What are the fastest programming languages?

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DevelopmentProgrammingProgramming LanguagePerformance

What are the fastest programming languages?

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Nov 11, 2023

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10 Options Considered

What are the fastest programming languages	Price	Platforms	Current stable version
-- Rust	-	Linux, MacOS X, Windows, BSD	1.71.1
-- Nim	-	Windows, Linux, Mac	-
-- C	Free / paid	-	C'18
-- V	Free	Windows, Linux, Mac	-
-- Go	Free	Windows, Linux, Mac etc.	1.21.0

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score 13 · Answer 1

Rust

Top Con

Steep learning curve

Pretty strict and hard to adapt for beginners. See More

Top Pro

Catch errors at compile-time

Since Rust is statically typed, you can catch multiple errors during compile time. This is extremely helpful with debugging, especially compared with dynamically typed languages that may fail silently during runtime. See More

PersistentNike's Experience

Not a versatile or an attractive general purpose language, plus its syntax is more difficult and bothersome. See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux, MacOS X, Windows, BSD

Current stable version:1.71.1

License:MIT/Apache

Top Con

Low readability

Harder to read and understand language. See More

Top Pro

Compiles to machine code allowing for extra efficiency

Rust uses LLVM as a backend, among other things this allows Rust code to compile down to machine languages. This allows developers to write programs that run as efficiently as possible. See More

ImaginativeShennong's Experience

After spending signifcant time using this language, it hits as more hype and grift (for a select few) than really useful and productive. Then there is the 'Rust Evangelism' and 'Rust Foundation', which just comes across as bananas. Rust Foundation is like a drunk dictator, trying to force what we have never seen any other language try to do: 1) Prohibit firearms at their events. 2) No using "rust" in crate names. 3) No using "rust" in product or service name. 4) No using "rust" in domain or company name. 5) No using "rust" if user group or conference makes a profit. 6) Your trademarek must be bigger than theirs on your own website. 7) Must comply with local health regulations, because they say so. Rust is a low productivity, masochistically difficult, ugly syntax, long compile time, not so safe as hype suggests language. If really out here wanting to use something besides C/C++, in 98% of use cases, would do just as well or be better off using something other than Rust. See More

Top Con

Very ugly and verbose syntax

Compared to many languages. One tool needed to be productive is the language to be pleasing and effective, yet Rust friction is as high as its safety. See More

Top Pro

Makes developers write optimal code

Rust is a modern programming language written around systems. It was designed from the ground up this way. It's language design makes developers write optimal code almost all the time, meaning you don't have to fully know and understand the compiler's source code in order to optimize your program. Furthermore, Rust does not copy from memory unnecessarily, to give an example: all types move by default and not copy. Even references to types do not copy by default. In other words, setting a reference to another reference destroys the original one unless it's stated otherwise. See More

ResourcefulShala's Experience

Most people do not need Rust. It will cause them too much wasted time in frustration, slow compiles, or outright confusion. Other memory safe(r) languages like Go, D, V, etc... are outright easier to use and as or almost as fast for tasks required. See More

Top Con

Long compile times

Way longer to compile than other languages. See More

Top Pro

Low level programming language

This means that it encourages the programmer to be very careful in memory allocation and design. This is a large benefit when building applications for speed. See More

Top Con

Rust not as safe as it pretends to be

Rust problems: 1) Massive undisclosed usage of unsafe. 2) Massive amounts of memory safety CVEs - see details. 3) Large bloated Rust binaries increase attack surface for exploits. 4) Many corporate types claiming Rust is safe, don't actually program or use it (have some quiet financial interest to push it). See More

Top Pro

Supports cross compilation for different architectures

Since Rust 1.8 you can install additional versions of the standard library for different targets using rustup/multirust. For example: $ rustup target add x86_64-unknown-linux-musl Which then allows for: $ cargo build --target x86_64-unknown-linux-musl See More

Top Con

Significant time required to understand the language fully

There's the infamous borrow checker for example. See More

Top Pro

Functional programming

Very easy to create functional with some additional from structure application. See More

