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What are the best (productivity-enhancing, well-designed, and concise, rather than just popular or time-tested) programming languages?

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78 Options Considered

78 Options ConsideredPriceCurrent stable versionSite
Elixir
1.6https://elixir-lang.org
Smalltalk
6.1–
Python
3.6.4–
Scheme
––
Nim
0.18.0https://nim-lang.org
Expand spec tableSee Full List

Elixir

•••
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Dave Mason
Top Pro

Very friendly functional language

•••
Dave Mason
Top Pro

Amazingly robust and fluid multi-processing

•••
UnbiasedNanaya
Top Pro

Compiler errors usually explain why that's an error

•••
Compiler errors and warnings tend to be accompanied with explanations of why the error/warning happened, and even with hints on how to solve them.
Peter Carter
Top Pro

Part of the best web full-stack framework currently available

•••
Phoenix Framework is coded in Elixir and is very stable and performant as compared to the competition.
AmiableAmeNoUzume
Top Pro

BEAM VM and OTP library

•••
Endi Sukaj
UnderstandingNunbarsegunu
Top Pro

Great for concurrency

•••
Leverages the existing Erlang Beam VM which is amazing for concurrency.
CalmWuriupranili
Top Pro

Great documentation

•••
Elixir's documentation is very good. It covers everything and always helps solving any problem you may have. It's also always available from the terminal.
PleasantSirsir
Top Pro

Full access to Erlang functions

•••
You can call Erlang functions directly without any overhead: https://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/erlang-libraries.html
PleasantSirsir
Top Pro

Powerful metaprogramming

•••
Write code that writes code with Elixir macros. Macros make metaprogramming possible and define the language itself.
PleasantSirsir
Top Pro

Syntax is similar to Ruby, making it familiar for people used to OOP

•••
All of the benefits of Erlang; without as steep a learning curve of prolog based syntax. Elixir is heavily inspired by Ruby's syntax which many people love.
PleasantSirsir
Top Pro

Easy to download libraries

•••
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
Dave Mason
Top Pro

Dynamically typed

•••
Inter
Top Con

Dynamically typed

•••
FerventCoyolxauhqui
Top Con

Some design choices may seem strange

•••
Some design choices could have been a little more appealing, for example: using "do...end" comes natural in Ruby for blocks but Elixir uses them for everything and it looks pretty weird: Enum.map [1, 2, 3], fn(x) -> x * 2 end or receive do {:hello, msg} -> msg {:world,...
AmiableAmeNoUzume
Top Con

Slow

•••
Single core perfomance is significantly slower than most other languages.
See 13 more Pros & ConsSee 13 more Pros & Cons

Smalltalk

•••
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Richard Eng
Juan Vuletich
thermoplastics
Top Pro

Live programming environments available

•••
VisualWorks, Pharo, Squeak, Dolphin, Cuis
thermoplastics
Endi Sukaj
gilch
Top Pro

Simple syntax

•••
The syntax famously fits on a postcard. Programmers are free to worry about the problem at hand instead of the language itself. Not C or Java like syntax. Avoid bracket soup with keywords that make it clear what is expected / passed into methods.
thermoplastics
gilch
Dave Mason
Top Pro

Smalltalk amenable to creating domain-specific languages

•••
If written well, Smalltalk almost reads like English.
thermoplastics
Inter
Top Pro

Object Oriented

•••
How it was meant to be.
Juan Vuletich
Robert Pergl
Top Pro

Very nice and active community around Pharo, Squeak and Cuis

•••
Laura Kyle
Chad Perrin
Top Pro

Provides powerful metaprogramming facilities

•••
Philippe Back
Top Pro

Fun to use

•••
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Rich libraries including many powerful data types, collections, frameworks, development tools etc.

•••
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Allows programming at various levels of abstraction, including with pure domain concepts

•••
Dave Mason
Top Pro

With PharoJS, easy to generate code for the web

•••
ReverentHesperus
Top Pro

Powerful integrated debugger

•••
You can edit code and swap it in while the your program is still running after an exception has already been signaled, or restart from anywhere in the call stack. You can inspect and modify the state of any object. Some Smalltalkers write unit tests and then program exclusively in the debugger.
ReverentHesperus
Top Pro

Superb Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

•••
All tools (Inspector, Browser, Debugger etc.) are written in Smalltalk and are live objects in the environment. All sources are present, so that the tools can easily be studied, changed and experimented with. The same goes for the other components like the compiler, OS-Integration etc.
Stephan Eggermont
Top Pro

With SqueakJS, run in the browser

•••
Juan Vuletich
Top Pro

The true Smalltalk- 80 Dynabook experience on Cuis.

•••
Cuis Smalltalk shares and follows the original values of Smalltalk-80. Especially on the value of being able to study, understand and modify any part of the system, and see immediate results. See https://github.com/Cuis-Smalltalk/Cuis-Smalltalk-Dev
SmartAntaeus
Top Pro

Agile "interactive" test-driven development

•••
Smalltalk had the original (and still the best) unit test system that inspired it in many other languages (like Java's JUnit). Working with interactive live objects in Smalltalk style TDD makes it easy to teach and learn TDD.
ReverentHesperus
Top Pro

Easy to learn and experiment

•••
SmartAntaeus
Top Pro

Environment of live objects

•••
You can modify the system as it's running. You're "swimming with the fish", instead of probing a black box by remote control.
SmartAntaeus
Top Pro

Pure and easy object orientation

•••
Smalltalk is one of few languages that are purely object oriented. This provides a solid and easy to understand base on which to learn object oriented programming, the most popular approach to programming.
SmartAntaeus
Top Pro

First-class functions with lexical closures

•••
SmartAntaeus
Top Pro

Elegant syntax fits on a postcard

•••
The syntax was designed to be easy enough for children to learn. Beginners can learn the language rules very quickly and then focus on programming without fighting the syntax at the same time. Things that have to be baked into the grammar in other languages are simple message sends with block argum...
SmartAntaeus
Top Pro

Language uniformity

•••
This leads to a very simple programming model (pure OO) that is still very powerful. A lot of stuff that is hard to implement in other languages is easier in Smalltalk.
SmartAntaeus
Top Pro

It invented a lot of stuff

•••
Smalltalk is the inventor of Just-in-Time compilation and the MVC concept, refactoring through their so-called refactoring browser and it was also one of the first adopters of a language virtual machine, closures, live programming, test driven development, an IDE and the development of GUI`s.
SmartAntaeus
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,...
SmartAntaeus
Top Pro

As a first language, almost forces you to learn OO design.

•••
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 examp...
SmartAntaeus
Top Pro

Inspector makes objects transparent

•••
Programmers must make detailed mental models of the system they are developing. Bugs usually happen when the mental model does not match the actual system. This is one of the greatest difficulties beginners have because most systems are so opaque. It takes a lot of effort to see what's really g...
Richard Eng
Top Pro

With Amber, easy to generate code to run in the web browser

•••
IngeniousPandia
Top Pro

Graphical user interface

•••
Beginners are usually stuck making command-line applications in other languages, because GUIs are too hard. Smalltalk GUIs are easy enough to start with.
IngeniousPandia
Top Pro

Save and restore virtual machine image

•••
A Smalltalk environment can save the state of a running program and later restore and resume execution. This includes the internal state of live objects, multiple thread stacks, and debugging sessions, making it easier for beginners to take the exact problem to an expert for assistance.
SmartAntaeus
Top Pro

Internal source code and documentation

•••
You can explore how everything works easily.
SmartAntaeus
Top Pro

Inspired many other languages' object systems

•••
SmartAntaeus
Top Pro

Incremental compilation

•••
Provides an extremely fast code-compile-run-debug cycle. This is great for beginners to experiment and prototype ideas.
Laura Kyle
michaeljforster
Top Pro

Tooling emerges, cheaply, as a consequence of its design rather than being bolted on

•••
Stephan Eggermont
Top Pro

Code rewriting to program yourself out of a corner again

•••
CheerfulFionnuala
Top Con

Limited libraries to connect with external services

•••
Although it has libraries to connect with major services (eg. databases like PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Riak, etc.), it takes some time for those libraries to be available. It's not cutting edge like node.js or Python where libraries are usually written first there and then ported to other language...
thermoplastics
Fabián Heredia Montiel
Top Con

Isolation

•••
Smalltalk has its own world inside the image. You cannot use your current text editor with it. At least not in a straight forward way.
Endi Sukaj
EagerPyvsyansa
Top Con

