What is the best alternative to Visual Basic?

Question

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score 127 · Answer 1

Pascal / Object Pascal

Standard:ISO/IEC 7185:1990 Pascal and ISO/IEC 10206:1990 Extended Pascal

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127 42

score 868 · Answer 2

Python

Python's syntax supports optional type annotations for use with a third-party static type checker, which can catch a certain class of bugs at compile time. This also makes it easier for beginners to gradually transition to statically typed languages instead of wrestling with the compiler from the start. See More

Top Pro

Best chances of earning most money

According to Quartz, Python programming skills on average earn $100,000 per year. Closely followed by Java, C++, JavaScript, C, and R with $90,000 per year and above. See More

Top Pro

Includes pygame library

Want to start game development? No problem! Using pygame open-source library you can fast begin creating games without worrying about pointers or undefined behaviors which they exists in C/C++. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, macOS, AIX, IBM i, iOS, z/OS, Solaris, VMS

Current stable version:3.7.2 and 2.7.15

GZipped size:22.5MB

Language type:Interpreted

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868 221

score 203 · Answer 3

Ruby

Focussing on OOP in a beginner stage is an easy and popular plan, but not the best one. See More

Specs

Price:Open Source (Free)

Site:https://www.ruby-lang.org

Current stable version:2.6.0

GZipped size:15.9 MB

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203 104

score 49 · Answer 4

Swift

49 43

score 30 · Answer 5

Assembly

30 54

score 100 · Answer 6

Racket

Current stable version:6.11

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100 26

score 122 · Answer 7

Nim

writeLine(stdout, "hello") can be written as stdout.writeLine("hello") proc add(a: int): int = a + 5 can be used like 6.add.echo or 6.add().echo() See More

Specs

License:MIT

OS:Windows, MacOS/iOS, Linux /Android/Termux, BSD, Solaris/SmartOS, HaikuOS, lots of others

CPU:All CPU architectures that have an ANSI C compiler

Site:https://nim-lang.org

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122 35

score 195 · Answer 8

Haxe

You should use externs when calling non Haxe code, but if you just need to call one or two external JS functions, you can skip type checking by calling untyped code. See More

Specs

Price:Free, Open Source

Site:https://haxe.org/

Current stable version:3.4.4

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195 52

score 147 · Answer 9

Smalltalk

Hybrid languages (e.g., Java, C#, C++) make it easy to slip into procedural thinking. Smalltalk's pure OO approach makes it hard not to think in object-oriented terms. In addition, since the entire IDE and runtime components are there in the image for you to browse, you have plenty of examples of good OO design to learn from. See More

Top Pro

Provides a functional way to interact with objects

Many languages today use object orientation, while the most of them stock on the half way in that perspective. Smalltalk sees literally everything as an object and this includes things like the classes and primitive data types. There is are zero control structures such as selection and iteration, since all is done by sending messages to objects. It use a lot of concepts from Lisp in order to provide a nice experience for this pure kind of object orientation. It provides immutable data structures, closures, anonymous functions and higher order functions, while all those functions are objects. This is what makes Smalltalk so simple, elegant, and easy. All this counts for Pharo, while other implementations as Amber are probably feature complete to it. See More

Specs

OS:Windows, macOS, Linux

Current stable version:6.1

GZipped size:38MB

IDE Support:Self-Hosted

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147 46

score 273 · Answer 10

Elixir

Comes with built in build tool called "mix". This will automatically download libraries and put them in the scope of the application when you add them to the "deps" function and run mix deps.get See More

Specs

Price:Open source (Free)

Site:https://elixir-lang.org

Current stable version:1.8.1

GZipped size:3.61 MB (without required Erlang VM)

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273 80

score 190 · Answer 11

Kotlin

Kotlin has been designed and built by developers who have an industrial background and not an academic one. As such, it tries to solve issues mostly found in industrial settings. For example, the Kotlin type system helps developers avoid null pointer exceptions. Reasearch languages usually do not have null at all, but APIs and large codebases usually need null. See More

Specs

Price:Free, Open Source

Site:http://kotlinlang.org

Current stable version:1.3

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190 61

score 288 · Answer 12

Elm

Luckily you do not have to learn Haskell to be able to do any Elm. It is meant to be a language that compiles to Javascript, so for Javascript programmers (Front end) not for CS students who want to learn as many different algorithms as possible. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows Linux Mac Web

Price:Open Source

Site:http://elm-lang.org/

Current stable version:0.19

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288 90

score 253 · Answer 13

Clojure

Price:Free, Open Source

Site:www.clojure.org

Current stable version:1.9

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253 83

score 85 · Answer 14

Julia

Julia provides a high level of abstraction, making platform-independent programming trivial and easing the learning curve. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, FreeBSD

Site:julialang.org

Current stable version:1.0

Type Model:Dynamically Typed

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85 35

score 44 · Answer 15

Ceylon

If you don't use platform-specific features, you can reuse the same code in your backend server (be it in Java or JavaScript) and in your client-side browser code, for example for storing data, validating input etc. See More

Specs

Price:Free, Open Source

Site:http://ceylon-lang.org

Current stable version:1.3.2

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44 20

score 105 · Answer 16

F#

Site:http://www.fsharp.org

Current stable version:4.1

IDE Support:Visual Studio, Code, Rider

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105 44

score 76 · Answer 17

Common Lisp

Top Pro

Very Powerful REPL with SLIME

SLIME (Superior Lisp Interaction Mode for Emacs). See More

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Carefully designed for interactive use

Almost all aspects of the language are designed with interactive/repl use in mind. See More

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Condition/restart system

It is easy to recover from errors. Error resolution can be determined by the user at the REPL. See More

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Almost as fast as, or faster than, C

Some compilers such as SBCL can be faster than C or other low-level languages, and most compilers can generate fast native code. See More

76 33

score 295 · Answer 18

Go

This naturally also supports first class and high order functions, so you may pass functions as variables to other functions. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac etc.

Current stable version:1.11.1 / October 1, 2018

Developer:Google with Ken Thompson, Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike

GZipped size:21,1 MB

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295 110

score 234 · Answer 19

Dart

Dart to Javascript compiler (dart2js) generates very high quality source code with very high optimization. The output code is also very readable and easy to understand. See More

Top Pro

Crossplatform

Dart does not just compile to JavaScript, it also compiles to native code on mobile platforms like iOS and Android as demonstrated by flutter.io See More

Specs

Price:Free, Open Source

Site:dartlang.org

Current stable version:2.1.0

IDE Support:Good quality IDE plugins for Jetbrains IDEs and Visual Studio Code

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234 90

score 126 · Answer 20

Lua

126 53