Top Con

Low productivity

The compiler is strict, such as ownership and borrowing checkers. See More

Top Pro

Threads without data races

Unique ownership system guarantees a mutable data to be owned and mutated by only one thread at a time, so there's no data race, and this guarantee is checked at compile time statically. Which means easy multi-threading. Of course, immutable data can be shared among multiple threads freely. See More

Top Con

Low-level programming language

This means that it encourages the programmer to be very careful in terms of how memory is allocated, etc. Most applications can run without exceeding the capacity of the server, even with an inefficient dynamic scripting language. See More

Top Pro

Official package manager and build tool

Cargo is the official package manager for Rust. It comes with the language and downloads dependencies, compiles packages, and makes and uploads distributable packages See More

Top Con

Not as useful or productive as advertised

If really out here wanting to use something besides C/C++, in 98% of use cases, would do just as well or be better off using something other than Rust. Will complete the project faster, would be easier, will be happier, and nearly as safe (use newer language with optional GC). See More

Top Pro

Big community

The biggest community contributing to language. See More

Top Pro

Support for macros

When you identify a part of your code which gets repeated often, which you cannot abstract using functions or classes, you can use Rust's built-in Macros. See More

Top Pro

Built-in concurrency

Rust has built-in support for concurrency. See More

Top Pro

Easy to write understandable code

While not as verbose as Java, it still is much more verbose than languages like Go and Python. This means that the code is very explicit and easy to understand. See More

Top Pro

Generics support

You don't have to write same array and dictionary classes hundreds and thousands times for strong type check by compiler. See More

See All

score 7 · Answer 2

Nim

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Works on Windows, macOS, and Linux. See More

Top Con

Whitespace sensitive syntax

Burns eyes and is ugly. See More

AgreeableDadhikra's Experience

Good bruh See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Top Pro

Python-like syntax

Readable, clean and familiar to Python developers. See More

Top Con

Lacks void / null safety

Easy to get involved in safety issues. See More

Top Pro

Great portability and optimization

Nim gains portability and optimization because it compiles to C, which offers a lot of choices from modern C compilers. See More

Top Con

Concurrency hard to use

Difficult to use, too verbose. See More

Top Pro

Blazingly fast

Compiles to C (or C++, or Obj C). See More

Top Con

Memory management confusion

Multiple choices of garbage collection, which is causing confusion, and nothing works particularly well. See More

Top Pro

Easy to learn

Nim has a simple and concise syntax that is easy to learn, making it a great language for beginners. See More

See All

score 5 · Answer 3

C

Top Pro

The king of languages, imitated, extended but never equalled

Made of a small set of keywords and rules, only your imagination is the limit. Above all, when it comes to 'pro' programming, C is the only one to rely on. See More

Top Con

Steep learning curve

While the language compliments knowledge of computer components very well, and gives a deeper understanding, it is also quite difficult to learn, and to use correctly, especially without aforementioned knowledge. See More

ToughBasamum's Experience

fast as shit See More

Specs

Current stable version:C'18

Typing discipline:static

Paradigm:imperative

Standard:ISO/IEC 9899:2011/Cor 1:2012 or C11

See All Specs

Top Pro

Teaches good practices

Writing in C will require you to understand how things are done. C implies using and understanding the fundamentals. Learning a higher-level language after is much easier. See More

Top Con

C will require you to learn concepts too advanced for most beginners

While other programmers will learn algorithms and structures and will do magic tricks and awesome applications, you will learn trash info that you should know maybe after 5-7 years experience in software development, not earlier. It's like going the first time as a seven year old kid to first school class, and your teacher tells you to learn you about Discrete Math, without basic math and how to do 2x2. If you wish to be a really good programmer, C for sure will be in your portfolio, but not as a first language, and this programming language is used only for very hard and very limited tools which require a lot of professional skills from the programmer. See More

Top Pro

Helps with learning other languages later

A lot of languages used in the industry have a C-like syntax (C++, Java, Javascript, C#, PHP) and starting with C will help new developers to be familiar with it's syntax and by extensions with the syntax of many popular languages. See More