Limited object system

•••
The object system, which by the way is the essence of Smalltalk (Smalltalk is purely object oriented), is very limited, conforming to the old and weak paradigm of tying methods to classes. Modern OOP systems such as the ones provided by Julia and Common Lisp, separate methods from objects allowing...
Endi Sukaj
Steven Sagaert
Top Con

Not used as much anymore

•••
EagerPyvsyansa
Top Con

Only one paradigm allowed

•••
Smalltalk is a purely object-oriented language, which means that other paradigms can't be used, like functional programming. Although Smalltalk allows easy creation of closures, functional programming can't be fully exploited, because methods are always handcuffed to objects, also, there...
Izem Lavrenti
IntuitiveCheonjiwang
Top Con

A little slow

•••
Smalltalk's VM and lack of attention makes it slower than other languages although most of the time this is unnoticeable.
Monika
Fábio Pisaruk
Robert Pergl
Top Con

Simple, but not C-like syntax

•••
See 38 more Pros & ConsSee 38 more Pros & Cons

Python

•••
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Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Comes with extensive libraries

•••
Python ships with a large standard library, including modules for everything from writing graphical applications, running servers, and doing unit testing. This means that beginners won't need to spend time searching for tools and libraries just to get started on their projects.
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Clear syntax

•••
Python's syntax is very clear and readable, making it excellent for beginners. The lack of extra characters like semicolons and curly braces reduces distractions, letting beginners focus on the meaning of the code. Significant whitespace also means that all code is properly and consistently ind...
Sunil Arora
Top Pro

Multipurpose

•••
Python is heavily used in education sector, web and internet development, scientific and numeric computing as well as in big data and machine learning algorithms development. The depth and breadth of Python makes it the language of choice in education and research sector and students across the gl...
Endi Sukaj
Inter
Top Pro

Easy syntax. Easy to learn, hard to master

•••
On top of the wealth of tutorials and documentation, and the fact that it ships with a sizeable standard library, Python also ships with both an IDE (Integrated Development Environment: A graphical environment for editing running and debugging your code); as well as a text-based live interpreter. B...
brady barten
Top Pro

Emphasis on readability

•••
Inter
Top Pro

Sequences

•••
Inter
Top Pro

Generators

•••
Laura Kyle
greyfade
Inter
Top Pro

Default parameter values

•••
Though, this feature is hardly unique to Python.
gilch
Inter
Top Pro

C Interop

•••
CFFI is the bee's knees. But there are other options too.
Laura Kyle
Dan Stormont
Top Pro

Good language for beginners

•••
Simple syntax and the ability to execute code using the interpreter make it easier for beginners to learn and experiment, but it also means that experienced programmers can be more productive with Python, as well.
JD Fagan
Top Pro

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,...
Inter
Top Pro

Decorators

•••
Endolith
Top Pro

Mandatory indentation

•••
No holy wars about which indentation style is best. No wasted time managing brackets, semicolons, or other redundant garbage.
Endolith
Top Pro

Docstrings

•••
Code is self-documenting. Functions tell you what their parameters are for and how to use them. You can even include TeX math and it is displayed in tools like Spyder.
HonestDamu
Top Pro

Lots of tutorials

•••
Python's popularity and beginner friendliness has led to a wealth of tutorials and example code on the internet. This means that when beginners have questions, they're very likely to be able to find an answer on their own just by searching. This is an advantage over some languages that are...
CuriousHorus
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.
CuriousHorus
Top Pro

It's really simple

•••
It's very simple for understanding how programming works.
CuriousHorus
Top Pro

Very similar to pseudo-code

•••
When learning Computer Science concepts such as algorithms and data structures, many texts use pseudo-code. Having a language such as Python whose syntax is very similar to pseudo-code is an obvious advantage that makes learning easier.
CuriousHorus
Top Pro

One right way to do things

•••
One of the Guiding Principles of Python is that there should be only one obvious way to do things. This is helpful for beginners because it means that there is likely a best answer for questions about how things should be done.
CuriousHorus
Top Pro

Advanced community projects

•••
There are outstanding projects being actively developed in Python. Projects such as the following to name a random four: Django: a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design. iPython: a rich architecture for interactive computing with shell...
CuriousHorus
Top Pro

Has many libraries for scientific computing, data mining and machine learning

•••
Python is commonly used in data science and has many libraries for scientific computing, such as numpy, pandas, matplotlib, etc.
CuriousHorus
Top Pro

Can be used in many domains

•••
Python can be used across virtually all domains: scientific, network, games, graphics, animation, web development, machine learning, and data science.
CuriousHorus
Top Pro

Active and helpful community

•••
Python has an active and helpful community, such as the comp.lang.python Google Groups, StackOverflow, reddit, etc.
CuriousHorus
Top Pro

Cross-platform

•••
Installs and works on every major operating systems if not already installed by default (Linux, macOS).
CuriousHorus
Top Pro

Good documentation

•••
The Python community has put a lot of work into creating excellent documentation filled with plain english describing functionality. Contrast this with other languages, such as Java, where documentation often contains a dry enumeration of the API. As a random example, consider GUI toolkit documen...
gilch
Laura Kyle
Inter
Top Pro

Type hinting

•••
The current version of Python has built-in syntax for both function and variable annotations--for optional static (compile-time) typing via third-party tools like mypy and PyCharm IDE.
Inter
Top Pro

Zen of Python

•••
https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0020/
Laura Kyle
Inter
Alex Jarkey
Top Con

Bad parallelism

•••
GIL
Endi Sukaj
Inter
Top Con

Language fragmentation

•••
A large subset of the Python community still uses / relies upon Python 2, which is considered a legacy implementation by the Python authors. Some libraries still have varying degrees of support depending on which version of Python you use. There are syntactical differences between the versions.
Endi Sukaj
Inter
Alex Jarkey
Top Con

Harder to catch bugs because of its dynamic type system

•••
Laura Kyle
Endi Sukaj
Angela Jarkey
Top Con

Bad performance

•••
Python, like many interpreted and untyped languages, is fairly slow compared to compiled languages like C, C++ or Java. Sometimes this won't matter, but when it does you're talking about twenty times slower than C/C++ and ten times slower than Java on average.
gilch
Laura Kyle
Chad Perrin
Top Con

Arbitrary semantic quirks

•••
The language suffers from issues with non-systematic language semantics, such as differentiation between functions and methods; operators and functions; inconsistencies in default scope behavior (conflation of variable assignment and declaration--global vs nonlocal, and class declarations don't...
greyfade
Top Con

Improper closures

•••
Lambdas are limited to single-expression statements, and functions that close over local variables easily invalidate references, limiting their capability for maintaining state. Other functional languages that implement closures do not have any of these limitations (or they are comparatively so sub...
Monika
Laura Kyle
Inter
Top Con

No access modifiers

•••
Underscores don't change anything.
Laura Kyle
Chad Perrin
Endi Sukaj
Top Con

Mandatory indentation

•••
While proper formatting is essential for any programmer, beginners often have trouble understanding the need and lack the discipline to do it. Add to that all those editors that randomly convert N spaces (usually 8) to tabs and you get an instant disaster. More importantly, the semantic significan...
CuriousHorus
Top Con

Does not teach you about data types

•••
Since Python is a dynamically typed language, you don't have to learn about data types if you start using Python as your first language. Data types being one of the most important concepts in programming. This also will cause trouble in the long run when you will have to (inevitably) learn and...
CuriousHorus
Top Con

Abstraction to the point of hinderance

•••
Python is abstracted far enough that if it's your first language, it will be harder to pick up lower level languages later versus going the other direction.
See 35 more Pros & ConsSee 35 more Pros & Cons

Scheme

•••
Add Media iconAdd Video or Image
Laura Kyle
Chad Perrin
Top Pro

Homoiconic syntax

•••
Chad Perrin
Top Pro

Powerful Hygienic Macro System

•••
Chad Perrin
Top Pro

Simple

•••
Chad Perrin
Top Pro

Elegant

•••
Chad Perrin
Top Pro

Easy To Learn

•••
Chad Perrin
Top Pro

Concise

•••
Chloe Montanez
DazzlingKupala
Top Pro

Extendable

•••
Scheme even has extensions to reduce the number of parentheses while keeping the full expressiveness of the language (SRFI-49, SRFI-110 and SRFI-119). For many other extensions, see the SRFIs.
Chloe Montanez
DazzlingKupala
Top Pro

Standardized

•••
With the RnRS reports Scheme has a stable base which is implemented and specialized in many implementations for different domains. Reports — benchmark of many different implementations which support the most recent standards.
Mariano Alvarez
Top Pro

