||
| S-Lang | strong | safe | implicit | dynamic | |
| Scala | strong | partially implicit | static | ||
| Scheme | strong | dynamic (latent) | |||
| Smalltalk | strong | safe | implicit | dynamic | |
| Tcl | dynamic | ||||
| Visual Basic | strong | safe | explicit | name based | static |
| Visual Basic .NET | strong | unsafe1 | explicit | static | |
| Visual Prolog | strong | safe | name based | static | |
| Windows PowerShell | strong | safe | implicit | dynamic | |
| XL | strong | safe | name based | static | |
| Language | Type strength | Type safety | Expression of types | Compatibility among composite types | Type checking |
1It is almost safe, unsafe features are not commonly used.
Expressiveness
| Language | Statements ratio[12] | Lines ratio[13] |
|---|---|---|
| C | 1 | 1 |
| C++ | 2.5 | 1 |
| Fortran | 2.5 | 0.8 |
| Java | 2.5 | 1.5 |
| Perl | 6 | 6 |
| Smalltalk | 6 | 6.25 |
| Python | 6 | 6.5 |
The literature on programming languages contains an abundance of informal claims about their relative expressive power, but there's no framework for formalizing such statements nor for deriving interesting consequences.[14] This chart provides two measures of expressiveness from two different sources. An additional measure of expressiveness, in GZip bytes, can be found with the Compare to tool on the The Computer Language Benchmarks Game.
Benchmarks
Benchmarks are designed to mimic a particular type of workload on a component or system. The computer programs used for compiling some of the benchmark data in this section may not have been fully optimized, and the relevance of the data is disputed. The most accurate benchmarks are those that are customized to your particular situation. Other people's benchmark data may have some value to others, but proper interpretation brings many challenges. See this page about flawed benchmarks and comparisons. The Computer Language Benchmarks Game site contains a large number of micro-benchmarks of reader-contributed code snippets, with an interface that generates various charts and tables comparing specific programming languages and types of tests.
See also
- Alphabetical list of programming languages
- Comparison of basic instructions of programming languages
- Educational programming language
- Programming language
References
- ^ As of May 2006 Diarmuid Pigott's Encyclopedia of Computer Languages hosted at Murdoch University, Australia lists 8512 computer languages.
- ^ http://vak.ru/lib/exe/fetch.php/book/gost/pdf/gost-27831-88.pdf
- ^ ISO 1538:1984
- ^ http://vak.ru/lib/exe/fetch.php/book/gost/pdf/gost-27974-88.pdf
- ^ JSR 274
- ^ ECMA-334; ISO/IEC 23270:2006
- ^ ECMA-367; ISO/IEC 25436:2006
- ^ Version releases are accompanied with a definitive Lua Reference Manual showing full syntax and semantics; a reference implementation, and a test suite. These are used to generate other Lua VM implementations and compilers such as Kahlua and LLVM-Lua.
- ^ ISO/IEC 10514-1:1996
- ^ ISO 7185
- ^ Language changes are done using a formally documented procedure, starting with a Python Enhancement Proposal (PEP)s. Python version releases are accompanied with a Language Reference Manual showing syntax and semantics; a reference implementation, and test suite. These are used to generate other Python implementations such as Jython and IronPython.
- ^ Data from Code Complete. The Statements ratio column "shows typical ratios of source statements in several high-level languages to the equivalent code in C. A higher ratio means that each line of code in the language listed accomplishes more than does each line of code in C.
- ^ The ratio of line count tests won by each language to the number won by C when using the Compare to feature at http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/debian/c.php. Last updated May, 2006. C gcc was used for C, C++ g++ was used for C++, Fortran G95 was used for Fortran, Java JDK Server was used for Java, and Smalltalk GST was used for Smalltalk.
- ^ From On the Expressive Power of Programming Languages, Matthias Felleisen, ESOP '90 3rd European Symposium on Programming.
Further reading
- Cezzar, Ruknet. A Guide to Programming Languages: Overview and Comparison. ISBN 978-0890068120.
External links
- 99-bottles-of-beer.net One program in over a thousand variations and multiple languages.
- The Computer Language Benchmarks Game at Alioth
- Syntax Across Languages
- Programming Language Comparison — A comparison of nine programming languages and related information.
- Computer Language Shootout Scorecard — Comparison of benchmark results for dozens of languages.
- Scriptometer scores — Multiple comparisons of 26 programming languages.
- Are Scripting Languages Any Good? A Validation of Perl, Python, Rexx, and Tcl against C, C++, and Java — PDF — 2003 study
- An empirical comparison of C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, Rexx, and Tcl — PDF — March 2000 refereed journal paper
- An empirical comparison of C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, Rexx, and Tcl for a search/string-processing program — PDF — March 2000 technical report (same author, experiment, and data as above, but has additional analysis and charts)
- ABAP2Java.com Comparision and Translation of ABAP and Java
- Comparing Web Languages in Theory and Practice — PDF — Research to fulfill Kristofer J. Carlson's master's degree requirements.
- The Encyclopedia of Computer Languages — As of May 2006, the encyclopedia lists 8512 computer languages with 17837 bibliographic records featuring 11064 extracts.
- PLEAC Programming Language Examples Alike Cookbook.
- The hundred-year language by Paul Graham. Keynote from PyCon2003 (about Python): how languages evolve and what increase in CPU speed might bring us.
- TIOBE Programming Community Index The TIOBE Programming Community index gives an indication of the popularity of programming languages.
- OHLOH Language Statistics The programming languages page on Ohloh gives an actively updated indication of the popularity of programming languages in open-source projects.
- History of Programming Language Statements History and Comparing Programming Languages.
- Comparison Cheat Sheets between Languages