Top Con

Lack of support for first class strings

C does not support the string type, nor does it support UTF-8 strings that modern languages are employing today. Instead of strings, C makes use of the *char type which is a pointer to a character array. See More

Top Pro

Understanding of computers

Learning C forces you to grapple with the low-level workings of your computer (memory management, pointers, etc.) in ways that the other languages abstract away. Without an understanding of these low-level aspects of computer programming you will be limited if you try to develop an application that needs to run in a memory or performance constrained environment. Other languages like Python can obscure a lot of details, so your foundation may be weaker. See More

Top Con

Includes require obscene resources to compile

All the modern languages have resulted in ditching the ancient deprecated model of #include statements and have instead adopted the superior model of modules. When compiling software written in C, the programmer is forced to also compile X headers which contain Y headers which contain Z headers and so forth -- drastically increasing the number of lines that need to be compiled. In order to compile something as simple as "Hello, World", for example, 18K lines of code needs to be compiled. This can be very taxing on RAM and CPU resources, causing compile times to quickly absorb a large portion of the programming process. See More

Top Pro

Portable

C is portable between most hardware. Generally a C compiler is made for any new architecture, and already exists for existing architectures. C is portable between all operating systems (Windows, UNIX, Mac, etc.) and only needs a program to be recompiled to work. This allows anyone on any operating system to learn about the language and not be held back by intricacies of their operating system. With this said, C's portability these days is not quite what it used to be. Much of said portability relies on the POSIX standard in particular, and as time passes, the compliance of a given system with that standard is becoming less certain; especially in the case of Linux. Most things will still be portable (or at least emulatable) between Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD for example; but you will at times need to make use of platform-specific support libraries and APIs as well. See More

Top Con

Arrays are not first class objects

When an array is passed to a function, it is converted to a pointer, even though the prototype confusingly says it's an array. When this conversion happens, all array type information gets lost. C arrays also cannot not be resized, which means that even simple aggregates like a stack are complicated to implement. C arrays also cannot be bounds checked, because they don't know what the array bounds are. See More

Top Pro

Must-have

Capability to program in C is greatly appreciated in developers, creates an image of competency, and many programmers will learn it at some point in their careers. See More

Top Con

Languages is full of corner cases and undefined behaviors

Undefined behavior in a program can cause unexpected results, making it hard to debug. With UB, program behavior may vary wildly depending on optimization settings. There are many cases that invoke UB, such as signed overflow, invalid dereferences, large integer shifts, uninitialized variables, etc. These serve to frustrate novice programmers when they could be learning other concepts. See More

Top Pro

Industry standard

C is the industry standard programming language, moreover, it is the most popular programming language to use. C is the language used for most Windows, UNIX and Mac operating systems. See More

Top Pro

Low level of abstraction

While higher level languages languages like Java and Python provide possibilities to be "more expressive" per line of code, it's much more convenient to start with "less efficient" (get me right) language, in order to get initial concepts of how things behave at lower level. Actually C is a good starting point moving to both higher and lower levels of abstraction, the good example here would be learning C before Assembler, as for general use the Assembler quite hard to understand due to low level of its abstraction (like getting the understanding on how loops work in C before trying to implement them on Assembler). See More

Top Pro

C is simple with lesser rules than any other language

C is standardized and it is the go-to language when you have to speed things up. See More

Top Pro

Easy to drop down to assembly

Sometimes you really need to program directly in assembly. C’s ABI and common compiler extensions make this a piece of cake. See More

Top Pro

Ubiquitous

There is a C compiler available for probably every computer system in existence today. See More

Top Pro

Portable between CPU architectures

C was designed to be independent of any particular machine architecture, and so with a little care, it is easy to write "portable" programs (see here). By design, C provides constructs that map efficiently to typical machine instructions, and therefore it has found lasting use in applications that had formerly been coded in assembly language like operating systems or small embedded systems. See More