Robust metaprogramming

•••
The quotation functionality of Lisp allow for extremely powerful, yet syntactically straightforward metaprogramming via macros. This is more powerful than the C preprocessor while being less involved than something like Template Haskell or F# quotations. Using macros to properly decompose a probl...
Mariano Alvarez
Top Pro

Great at teaching fundamental programming ideas

•••
Scheme teaches the important, fundamental ideas immediately without the distraction of unnecessary syntax or language features.
Mariano Alvarez
Top Pro

No Magic - it's clear how everything works

•••
Scheme has far less built into the language itself, helping students see that things like OOP are not magical: they are just patterns for organizing code. Everything in Scheme is built up from a very small set of primitives which compose in a natural and intuitive fashion. Having a language that d...
gilch
Top Con

Evaluation order is unspecified in calls

•••
And almost everything is a call. The compiler is free to re-order the evaluation of arguments, like C does. You can force a particular order with let or let* (like using locals in C), but this is an extra cognitive burden for the programmer in an otherwise simple language. Bugs caused by this are v...
DazzlingKupala
Top Con

Few Libraries

•••
Compared to languages like Java, Javascript and Python, Scheme has few libraries to provide directly re-usable features.
Endi Sukaj
Dym Sohin
Top Con

Too many parentheses

•••
Uses too many parentheses () which makes it hard to read.
See 12 more Pros & ConsSee 12 more Pros & Cons

Nim

•••
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Tiberium
thermoplastics
Inter
Top Pro

Runtime speed

•••
Nim can compile to C or C++, which means it can execute almost as fast as C (in some cases it has the same performance as C)
Tiberium
thermoplastics
Inter
Top Pro

Statically typed

•••
Has static type system with great type interference and safety
Tiberium
Alex Libman
Top Pro

Compiles to C or JavaScript

•••
Also compiles to C++, Objective C
Tiberium
Dominik Picheta
Top Pro

Async/await features

•••
Brilliant C#-inspired async/await implemented via macros.
Solon
Tiberium
thermoplastics
Top Pro

Powerful metaprogramming

•••
You can use templates to remove boilerplate and macros to create your own DSLs. For an example click here.
Tiberium
thermoplastics
Alex Libman
Top Pro

Consistent permissive licensing

•••
Compiler and all core language tools are licensed with MIT. Also almost all libraries for Nim licensed with MIT too
Tiberium
thermoplastics
Alex Libman
Top Pro

Awesome syntax

•••
Pascal and Python inspired syntax can make code much more readable.
Evolution Pixels
Top Pro

Really crossplatform

•••
The same code can be used for web, server, desktop and mobile.
WhiteLilac
Evolution Pixels
Top Pro

Easy to read

•••
Nim has a lot of common with Python in terms of syntax. Indentation-based syntax, for/while loops.
Evolution Pixels
Top Pro

Easy to integrate with another languages

•••
You can use Nim with any language that can be interfaced with C. There's a tool which helps you to create new C and C++ bindings for Nim - c2nim Also you can use Nim with Objective C or even JavaScript (if you're compiling for these backends)
Evolution Pixels
Top Pro

Garbage-collected

•••
You don't need to deal with all those manual memory allocations, Nim can take care of it! But also you can use another GC, or tweak it for you real-time application or a game
Evolution Pixels
Top Pro

Has built-in async support

•••
Nim has "asyncdispatch" module, which allows you to write async applications.
Evolution Pixels
Top Pro

Has built-in unittest module

•••
With built-in "unittest" module you can create test with a very readable code
Evolution Pixels
Top Pro

Type interferencing

•••
You only need to specify types in your procedures and objects - you don't need to specify type when you're creating a new variable (unless you're creating it without initialization)
Evolution Pixels
Top Pro

Compile-time execution

•••
Nim has built-in VM, which executes macros and some other code at compile time. For example - you can check if you're on Windows, and Nim will generate code only for it
Evolution Pixels
Top Pro

Multi paradigm

•••
Imperative, OOP, functional programming in one language.
Evolution Pixels
Top Pro

Built-in Unicode support

•••
You can use unicode names for variables, there is "unicode" module for operations with unicode
Evolution Pixels
Top Pro

Supports UFCS (Unified Function Call Syntax)

•••
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()
Evolution Pixels
Top Pro

Great metaprogramming features

•••
There are generics, templates, macros in Nim. They can allow you to write new DSL for your application, or avoid all boilerplate stuff.
Evolution Pixels
Top Pro

Strict typing

•••
Checks your code at compile time.
Dym Sohin
Top Con

Community is too small

•••
Too small of a community to keep up with development of similar concurrent projects, like Haxe or Kotlin.
See 19 more ProsSee 19 more Pros

Elm

•••
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zinggi57
Top Pro

No run-time exceptions

•••
Lack of run-time exceptions makes it easy to produce large swathes of reliable front-end code without drowning in tests.
HardwareHero
Top Pro

Immutable values

•••
The values in Elm are immutable - that is once assigned they cannot be changed. This makes it easier (especially for beginners) as values aren't constantly changing.
Marica Odagaki (ento)
Top Pro

Meaningful, easy to understand error messages

•••
zinggi57
Top Pro

Super easy refactoring with very helpful compiler errors

•••
In no other language you can refactor so easy without any worries, since the compiler will guide you through. It is like TDD but than compiler-error driven.
leviabris
Top Pro

Performant

•••
HardwareHero
Top Con

Higher-kinded types are unsupported

•••
Some generic operations such as fold, filter, apply and map are unsupported.
leviabris
Top Con

Poor backend capability

•••
See 5 more Pros & ConsSee 5 more Pros & Cons

Haskell

•••
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Inter
Alex Jarkey
Top Pro

Statically typed

•••
Samuel Schlesinger
Top Pro

Type Level Computation

•••
One is able to use the type system to induce much more interesting sorts of functional polymorphism than a language which doesn't have this feature can at compile time.
Theodore Lief Gannon
Top Pro

Ubiquitous referential transparency

•••
The = used to bind functions and constants means actual mathematical equality. A function's name, code, and calculated value for a given input are all identical and interchangeable; substituting one for another will never change program behavior.
thermoplastics
Isaac Shapira
Top Pro

Easy to reason about

•••
Provable correctness, means we can actually know the code is correct.
Paolo
Federico Pasqua (eisterman)
Top Pro

Pure functional language

•••
Perfect for learning what it really means to use functional paradigms.
Andris Pelcbergs
Top Pro

Very few language constructs

•••
The base language relies primarily on function application, with a very small amount of special-case syntax. Once you know the rules for function application, you know most of the language.
Francisco
Ignacio Sniechowski
Top Pro

Lazy evaluation

•••
Can do things like operating on infinite lists.
Theodore Lief Gannon
Top Pro

Strong guarantees about library behavior

•••
Because anything a function might do is reflected in its type signature, quirky or unexpected library behavior is generally a non-issue.
Inter
gilch
Adam Stark
Top Con

Very difficult learning process

•••
For people unfamiliar with functional programming, it's a difficult language to learn.
Belle
VersatileGeshtuE
thermoplastics
Top Con

Basically has no foothold in industry

•••
Nearly 30 years of existence and basically no application effectively in use. (Apart from some mini apps smuggled in by Haskell evangelists, that will disappear once they leave the company). Although, this is slowly changing in the last years.
Inter
Top Con

Harder to debug

•••
Once a bug occurs of course.
Ryan O’Hara
Top Con

Documentation for most packages is short and lacking

•••
A few Haskell packages are well documented but this is the exception, not the rule. Most of the time a list of function signatures is what passes for documentation.
Ryan O’Hara
Top Con

Package manager is unstable & lacking features

•••
Cabal (There are other choices but this is the most popular) can not uninstall a package. Also working at a few locations it is difficult to have the same environment for each one be the same.
Inter
thermoplastics
Endi Sukaj
Top Con

Rigid pure functional only

•••
It's a wanted limitation to prevent potentially bad code, however it also takes away choices in how you want to code. Also being a pure and rigid functional language, it can take some time to become accustomed to the language, and until some has had a lot of practice and experience with Haskel...
gilch
Inter
Top Con

Disconnected from von Neumann architecture

•••
Compiler need to translate to imperative low level code.
thermoplastics
Inter
Top Con

Rejecting community

•••
Unhelpful for newcomers, rejection of any new ideas, haughty and academic people.
InterestingSuadela
Top Con

Written for theory rather than practicality

•••
Intended as a 'model' language rather than something that is supposed to increase productivity/efficiency.
See 15 more Pros & ConsSee 15 more Pros & Cons