Top Pro

Foundational, difficult but important

Learning C will teach valuable skills and transferrable understanding of computing. While learning a scripting language may be easier, students will not understand system constraints and performance problems, nor what features like garbage collection are actually doing in other languages. See More

Top Pro

Fast and standardised

Despite it's age, C is still a good balance between precise control and enough abstraction to get projects done. See More

Top Pro

Basic concepts can be applied to accelerate learning any other language

You can easily pivot knowledge learned here and apply it to almost every other language. See More

Top Pro

If you can't grok C you should not be a professional programmer

It sets an early bar that if you can't hurdle you might as well do something other than programming and not waste any more of your time. See More

Top Pro

More control over the code

See All

score 10 · Answer 4

V

Top Pro

Fast like C

V is easier than C and fast like C. See More

Top Con

Immature language

V cannot lay claims to performance benefits when it is barely used. in any production or large projects anywhere. See More

ProfessionalZelus's Experience

Great programming language. Recently discovered, and this one is a gem and rising star. Seems to suffer a bit from attacks by unhinged evangelist trying to drag it down and language wars, so didn't know what to expect, but was pleasently surprised. Better than expected. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

License:MIT

Site:vlang.io, https://github.com/vlang

Developer:Alexander Medvednikov

See All Specs

Top Pro

Simplicity

V is simple and powerful. See More

Top Con

Highly questionable "Fake it till you make it" marketing

Large parts of what they describe as their "key features" on their website is actually goals, not something they currently deliver. It's also something they never will deliver, because it's impossible to do so. The goals themselves are hyped and unrealistic, and until they have a working prototype delivering the claims (which is largely considered to be impossible by the community), the claims are just lies. See More

Top Pro

Inline Assembly

Can add in Assembly code. See More

Top Con

Rapid changes in a language syntax/features

Since V language under a continuous development and core syntax and features will be "frozen" in a version 1.0.0, updating from older version of a language can cause a code rewrite of previously working program. See More

Top Pro

Sum types

V has Sum Types. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Compile to many OSes. See More

Top Pro

Supports concurrency and channels

Can run functions concurrently that communicate over channels. See More

Top Pro

Generics

V has generics. See More

Top Pro

Single paradigm

Follows the philosophy that there should be only one way to do something, as opposed to multi-paradigm languages like C++. See More

Top Pro

Can create multi-OS GUIs

Multi-OS GUI creation is more integrated into the language than others. See More

Top Pro

Clear syntax

Highly understandable language. See More

Top Pro

C Interop

Can import C libraries, structs, and headers. See More

Top Pro

Closures

V has closures, which gives the user additional options and usefulness. See More

Top Pro

Safety

V is very safe. See More

Top Pro

Inline assembly

Can add Assembly code. See More

Top Pro

Fast compile times

Compiles programs fast, less waiting around, so more productive and fun. See More

Top Pro

Friendly and helpful community

Just check the V Discord channel or their GitHub Discussions and you will see by yourself. See More

See All

score 3 · Answer 5

Go

Top Pro

Simplified C-like syntax that is as easy to read and write as Python

The language is designed in a manner that seems logical. Syntax is simplified to reduce burden on the programmer and compiler developers. See More

Top Con

Forces K&R style and won't allow Allman style

Golang developers were extremely short-sighted and biased by forcing the K&R style, which should never have happened. Basically kicking Allman style users out of their language. See More

PersistentNike's Experience

Outright easier and well known language that's memory safe and fast. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac etc.

Current stable version:1.21.0

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

Top Pro

Great language for building networking services

Go was started as a systems language but now it has fully committed in the niche of networking services. This has been a brilliant move by Go because it allows them to capitalize on the immense talent of the Go engineering team (who are in the most part network engineers). In a world dominated by Java EE and slow scripting language, Go was a breath of fresh air and it continues to be one of the most powerful languages if you want to build networking services. See More

Top Con

Golang controlled by Google

Solves Google problems, which might not be your or the majority of user's problems. Was created for the benefit and purposes of Google, so is less flexible in language direction and options. See More

Top Pro

Performance is on the order of C and Java

Go is blazing fast, and easier to write than many other dynamic languages. See More

Top Con

Performance slowdown because of indirect calls and garbage collection

Practically no meaningful Go application can be written without indirect function calls and garbage collection, these are central to Go's core infrastructure. But these are major impediments to achieving good performance. See More

Top Pro

Jobs available

You can find a Job knowing Go. Which is more than can be said with many other languages. See More

Top Con

No forms designer

Those who are used to Visual Studio can feel the lack of a forms designer for rapid development. See More

Top Pro

Demonstrates a unique, simple concept to object-oriented programming

All types are essentially objects, be they type aliases or structs. The compiler automatically associates types to their methods at compile time. Those methods are automatically associated to all interfaces that match. This allows you to gain the benefits of multiple inheritance without glue code. As a result of the design, classes are rendered obsolete and the resulting style is easy to comprehend. See More

Top Con

It appears Google uses position to snuff out or suppress other languages

Newer languages that could threaten Golang (or other Google controlled languages) appear to have suppressed search results on Google and YouTube. Dangerous situation where large company can manipulate user choice and market share. The freedom to freely choose and user rights need to be protected. See More

Top Pro

Supports 'modules' in the form of packages

Every Go source file contains a package line that indicates which package a file belongs to. If the name of the package is 'main', it indicates that this is a program that will be compiled into a binary. Otherwise, it will recognize that it is a package. See More

Top Con

Doesn't have true enums

Golang does weirdness with const versus having real enums, like other languages. This reflects the stubbornness and shortsightedness of the core developers, similar to the issue with generics, where it was denied that it was needed until it became too obvious that it should have been added years ago. See More

Top Pro

Easy to install and configure; simple to compile software

Go software can be immediately installed, regardless of your operating system, package manager, or processor architecture with the go get command. Software is compiled statically by default so there is no need to worry about software dependencies on the client system. Makefiles and headers are no longer necessary, as the package system automatically resolves dependencies, downloads source code and compiles via a single command: go build. See More

Top Con

Does not have sum types

Makes it harder to have functions of different parameters types in a non OOP language. Thus messy generics and interfaces, and more confusion, where sum types could have solved a number of issues. See More

Top Pro

The go compiler compiles binaries instantly — as fast as a scripting language interpreter

Compiled binaries are fast — about as fast in C in most cases. Compiles on every OS without effort — truly cross-platform compiler. As a result of the fast compilation speed, you can use the gorun program to use go source code as if it was a scripting language. See More

Top Con

Lacks support for immutable data

Only way to prevent something from being mutated is to make copies of it, and to be very careful to not mutate it. See More

Top Pro

Exceptionally simple and scalable multithreaded and concurrent programming

Goroutines are "lightweight threads" that runs on OS threads. They provide a simple way for concurrent operations — prepending a function with go will execute it concurrently. It utilizes channels for communication between goroutines which aids to prevent races and makes synchronizing execution effortless across goroutines. The maximum number of OS threads goroutines can run on may be defined at compile time with the GOMAXPROCS variable. See More

Top Con

Easy to shadow variable

Due to single character only difference, declare and assign statement can easily shadow variable from outer scope unconsciously. Example: err := nil if xxx { err := somefunctionthatreturnsanerr } return err // always return nil See More

Top Con

Implementation of interfaces are difficult to figure out

Finding out what interfaces are implemented by a struct requires a magic crystal ball. They are easy to write, but difficult to read and trawl through. See More

Top Con

Hard to abstract even the simplest notions

Go is famously regarded as very simple. However, this simplicity becomes problematic in time. Programmers who use Go find themselves over and over again writing the same thing from a very low point of view. Domains not already served by libraries that are easy to glue are very difficult to get into. See More

See All

score 4 · Answer 6

D

Top Pro

Doesn't force you to deal with memory management

When you're just starting out, dealing with manual memory management and its bugs is a huge pain! D is garbage collected by default, which removes a huge class of things that could go wrong. And later on, if you decide you don't want or need the GC, you can turn it off. See More