Racket

•••
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HardwareHero
Top Pro

Quick and easy to write code

•••
Racket uses a broad macro system which is more efficient to code into a program, and easier to manage down the road as well.
Chloe Montanez
G. P. II
Top Pro

Many tools available

•••
From libraries to frameworks to full-blown languages, the Racket environment has quite a few tools to offer. Just look at this or this
Norbert Hartl
Top Pro

Comes with integrated development environment

•••
HardwareHero
Top Pro

Open source

•••
Racket is distributed under GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)
SophisticatedTaBitjet
Top Pro

Unsurpassed metaprogramming and DSL support

•••
Racket offers a sophisticated hygienic macro system in the Scheme tradition, with enhancements to support robust checking with ease. Combined with the #lang mechanism for extending the parser, Racket has groundbreaking support for DSLs and even full-fledged languages that cooperate as parts of larg...
Kristaps
GutsyEkwensu
Top Con

Slower than some Scheme implementation and JVM

•••
Wesley Bitomski
Top Con

Preceived esoteric nature

•••
Since it's not amongst the hottest buzzwords in IT and Software Engineering, there is more than some friction introducing it into a production environment.
gilch
Laura Kyle
Chad Perrin
Top Con

Weak copyleft license

•••
LGPL https://docs.racket-lang.org/license/index.html
Laura Kyle
Chad Perrin
Top Con

Bloated Toolset Distribution

•••
While it is nothing like you are expected to install for, say, a .NET software development environment, the integrated toolset for Racket is very heavy-weight for the language type it supports. There is a minimal version available here.
See 7 more Pros & ConsSee 7 more Pros & Cons

Clojure

•••
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Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Designed for concurrency

•••
Since Clojure is designed for concurrency, it offers things like Software Transaction Memory, functional programming without side-effects and immutable data structures right out of the box. This means that the development team can focus their energies on developing features instead of concurrency d...
Endi Sukaj
Inter
Top Pro

Java interop

•••
Since Clojure runs on the JVM it can make use of the Java standard library and other Java libraries or frameworks.
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Huge ecosystem of libraries to work with

•••
There's a very large ecosystem of high-quality Clojure libraries which developers can use. One example is Incanter. It's a great data analytics library and a very powerful tool for dealing with matrices, datasets and csv files.
Endi Sukaj
Travis Rigg
Top Pro

Terse syntax

•••
Clojure is a Lisp and as such is has the distinct syntax of Lisp dialects which is extremely terse and easy to read for the trained eye.
jay malby
Top Pro

Interactive development

•••
Although interop/the JVM limits this to a degree (compared to other lisps), clojure is still quite capable/effective at interactive and exploratory programming.
Maris Orbidans
Top Pro

Immutability is the default

•••
Clojure programmers are highly encouraged to use immutable data in their code. Therefore, most data will be immutable by default. State change is handled by functions (for transformations) and atoms (an abstraction that encapsulates the idea of some entity having an identity).
ImaginativeNabia
Top Pro

Tries to solve problems as simply as possible

•••
Simplicity is one of the pillars on which Clojure is built. Clojure tries to solve many problems in software development as simply as possible. Instead of building complex interfaces, objects or factories, it uses immutability and simple data structures.
ImaginativeNabia
Top Pro

Minimal syntax

•••
Being a LISP, programs are simple: they're just functions and data. That it doesn't get bogged down with syntax or the loftier FP concepts like monads makes it one of most approachable functional languages for beginners.
Izem Lavrenti
SupportiveNodens
Top Con

Slow repl startup time

•••
Endi Sukaj
Laura Kyle
Inter
Top Con

May be hard to catch some bugs because of its dynamic type system

•••
Chad Perrin
Top Con

Restrictive License

•••
The Eclipse Public License is a fairly restrictive, complicated license with a lot of license compatibility issues.
Endi Sukaj
Joel
Inter
Top Con

Syntax may seem confusing to programmers not used to Lisp

•••
Lisp syntax may seem confusing to anyone not used to Lisp because of its over-reliance on parentheses.
See 10 more Pros & ConsSee 10 more Pros & Cons

Rust

•••
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Endi Sukaj
Inter
PhiLho
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.
Thomas Doylend
Joel
Top Pro

Memory Safety

•••
Rust is designed to prevent null pointers and segfaults.
cdt5050
Top Pro

Emphasis on Zero-Cost Abstractions

•••
Programming is all about abstractions. The more powerful abstractions you can use, the more efficiently you can program. Rust, bucking the trend from most languages in its niche, has aspired to take a hint from functional languages, moving away from low-level thinking, and included powerful abstrac...
Endi Sukaj
Joel
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.
Endi Sukaj
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.
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Built-in concurrency in the standard library

•••
Rust has built-in support for concurrency in the standard library.
Endi Sukaj
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.
Endi Sukaj
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.
Endi Sukaj
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
Endi Sukaj
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 yo...
Chad Sharp
Top Pro

Expressive error handling, no exceptions

•••
Chad Sharp
Top Pro

First-class sum types

•••
Sum types (i.e., tagged unions) are a very expressive way of representing state. The simplest example of this is Rust's Option<T> type which has two variants Some(T) and None. One can use an Option to represent a computation that may or may not have a meaningful result (e.g., retrieving a...
Endi Sukaj
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.
Paolo
KindOlodumare
Top Pro

Ha built-in support for concurrency

•••
gilch
Laura Kyle
SlantZorro
Top Con

Difficult learning curve

•••
Learning curve of the fairly complex rules for Ownership, References and Borrowing, and Lifetimes required. Their use must be internalized in order to become reasonably fluent in Rust.
Jacob Chii
Top Con

Terrible compile-time management

•••
thermoplastics
Alex Libman
Top Con

Horrible syntax

•••
Moyamo de Hacker
Top Con

No Higher Kinded Types

•••
thermoplastics
Yang Fan
Top Con

Error handling

•••
Rust using Error code instead of exception.
See 17 more Pros & ConsSee 17 more Pros & Cons

Common Lisp

•••
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thermoplastics
jay malby
Chad Perrin
Top Pro

Powerful macro system

•••
Allows directly abstracting common code patterns to a degree almost impossible in non-lisp languages, which greatly improves readability and reduces code duplication with almost no runtime overhead.
jay malby
Top Pro

Fast

•••
Most Lisp implementations today are native-code compiled, and the compiler supports an advanced declaration syntax to allow you to pass it optimization hints. This allows fine tuning of small segments of code for high speed, while leaving the rest of the code base untouched.
Марк Сафронов
Chad Perrin
Top Pro

Concise

•••
You can reduce your program to any DSL you need, leaving on high level only that text which is relevant to your problem, and nothing else.
Марк Сафронов
thermoplastics
jay malby
Top Pro

Powerful object system

•••
The Common Lisp Object System supports full multiple inheritance and global multiple-dispatch functions, exposing powerful extensibility from the ground up. Also, hot reloading of classes and let's not forget about introspection, too.
thermoplastics
jay malby
Top Pro

Interactive programming

•••
On top of the REPL, a command line style interface to the language which lets you interactively call into any aspect of your program, Common Lisp is built from the ground up to support redefining any aspect of your program at runtime. This greatly reduces development time, as modifications to indiv...
Марк Сафронов
Chad Perrin
Top Pro

Elegant

•••
No other language allows you to hack itself in such extreme way the Lisp does.
gilch
thermoplastics
Chad Perrin
Top Pro

Homoiconic syntax

•••
The code itself is a data structure in the language. It's lists of lists. Some more recent languages have syntax macros like Lisp, but you have to program them in an abstract syntax tree (AST) metalanguage. Lisp is practically its own AST, which makes it easy to manipulate Lisp code objects in...
thermoplastics
jay malby
Top Pro

Powerful debugging capabilities

•••
Common Lisp has a large selection of interactive debugging tools built into the language, including a GCC style debugger which activates on any otherwise uncaught errors, the ability to trace all calls and return values of any given function, and an inspection system which can give detailed reports...
EagerPyvsyansa
Top Pro

Powerful type system and data type support

•••
Common Lisp is strongly typed; implementations like SBCL allow for (optional) static typing, and the type system is powerful, allowing for complex type definitions, as well as a good struct system and a superb class system (CLOS). Additionally, the support for various data types is exemplary -- all...
ExceptionalKusarikku
Top Pro

Condition/restart system

•••
It is easy to recover from errors. Error resolution can be determined by the user at the REPL.
jay malby
Top Con

Different from other languages

•••
Common Lisp (and lisp languages in general, but especially Common Lisp) is very different from other mainstream languages in ways that are difficult to adjust to, leading to a higher learning curve when transitioning from a C or Algol based language.
Марк Сафронов
Top Con

Current state-of-the-art dependency manager install dependencies system-wide

•••
It's not obvious to get 3rd party dependencies in the same folder as your application, like almost every other language infrastructure is able to do.
Марк Сафронов
Top Con

No obvious way to distribute software

•••
ECL compile Common Lisp code to native binaries but it's just one implementation from others, and if your code includes implementation-specific pieces like SBCL's sb- packages, you can't use ECL to compile it. SBCL itself can "dump executable", which will give you an executab...
Марк Сафронов
Top Con

Infrastructure inferior to mainstream languages

•••
Build tools, static code analysis, automated tests, code navigation and code completion in IDEs, IDEs overall - are all seriously lacking in robustness and features compared to mainstream languages infrastructure.
See 12 more Pros & ConsSee 12 more Pros & Cons

Kotlin

•••
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Endi Sukaj
Inter
Top Pro

Java interoperability

•••
Since it runs on the JVM, Kotlin is 100% interoperable with Java and can use existing Java frameworks and libraries.
Endi Sukaj
Inter
Top Pro

Amazing IDE support

•••
Since Kotlin is made by Jetbrains (the developers of IntelliJ IDEA) so it stands to reason that the IntelliJ support for Kotlin is also great.
Endi Sukaj
Inter
Top Pro

Good standard library

•••
Kotlin has a great standard library. It can also import and use classes from Java's standard library.
CAB
Top Pro

Multiplatform support

•••
Kotlin code can be compiled into JVM byte-code, JS or native app on Unix, MacOS, Windows or iOS.
Monika
CAB
Inter
Top Pro

Inline Functions

•••
Allows to normalize out the code into the function without overhead of function call.
Inter
Top Pro

Smart Casts

•••
Auto Cast on Type check etc.
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

No runtime overhead

•••
Because the standard library is pretty small and tight, it mostly consists of focused extensions of the Java standard library.
Monika
CAB
Inter
Top Pro

Extension Functions

•••
Within the scope code may define function/constructor which behaves like it is part of the class itself. Makes code more concise and readable.
CAB
Inter
Top Pro

Properties

•••
No boiler plate definition of class properties with auto generated getters and setters
Endi Sukaj
Inter
Top Pro

Great Documentation

•••
CAB
Inter
Top Pro

Data class

•••
Automatically creates getters, setters, hashCode, equals and components access for spread operator.
CAB
Inter
Top Pro

Value types

•••
Language making sure values are read-only
CAB
Inter
Top Pro

Type-Safe Builders

•••
Kotlin support great way to build DSL for any purpose and yet keep code type-safe. Actually a lot of standard libraries are DSL wrapper around standard Java libraries.
CAB
Inter
Top Pro

No Null References by default

•••
Explicit nullable and not-nullable types allows compiler to fail fast (during compilation) instead of run-time NPE
Endi Sukaj
Izem Lavrenti
Inter
Top Pro

Android development

•••
Kotlin can be used for developing new and existing Android applications. It compiles to Java bytecode and has can be used alongside Java.
CAB
Inter
Top Pro

Ranges

•••
Simple syntax to define ranges and “lazy” execution if used the “streaming” interface.
Inter
Endi Sukaj
Alex Jarkey
Top Pro

Less error-prone because of its static type system

•••
Since Kotlin is statically typed, potential type errors are caught at compile-time.
Ray
CAB
Top Pro

Include both OOP and FP features

•••
Easy to develop in either paradigm, or switch back and forth between paradigms depending on developer's preference.
Inter
Top Pro

Generics

•••
Declaration-site variance, Use-site variance: Type projections and Constraints
Inter
Top Pro

Type Check Constructs

•••
Endi Sukaj
Inter
Top Pro

Default parameter values

•••
Supports default values for parameters, avoiding the unnecessary boilerplate code needed to go have default values in languages that don't support them.
Inter
Top Pro

Object Declaration and Expressions

•••
Built in syntax for creating anonymous, singleton and companion objects.
Inter
Top Pro

Annotations

•••
Inter
Top Pro

Dynamic Type

•••
The dynamic type basically turns off Kotlin’s type checker.
Endi Sukaj
Inter
Top Pro

Open Source / Contribution

•••
Inter
Top Pro

Tail Recursive Functions Marker

•••
With compiler optimization
CAB
Top Pro

Quick compiler

•••
Including incremental compilation
Inter
Top Pro

Gradle Language

•••
Ray
kareem7
Top Pro

Enthusiastic community

•••
Kotlin has an enthusiastic and rapidly growing community of fans.
PoisedBanaitja
Top Pro

Easy adoption for existing Java programmers

•••
Kotlin runs on the JVM and Java interoperability has been one of the main objectives since the language was born. It runs everywhere Java does; web servers, mobile devices (Android), and desktop applications. It also works with all the major tools in the Java ecosystem like Eclipse, IntelliJ, Mave...
Endi Sukaj
Inter
Top Pro

Operator overloading

•••
CAB
Top Pro

Easy to define type-safe DSLs

•••
Language includes features to define DSL (Domain Specific Language).
PoisedBanaitja
Top Pro

Great tooling support

•••
Since Kotlin is made by Jetbrains (the developers of IntelliJ IDEA) so it stands to reason that the IntelliJ support for Kotlin is also great. Besides that, Kotlin also works well with existing Java tools such as Eclipse, Maven, Gradle, Android Studio, etc...
PoisedBanaitja
Top Pro

Easy to learn if you have prior programming experience

•••
Kotlin's syntax is extremely easy to understand. The language can be picked up in a few hours just by reading the language reference.
PoisedBanaitja
Top Pro

Low-risk adoption for existing Java codebases

•••
Since it has such a good interoperability with Java, Java libraries, and Java tools. It can be adopted for an existing Java codebase at little to no cost. The codebase can be converted from Java to Kotlin little by little without ever disrupting the functionality of the application itself.
Paolo
PoisedBanaitja
Top Pro

Built to solve industrial problems

•••
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 h...
Carlos Muñoz Pelaz
Top Pro

Does not impose a particular philosophy of programming

•••
It's not overly OOP like Java and it does not enforce strict functional paradigms either.
Carlos Muñoz Pelaz
Top Pro

Officially supported for Android development

•••
Starting with version 3.0 of Android Studio, Kotlin support will be built-in. This means that it's now easier than ever to use Kotlin for existing Android projects or even start writing Android apps only with Kotlin from scratch. This also means that Kotlin and Kotlin plugins for Android Stud...
Inter
Top Pro

Reflection

•••
Inter
Top Pro

JavaScript interop

•••
Ryan O’Hara
Top Con

The need for Java interoperability has forced some limitations

•••
The need to make Kotlin interoperable with Java has caused some unintuitive limitations to the language design.
CAB
ElatedMictecacihuatl
Top Con

Complex syntax

•••
Could someone update that makes Kotlin syntax more complex that other modern languages?
See 40 more Pros & ConsSee 40 more Pros & Cons

Go

•••
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thermoplastics
Joel
Top Pro

Compile speed

•••
thermoplastics
Joel
Top Pro

Go routines

•••
Inter
Top Pro

Formatter

•••
Joel
Top Pro

Minimalism

•••
thermoplastics
Inter
Alex Jarkey
Top Pro

Statically typed

•••
AssertiveElcmar
Top Pro

Readable code

•••
Endi Sukaj
thermoplastics
michael.switzer
Top Pro

Easy to learn

•••
While some of the more complex aspects of Go take a bit to pick up, it is very easy to get a junior programmer with zero knowledge of Go to building impactful applications in very short time.
AssertiveElcmar
Top Pro

Easy import system

•••
AssertiveElcmar
Top Pro

Midway between C and Python

•••
Jens Hausherr
Top Pro

Testing support included

•••
Go includes a simple yet powerful framework for writing tests and benchmarks. Added plus: Examples that double as test cases and (runnable) examples in documentation - no more outdated code examples in the documentation!
EncouragingMacCuill
Top Pro

Rich standard library

•••
EncouragingMacCuill
Top Pro

Statically linked binary

•••
EncouragingMacCuill
Top Pro

Ease of cross compilation

•••
EncouragingMacCuill
Top Pro

Almost C like performance but safe

•••
Event Horizon
Top Pro

Meaningful error messages

•••
thermoplastics
Inter
Top Con

No generics

•••
Jens Hausherr
Top Con

Dependency management not (yet) settled

•••
The default dependency "management" pulls code directly from repositories, making your code fragile if you are not careful. There are currently several options for managing vendoring the dependencies with 'go dep' on the horizon as standard solution, but this will not happen in...
EncouragingMacCuill
thermoplastics
Juan Jiménez
Top Con