Top Con

Poor adoption even after many years of existence

There's a widely accepted perception of D as a language that has been poorly adopted. Since adoption is driven by perception this becomes a fact. So managers and engineers start becoming nervous in adopting a language that has such a perception among the community and that has been so unsuccessful for so long. See More

ResourcefulShala's Experience

Does what it is suppose to, without the hype, and is useful. Great alternative to C or C++. See More

Specs

Current stable version:2.101.2

Site:https://dlang.org/

Top Pro

Designed for concurrency and parallelism

Supports first-class functionality for both concurrency and parallelism, offered as part of the standard library. See More

Top Con

All the downsides of garbage collection without any of its benefits

When D decided to implement garbage collection it instantly alienated a large community of developers (C and C++ programmers). For them, the official policy has been: "Don't want garbage collection? Use D with RAII or manual management style!". While true, it's also absolutely pointless because there's little to none support for alternate memory management styles in the standard library, which means that a new user will have to start with a language that is stripped down of the core infrastructure. On the other hand, for those people who want to use garbage collection, the implementation of it is lackluster. See More

Top Pro

Very fast compilation

D is usually up to 10 times faster than C++. Having a language that compiles this fast means that you are free to write highly optimized code because of the relatively low cost of experimentation. See More

Top Pro

Provable purity and immutability

The compiler can check that functions don't have side effects, extremely important for functional programming in concurrent scenarios, and can check immutability. Therefore, the compiler will prove that your programs are functionally pure and respect immutable data, if you want it to. See More

Top Pro

Easy to read and understand code

Top Pro

Provides a powerful data structure on top of C's arrays called slices

D provides a structure that builds on C's arrays called slices. A slice is a segment of an array that tracks the pointer and the length of the segment. Slices are extremely powerful because they combine the protection of knowing the length of the data with the garbage collector that manages the memory backing that data, thus avoiding most memory corruption issues. See More

Top Pro

Unit testing built-in

D provides unittest blocks to insert code that verifies functions preform their expected behavior and document edge cases. Since these are enabled with a compiler switch, there is no need to teach new programmers how to install new libraries and import modules, instead training on test driven design can start from the very first function. See More

See All

score 6 · Answer 7

Fortran

Top Pro

Fortran libraries are still at the core of scientific computing

Julia libraries are Fortran. Python libraries are partially implemented in Fortran. Matlab libraries are fortran. Cuda C++ libraries are wrap ups to Fortran libraries. See More

Top Con

Very expensive tooling

Compilers, libraries, everything has a high cost in Fortran world. See More

ExuberantAjbit's Experience

I have used Fortran for over 20 years, does not seem to work so well with MS Win OS, but Lapack is the best numerical library, Openmpi seems a little tedious, but I am going to dive into CoArray stuff. Sometimes I used C, but I refuse to use C++, get complicated too quickly, like Cuda Fortran. See More

Top Pro

Maximum performance

Fortran was designed from the beginning for maximum performance, and as one of the oldest languages in continuous use, the compilers are now very mature. Even hand-optimized assembly is usually slower, because the compilers are that smart. See More

Top Con

Use in computational physics was only due to timing, and is rapidly changing

On Cray systems and other supercomputers Fortran was the language used for research due to implementation, not performance. At this point giant supercomputers have been almost completely replaced with massively distributed systems that Fortran cannot very well take advantage of. See More

Top Pro

Top performance in fields of Computational Biology and Computational Physics

Computational natural sciences are a top interest in the up and coming scientific milestones specially in Genetics and Electromagnetism. See More

Top Con

Most existing uses are on ancient systems

While this may be good for now, eventually these jobs will disappear. See More

Top Pro

The language has refused to die

And it is because all of a sudden C++ won't do it and Fortran would prevent in expending dozens of millions of dollars in new infrastructure. See More

Top Con

Most modern bioinformatics has long since gone to more flexible languages

Despite hits to performance, nearly all modern research is done using languages like python which are much, much faster to prototype on and can be optimised using their massive library of carefully optimised libraries in native (often assembly) code. The result is faster iteration, more useful results in shorter time and more portable code that can be reused for later projects. See More