Deferred functions are poor substitute for exception handling

•••
You don’t use deferred functions for handling exceptions or errors. Defer can be considered like a destructor. Eg to close a connection. Go encourages you to handle errors at source by having an error object which you can return. This con makes no sense.
thermoplastics
Yang Fan
Top Con

Structural typing

•••
thermoplastics
Juan Jiménez
Top Con

Promotes obfuscation, just like C/C++

•••
thermoplastics
Joel
Top Con

Error handling

•••
See 19 more Pros & ConsSee 19 more Pros & Cons

Julia

•••
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Erik Engheim
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...
Chloe Montanez
김태근
Top Pro

Fast speed and dynamic-typed

•••
gilch
Top Pro

C interop

•••
Julia can call C functions directly. (more or less)
gilch
Top Pro

Python interop

•••
Julia's PyCall can use Python modules about as easily as Python can.
thermoplastics
gilch
Erik Engheim
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.
PracticalNereus
Top Pro

Strong dynamic typing

•••
Dynamic and high level, but does not isolate the user from properly thinking about types. Can do explicit type signatures which is great for teaching structured thinking.
thermoplastics
Top Con

Young language with limited support

•••
Julia was released in 2012. Due to it's 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).
Jingpeng Wu
Top Con

1-based array and column major

•••
This design probably come from Matlab, but makes it unnatural to interface C and C++ and python.
gilch
Top Con

Significant whitespace

•••
[x - y] is different than [x -y]. The former is a one-element vector with the element computed by the difference of x and y. The latter is a two-element vector containing x and negated y.
See 7 more Pros & ConsSee 7 more Pros & Cons

Scala

•••
Add Media iconAdd Video or Image
thermoplastics
Inter
Top Pro

Statically typed

•••
thermoplastics
Inter
Top Pro

Pattern matching

•••
Inter
Top Pro

Traits

•••
Inter
Top Pro

Solid Parallelism and Concurrency mechanisms

•••
Actors (e.g. Akka), Rx, Threading (e.g. Java import)
Inter
Top Pro

Value types

•••
Inter
Top Pro

Java and JavaScript interop

•••
(The later through Scala.js)
Inter
Top Pro

Well balanced between OO and Functional

•••
Jonathan
Top Pro

Immutable values

•••
The immutable values make it perfect for working with concurrency.
Jonathan
Top Pro

Multiparadigm

•••
Scala supports both functional and imperative programming paradigms. Beginners can learn both paradigms without having to learn a new language, and experts can switch between the two according to what best suits their needs at the time.
David Pérez
Top Pro

Scripting

•••
Through the use of Ammonite Scripts, it can replace Bash or Python scripts.
David Pérez
Top Pro

Several IDEs to choose from

•••
Scala IDE, IntelliJ IDEA, NetBeans.
thermoplastics
David Pérez
Top Pro

Many libraries and tools available

•••
All Java libraries can be used. In addition there is a large number of Scala-specific libraries.
David Pérez
Top Pro

Powerful REPL

•••
Brough by Ammonite REPL. It features all the language features (define new classes, macros....), syntax coloring, autocompletion, multi-line editing, load 3rd party libraries from repositories. This is great for experimenting.
thermoplastics
David Pérez
Top Pro

Many features are provided as libraries instead of compiler features

•••
The use of macros allows you to build very powerful libraries. E.g. enums in Scala is a regular class in the library. In Java or C is a language feature brought by the compiler.
CredibleBaoshengDadi
Top Pro

Expressive functional programming abstraction for reusable and safe code

•••
gilch
Top Con

Complicated type system

•••
It tacks some functional things on to Java's half-baked static type system, but still can't do type inference as well as ML-like languages such as Haskell.
gilch
Isaac Shapira
Top Con

Complex language

•••
The sheer number of constructs makes life painful. Worst of OO and FP worlds combined.
HardwareHero
Inter
Top Con

Needs paradigm guidelines

•••
Team management important so that FP (functional programming) and OO (object oriented programming) stays consistent.
See 16 more Pros & ConsSee 16 more Pros & Cons

C#

•••
Add Media iconAdd Video or Image
Endi Sukaj
Inter
Laura Kyle
Top Pro

Helps with catching bugs early because it's statically typed

•••
Being a statically typed language, it helps a lot with catching potential bugs in compile-time.
Mohammed Mahfoud
Endi Sukaj
Inter
Top Pro

RAD: rapid application development.

•••
Productive as hell.
Endi Sukaj
Radek.F
Top Pro

High-quality tooling available

•••
Visual Studio, ReSharper and nDepend are only few of examples of high-quality tools that are available for C# developers.
Angus McIntyre
Inter
Top Pro

Delegates

•••
Methods can be passed as first class programming entities known as delegates. Compared to early C languages, the syntax for passing methods is intuitive.
André Silva
Laura Kyle
Inter
Top Pro

Extension methods

•••
Extension methods provide the ability to add methods to existing classes, even when you don't have access to its code.
André Silva
Inter
Top Pro

Solid Reflection

•••
You can get type information during run-time, like how many methods a class has or what are the names and values of the fields of an object.
André Silva
Inter
Top Pro

Attributes / Annotations

•••
C# supports attributes that enables the developer to write declarative code. The developer can also write custom attributes.
André Silva
Angus McIntyre
Alex Jarkey
Top Pro

LINQ

•••
Language INtegrated Query provides declarative SQL-inspired syntax for querying data from a variety of sources. Databases, Web resources, and in memory collections can be queried using the same syntax. This syntax drastically reduces the number of lines of code required to work with collections.
André Silva
Laura Kyle
Inter
Top Pro

Default parameter values

•••
Default parameter values enable the developer to have optional parameters.
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Awesome IDE for Windows

•••
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...
Angus McIntyre
Laura Kyle
Angela Jarkey
Top Pro

Good performance

•••
C# is Just-In-Time compiled to target the runtime hardware architecture. This can make it very quick if you can stomach a small startup delay.
André Silva
Top Pro

Async-await

•••
C# invented the async-await pattern. Asynchronous programming is a must-have for any scalable web server or responsive mobile application. You can't simply freeze your app while you request that background image as you can't simply fire up a hundred thousand threads on your web server to de...
André Silva
Inter
Top Pro

Properties

•••
Get and Set methods feel counter-productive. C# resolves this by making the notion of a "Property" part of the language itself. Auto-properties enables developers to write properties just like if they were fields, with its get and set acessors automatically implemented. The syntax for acc...
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Supports some functional features

•••
C# is primarily object-oriented, but it also supports some features typically found in functional languages such as lambdas, delegates and anonymous classes. Methods can be treated like any other object, and the Linq query system operates on monads with lazy evaluation (though it hides this with a...
André Silva
Inter
Top Pro

Value types

•••
In C#, the developer has the power to allocate objects on the stack through the use of structs. In other languages where everything is a class (reference type), the max one can do is hope the compiler will be able to do escape analysis.
André Silva
Top Pro

Pattern matching

•••
C# 7 adds support for basic pattern matching.
Radek.F
Top Pro

Reified generics

•••
Types used as generic parameters are retained within the runtime. This allows for better program optimization and reflection when using generic types.
André Silva
Top Pro

Generators

•••
C# supports iterators and generators through the use of the yield keyword.
Endi Sukaj
André Silva
Inter
Top Pro

Methods can return more than one value

•••
C# supports pass-by-reference through the keyword ref. A method can also have out parameters, which are parameters that will be outputted to the caller. This way a method can return more than one value.
André Silva
Top Pro

Object initializator

•••
C# supports object json-style object initialization.
André Silva
Top Pro

Type inference

•••
The var keyword makes it possible to infer the type of a variable. No need to repeat types on both sides of an assignment.
André Silva
Top Pro

XML Documentation

•••
Developers are able to document their code with XML tags like <summary>, <params> and even <b></b> or <br/> and then generate documentation pages through tooling.
André Silva
Top Pro

Support for dynamic typing

•••
Although C# is statically typed, it does support dynamic typing. The dynamic keyword creates a dynamic object, which behaves exactly like you would expect from other dynamic languages like JS or PHP.
André Silva
Top Pro

Expression-bodied members

•••
C# supports expression-bodied members. When a function or property member is very short, you can write it inline, using the short-hand (fat arrow) operator.
Endi Sukaj
André Silva
Top Pro