Top Pro

Easy to learn

Learning fortran is quite simple. See More

Top Con

Requires archaic costly and brittle architectural design

Fortran is principally deigned for applications to be precisely purpose built and optimised by empirically solving a specified case. As a result, solutions are not portable or adaptable at all, especially after the hand crafting necessary for performance on Big Iron. See More

Top Con

Expensive work force

Ultra experienced Fortran developers charge small fortunes and they need teams of developers that charge as high to fix projects. See More

See All

score 6 · Answer 8

Julia

Top Con

Young language with limited support

Julia was released in 2012. Due to its short existence, there is a limited amount of support for the language. Very few libraries exist as of yet, and the community is still quite small (though growing quickly). See More

Top Pro

Almost as fast as C

Julia runs almost as fast as (and in fact in some cases faster than) C code. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, FreeBSD

Current stable version:1.5.3

Type Model:Dynamically Typed

Top Con

1-based array and column major

This design probably comes from Matlab, but makes it unnatural to interface C and C++ and python. See More

Top Pro

High-level code

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

Top Con

Slower than C

Despite claims to the contrary. See More

Top Pro

Nice regular syntax

Julia code is easy to read and avoid a lot of unnecessary special symbols and fluff. It uses newline to end statements and "end" to end blocks so there is no need for lots of semicolons and curly braces. It is regular in that unless it is a variable assignment, function name always comes first. No need to be confused about whether something is a method on an object or a free function. Unlike Python and Ruby, since you can annotate the types a function operates on, you can overload function names, so that you can use the same function name for many data types. So you can keep simple descriptive function names and not have to invent artificial function names to separate them from the type they operate on. See More

Top Pro

Function and operator broadcasting

You can perform operations on scalars, for example 2^2 or [1, 2, 3].^2. See More

Top Pro

REPL-based

The Julia REPL allows quickly testing how some code behaves and gives access to documentation and package management immediately in the REPL. See More

Top Pro

Function overloading

You can have multiple functions with the same name, but doing different things depending on function arguments and argument types. See More

Top Pro

Powerful n-dimensional arrays

Julia has built in n-dimensional arrays similar in functionality as Python's numpy. See More

Top Pro

Great standard REPL

Out of the box Julia has a very good Read-Eval-Print-Loop, which both completes functions and types, as well as completion based on history of previous statements. It integrates well with the shell and has an excellent online help system. See More

Top Pro

Strong metaprogramming

Julia allows you to edit Julia code in the language itself and write powerful macros. It is a great introduction to metaprogramming features See More

Top Pro

Written in itself

The Julia language is written in itself to a much larger extent than most other languages, so a budding programmer can read through the depths of the standard library and learn exactly how things work all the way down to the low-level bit-twiddling details, which can be englightening. See More

See All

score 3 · Answer 9

C++

Top Con

What is C++

There seem to be dozens of different opinions about what subset to use for a given project. Evaluation phase seems like a daunting technological decision about how to even use C++. See More

Top Pro

The language chosen to develope most performance oriented projects

although Fortran is fastest, all Fortran projects these days begin as C++ projects before realizing the need of implementing the most critical aspects in Fortran. See More

Top Con

Slower than C, D and many other interpreted languages if misused (and it always is)

Top Pro

Huge language supports most everything

C++ is a large language with an even larger community and following. It has libraries for every kind of task that is possible to do with C++. See More

Top Con

C++ is a mess and getting worse every version, making fast code is difficult and takes experience

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score 2 · Answer 10

Zig

Top Con

No standard package manager

Several years into development, and still no standard package manager is ridiculous. See More

Top Pro

Small binary

Produces binary smaller than C. See More

PersistentNike's Experience

If you really are all about torturing and abusing yourself, learn Rust instead of this, to get the full treatment. Instead of pretending to use C, like with this, just go actually use C. If you are looking for some kind of easier and about as fast as C alternative, then use Golang or others in that category. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Android, iOS

Current stable version:0.11.0

License:MIT

Site:https://ziglang.org/

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Top Con

Poor compiler errors

Several years into development, language still a mess, and no hope of fixing itself for yet more years later. See More

Top Pro

Cross-compilation is easy

The Zig compiler can build artifacts for any Tier 3 Supported platform without additional downloads. See More

EncouragingInara's Experience

Highly unstable langauge, despite several years of development. Full of abrupt changes and lots of confusion. Can not maintain significant projects that use this language, without constant rewrites. Compile error full of useless information or fails to report. Confusing reference vs value. No built in regular expressions. Poor documentation. No standard package manager. See More

Top Con

Convoluted syntax

Claims to be an improvement over C, but in this area, not really. See More

Top Pro

Compile-time execution

Zig can execute code at compile-time, allowing for more performant and readable programs. See More

ResourcefulShala's Experience

Say no to Zig, avoid getting scammed. 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. 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

Top Con

No closures

Does not have closures. See More

Top Pro

Some safety

It's safer than C, at least. See More

Top Con

No lambdas

Missing many key and useful features other languages have. See More

Top Pro

Performance

Zig is pretty fast, in some cases even faster than C. See More

Top Con

No interfaces/traits

Features that are useful are missing, where you can find them in other languages. See More

Top Con

Deceptively gives impression it's near being production ready

No plans to hit 1.0 until 2025 (3 years later), according to Zig Roadmap speech. Impression is given that (0.9.1) that language was close to ready, when it's not. See More

Top Con

Exhibits cult-like behavior and animosity towards other programming languages

Strange culture that bashes other languages and are not open to criticism about the faults of their language. Very close-minded, sometimes scary. See More

Top Con

Fundraising looks suspicious

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

Top Con

Creator admits to not being smart and not knowing what he's doing

Nim users have been talking about Zig's creator shortcomings. Very disturbing. Not a language to invest in or take seriously, outside personal experimentation. See More

Top Con

Almost no community

Lacking in libraries and users. See More

See All

10 Options Considered

My Recommendation for Rust

My Recommendation for Rust

Steep learning curve

Catch errors at compile-time

Low readability

Compiles to machine code allowing for extra efficiency

Very ugly and verbose syntax

Makes developers write optimal code

Long compile times

Low level programming language

Rust not as safe as it pretends to be

Supports cross compilation for different architectures

Significant time required to understand the language fully

Functional programming

Low productivity

Threads without data races

Low-level programming language

Official package manager and build tool

Not as useful or productive as advertised

Big community

Support for macros

Built-in concurrency

Easy to write understandable code

Generics support

My Recommendation for Nim

My Recommendation for Nim

Cross-platform

Whitespace sensitive syntax

Python-like syntax

Lacks void / null safety

Great portability and optimization

Concurrency hard to use

Blazingly fast

Memory management confusion

Easy to learn

My Recommendation for C

My Recommendation for C

The king of languages, imitated, extended but never equalled

Steep learning curve

Teaches good practices

C will require you to learn concepts too advanced for most beginners

Helps with learning other languages later

Lack of support for first class strings

Understanding of computers

Includes require obscene resources to compile

Portable

Arrays are not first class objects

Must-have

Languages is full of corner cases and undefined behaviors

Industry standard

Low level of abstraction

C is simple with lesser rules than any other language

Easy to drop down to assembly

Ubiquitous

Portable between CPU architectures

Foundational, difficult but important

Fast and standardised

Basic concepts can be applied to accelerate learning any other language

If you can't grok C you should not be a professional programmer

More control over the code

My Recommendation for V

My Recommendation for V

Fast like C

Immature language

Simplicity

Highly questionable "Fake it till you make it" marketing

Inline Assembly

Rapid changes in a language syntax/features

Sum types

Cross-platform

Supports concurrency and channels

Generics

Single paradigm

Can create multi-OS GUIs

Clear syntax

C Interop

Closures

Safety

Inline assembly