Organized, meaningful namespaces

•••
In a language like Java, for example, you have java.util. "util" conveys no meaningful information about what types you will find in there. On the other hand, C# namespaces were carefully thought-out in order to make it easy for the developer to navigate through the Base Class Library and...
André Silva
Top Pro

Built-in tuples

•••
C# 7 adds support for tuples built into the language. Instead of explicitly using generic Tuple classes, the developer is able to use parenthesis to represent a tuple. Tuples can also have named properties, so that instead of writing "Item1, Item2, Item3", you writed "Price, Quantit...
André Silva
Top Pro

Modular

•••
With .NET Core and Nuget, you get only what you asked for. No dumb libraries hanging around making your executable larger.
André Silva
Top Pro

Portable

•••
C# can not only run on Windows, but is also officially supported on a lot of Linux distros and also on Mac, Android and iOS. C# enables you to build a single codebase and target all of those OS at once.
Endi Sukaj
André Silva
Top Pro

F# and VB interoperability

•••
As F# and VB all compile to CIL (Common Intermediate Language) and all use the .NET Framework, C# is able to work with those languages seamlessly.
André Silva
Top Pro

C/C++ interop

•••
C# is able to call native C/C++ code.
André Silva
Top Pro

.NET BCL

•••
The .NET Base Class Library has everything covered. From basic things like collection, to utilities and/or advanced stuff, like System.Net.Http (for Http requests), System.Drawing (for drawing on the screen), System.Security (for everything security, including cryptography, JWT, etc.) and more.
André Silva
Top Pro

ASP.NET

•••
ASP.NET Core is a blazing fast framework for building Web Applications and Web APIs in C#. ASP.NET Core ranked as the fastest mainstream framework in the TechEmpower Round 13 plaintext benchmark. With ASP.NET Core, you can build MVC apps or REST APIs, as well as micro-services and even stateful w...
Radek.F
Top Pro

NuGet

•••
NuGet is package manager, primarily for .NET ecosystem.
CromulentJulana
Top Pro

Great language for Unity game engine

•••
Unity provides a selection of programming languages depending on preference or knowledge - C#, JS, Boo and UnityScript. C# is arguably the most powerful with better syntax and stronger language structure. It allows using script files without attaching them to any game object (classes, methods insi...
CromulentJulana
Top Pro

Supported on many platforms

•••
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.
CromulentJulana
Top Pro

Incredibly Well-Engineered Language

•••
Where other languages invoke the feeling of being a product of organic growth over time, C# just feels like an incredibly well-designed language where everything has its purpose and almost nothing is non-essential.
CromulentJulana
Top Pro

.NET is a great toolbox

•••
C# runs on top of the .NET framework, which provides many libraries containing classes used for common tasks such as connecting to the Internet, displaying a window or editing files. Unlike many other languages, you don't have to pick between a handful of libraries for every small task you want...
Endi Sukaj
Joel
Top Con

.NET stack lock-in

•••
The tooling, the libraries, the frameworks etc. mostly is either created from and / or for Windows / Microsoft. Crossplatform development with C# is not fluent and until recently not official.
Radek.F
Inter
Top Con

Lack of compile-time metaprogramming

•••
The programmer is stuck with language features that are already implemented. Some problems, that can be easily solved in dynamic languages or languages with metaprogramming features have to be hacked around. Example : INotifyPropertyChanged invocations.
André Silva
Radek.F
Top Con

Expensive tooling

•••
Visual Studio and ReSharper are quite expensive, especially for personal use. Visual Studio Community is an official version of Visual Studio and free for personal use and companies with up to 5 employees. However, Visual Studio Community is not as powerful as the full version (that is, Enterprise...
Radek.F
Danny Tuppeny
Top Con

Nullable references by default

•••
Jacob Chii
Top Con

Lack of compile-time reflection

•••
There's a lack of compile-time reflection, forcing type reflection to runtime, evne for cases that could easily have been evaluated at compile-time; thus decreasng performance a lot, considering reflection is expensive.
HumbleLahurati
Top Con

Suffers from excessive syntactic sugar - 12 different ways to do everything.

•••
See 41 more Pros & ConsSee 41 more Pros & Cons

F#

•••
Add Media iconAdd Video or Image
Laura Kyle
Steven Sagaert
Top Pro

Clean succinct syntax

•••
Laura Kyle
Steven Sagaert
Top Pro

Good concurrency libraries

•••
Laura Kyle
Steven Sagaert
Top Pro

Many advanced (functional) features

•••
Steven Sagaert
Top Pro

Type providers for statically type checked data access

•••
Paolo
Steven Sagaert
Top Pro

Probably the best real world functional programming language

•••
Know any negative aspects of this option?
See 4 more ProsSee 4 more Pros

D

•••
Add Media iconAdd Video or Image
Endi Sukaj
Inter
Rory McGuire
Top Pro

Extremely powerful user types

•••
For example you can make your own type that behaves like a JavaScript variable (nice for using JSON based REST APIs)
Endi Sukaj
Sebastian
Top Pro

Provides templates to support generic programming

•••
D templates offer a clean way to support generic programming while offering the power of partial specialization. Template classes and template functions are available, along with variadic template arguments and tuples.
Izem Lavrenti
Sebastian
Top Pro

Multi-paradigm programming

•••
imperative, structured, object oriented, generic and even functional programming paradigms.
Endi Sukaj
Sebastian
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 desi...
Endi Sukaj
Rory McGuire
Top Pro

Easy to integrate with C and C++

•••
D practically has the same memory structure as C and C++; all D does it build a structure around that. The entire C standard library is accessible at no cost (syntactic or speed) and it's being worked on allowing the same for the C++ standard library.
Sebastian
Top Pro

Short learning curve for programmers from C, C++ or Java

•••
thermoplastics
Endi Sukaj
Sebastian
Top Pro

Automatic & manual memory management

•••
D uses a garbage collector to manage memory. This eliminates the error prone process of manually allocating memory in languages that don't have a garbage collector. Despite this, the new and delete operations can be overridden for some classes to allow custom allocation.
Endi Sukaj
Sebastian
Top Pro

Easy to make reusable code by using ranges

•••
D uses a type called range which provides a common interface to a sequence of values, therefore making it simpler to write code that works on arbitrary data, thereby making it reusable.
Sebastian
Top Pro

Efficient native code

•••
Endi Sukaj
Sebastian
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.
Endi Sukaj
Sebastian
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 t...
Endi Sukaj
Sebastian
Top Pro

Easy and powerful module systems

•••
Since source files have a one-to-one correspondence with modules, you don't have to #include the text of a file of declarations, you only need to import the module. This way, there's no need to worry about importing the same module several times and no need to wrap header files with #ifnde...
Sebastian
Top Pro

Conditional compilation

•••
Sebastian
Top Pro

Great modeling power

•••
Endi Sukaj
Sebastian
Top Pro

Asynchronous I/O that doesn’t get in your way

•••
Because all types can be treated as objects, all files can call functions in the same manner -- even stdin and stdout. stdout.writeln(); stdin.readln(); file.writeln(); file.readln();
Szymon Jankowski
Top Pro

Compile Time Function Execution (CTFE)

•••
Sebastian
Top Pro

C-like syntax

•••
thermoplastics
Inter
Top Pro

Runtime speed

•••
Endi Sukaj
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.
Sebastian
Top Pro

High-level systems programming language

•••
Sebastian
Top Pro

Dynamic closures and delegates

•••
Sebastian
Top Pro

Great standard library

•••
Sebastian
Top Pro

Debug attributes

•••
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Static with type inference

•••
For a new user adding types can feel tedious, and takes focus off the meaning of the code, but they are also important for checking logic. D provides static types, and a good system to infer types, so types are checked when calling functions, but do not need to be specified everywhere, making it fe...
Endi Sukaj
Sebastian
Top Pro

Provides a subset for memory safe programming

•••
Memory Safety for a program makes it impossible for the program to corrupt memory. D provides a safe subset which consists only of language features that cannot corrupt memory.
Sebastian
Top Pro

Fibers

•••
Sebastian
Top Pro

Great introspection

•••
Sebastian
Top Pro

Operator overloading

•••
Sebastian
Top Pro

Transactional with scope statement

•••
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Has an improved C subset

•••
With few exceptions, D will either compile C code to work exactly as when compiled as C, or it won't compile - it won't quietly change the semantics of C code and give unexpected results. This means that D contains an improved C, as it fails compilation where type safety is missing in C. T...
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Designed for concurrency and parallelism

•••
Supports first-class functionality for both concurrency and parallelism, offered as part of the standard library.
Endi Sukaj
Sebastian
Top Pro

Provides specification on writing documentation

•••
thermoplastics
Sebastian
Top Pro

Inline assembler

•••
Device drivers, high performance system applications, embedded systems, and specialized code sometimes need to dip into assembly language to get the job done. While D implementations are not required to implement the inline assembler, it is defined and part of the language. Most assembly code needs...
thermoplastics
Patrick Schlüter
Top Pro

Lots of cool and nifty small features that can make life easier

•••
Such as, formatting numbers with underscore (1_000_000), multi line quoting and raw quotes (i.e. without escapes ), strings in switch case, binary literals, etc. All small and unimportant stuff, but accumulated makes it really nice.
Rodrigo Oliveri
Top Pro

Free as un Freedom

•••
Now DMD, the reference D Compiler, is entirely free!
Rodrigo Oliveri
Saluu
Top Pro

UFSC makes code much more readable

•••
Making use of .(dot) syntax on normal functions, passing the value at the left of the dot as it was the first argument of the called function : string reverse(string toReverse) {...} Can be called: reverse("Hello"); "Hello".reverse(); "Hello".reverse;
Evolution Pixels
Top Pro

Compile-time Function Execution

•••
Evolution Pixels
Top Pro

Easy to read and understand code

•••
Sebastian
Top Pro

Functional programming

•••
thermoplastics
Rory McGuire
Top Con

Error messages can be confusing, especially to new-comers

•••
CromulentJulana
Top Con

Lack of vision

•••
D is community-driven and lacks the support of any large corporation. While this increases the amount of talent and engineering abilities of the people working on D, it also brings a severe lack of charisma, leadership and vision.
CromulentJulana
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 unsuccess...
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Ceylon

•••
Add Media iconAdd Video or Image
Inter
Horusiath
Top Pro

Statically Typed, Type system oriented

•••
Type system oriented around set theory. Furthermore it allows do describe powerful abstractions (such as non-empty collections or nullable variables). References are non-null by default.
PhiLho
Top Pro

Readable, not verbose

•••
It is build with readability in mind, while offering powerful constructs avoiding verbosity.
PhiLho
Top Pro

Solid foundation

•••
It has a full language specification, describing it without ambiguity.
Inter
PhiLho
Top Pro

JavaScript interop

•••
It compiles to JavaScript, and easily interacts with it, while keeping its type system and safety.
Inter
PhiLho
Top Pro

Java interop

•••
It runs on the JVM, so it has access to the enormous corpus of Java libraries.
SupportiveIynx
Top Pro

Native module and dependency system.

•••
Know any negative aspects of this option?
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OCaml

•••
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Chloe Montanez
Oleg Tsyba
Top Pro

Great compile time, run time and performance time

•••
VivaciousEshu
Top Pro

Sophisticated and easy-to-use package manager

•••
OPAM is a package manager for OCaml, which is really easy to use, just like npm. It creates a .opam folder in home directory. The documentation is great as well, and you can switch between multiple versions of OCaml for each project. You can also package your project and publish it on OPAM reposi...
VivaciousEshu
Top Pro

Few bugs

•••
Because of type system, if it compiles, it's almost bug-free. Otherwise, the compiler descriptively informs on errors.
Oleg Tsyba
Top Pro

Type-safe but still concise and expressive

•••
Know any negative aspects of this option?
See 3 more ProsSee 3 more Pros

2031 Community Recommendations

Inter
Alex Libman
Dmitry N
Fabián Heredia Montiel
Jacob Chii
gilch
Eugene A. Simonenko
APF
Chad Perrin
Jake D'Cruz (Imagine Infinity)
Nick McCurdy
+569
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Request recommendations from the communityInfo IconInfo Icon
PrivateAhMuzenCab
PrivateAhMuzenCab
Contributor for 4 days
1
Total Rec's
0
Total Karma
Nim
Recommended 4 days ago by PrivateAhMuzenCab
Fast development, Fast execution, Easy to learn
Pro
 Async/await features
Pro
 Has built-in async support
Pro
 Really crossplatform
Pro
 Garbage-collected
Pro
 Easy to integrate with another languages
Pro
 Easy to read
Pro
 Compiles to C or JavaScript
Comment IconSee full recommendationSee full
ThoughtfulArohirohi
ThoughtfulArohirohi
Contributor for 2 months
1
Total Rec's
150
Total Karma
Smalltalk
Recommended 2 months ago by ThoughtfulArohirohi
Using Smalltalk since the early 90's. Used many 3GL and 4GL app building environments. Always use Smalltalk as my first choice as competitive advantage.
Pro
 Powerful integrated debugger
Pro
 Live programming environments available
Pro
 Object Oriented
Pro
 Provides powerful metaprogramming facilities
Pro
 Allows programming at various levels of abstraction, including with pure domain concepts
Pro
 Fun to use
Pro
 Rich libraries including many powerful data types, collections, frameworks, development tools etc.
Comment IconSee full recommendationSee full
FriendlyEucleia
FriendlyEucleia
Contributor for a month
2
Total Rec's
50
Total Karma
Haskell
Recommended a month ago by FriendlyEucleia
Easy and clear syntax, especially on the type level
Pro
 Very few language constructs
Pro
 Easy to reason about
Pro
 Statically typed
Pro
 Type Level Computation
Comment IconSee full recommendationSee full
Romuald Texier-Marcadé
Romuald
Contributor for 3 years
5
Total Rec's
385
Total Karma
Python
Recommended 2 months ago by Romuald
Great language and ecosystem for scientic computing, machine learning and data science.
Pro
 Multipurpose
Pro
 Comes with extensive libraries
Pro
 Clear syntax
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ReverentHesperus
ReverentHesperus
Contributor for 5 months
2
Total Rec's
350
Total Karma
Smalltalk
Recommended 4 months ago by ReverentHesperus
Developing large scale commercial projects using Smalltalk. Projects include electronic medical records (eMRs), eCommerce, sales order entry, TicketMaster style event registration for reserved and festival seating...
Pro
 Superb Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
Pro
 Powerful integrated debugger
Pro
 Easy to learn and experiment
Pro
 Live programming environments available
Pro
 Simple syntax
Pro
 Smalltalk amenable to creating domain-specific languages
Pro
 Object Oriented
Pro
 Provides powerful metaprogramming facilities
Pro
 Allows programming at various levels of abstraction, including with pure domain concepts
Pro
 Fun to use
Pro
 With PharoJS, easy to generate code for the web
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Event Horizon
Event
Contributor for 2 years
5
Total Rec's
1.2K
Total Karma
Go
Recommended 5 months ago by Event
finishing off writing a project for past 18 months which parses video to synthesize the audio equivalent where all the RGB pixel level information of the input data is expressed in audio ... the kicker is it then parses the audio to synthesize output video which matches the input video ... of course the loop...
Pro
 Rich standard library
Pro
 Meaningful error messages
Pro
 Compile speed
Pro
 Statically typed
Pro
 Minimalism
Pro
 Go routines
Pro
 Readable code
Pro
 Testing support included
Pro
 Ease of cross compilation
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Elias Van Ootegem
Elias
Contributor for 7 months
31
Total Rec's
3.6K
Total Karma
Golang
Recommended 4 months ago by Elias
fast (both runtime and compilation), well designed, easy to use (not necessarily easy to master) language. Great for CLI tools or services.
Con
 Package managers are not as mature as they could be
Pro
 Great toolchain
Pro
 Composition over inheritance
Pro
 Focused development of the language and ecosystem
Pro
 Great concurrency model
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DecentEnlil
DecentEnlil
Contributor for 4 months
17
Total Rec's
180
Total Karma
Go
Recommended 4 months ago by DecentEnlil
compie time and faster
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VersatileBeliMawr
VersatileBeliMawr
Contributor for 4 months
2
Total Rec's
0
Total Karma
Clojure
Recommended 4 months ago by VersatileBeliMawr
Wonderful sintax and productivity
Pro
 Huge ecosystem of libraries to work with
Pro
 Designed for concurrency
Pro
 Terse syntax
Pro
 Java interop
Pro
 Interactive development
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HonorableBythos
HonorableBythos
Contributor for 4 months
1
Total Rec's
0
Total Karma
C#
4 months ago by HonorableBythos
Pain in the ass to work with. Even pure C is better than this AIDS-tier language.
Con
 Expensive tooling
Con
 .NET stack lock-in
Con
 Lack of compile-time metaprogramming
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Currently displaying 10 out of 2031 total recommendations.
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