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What are the best systems programming languages?

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24 Options Considered

24 Options ConsideredPriceCurrent stable versionSite
84
Nim
-0.18.0https://nim-lang.org
82
C
-––
81
Rust
-1.26.0rust-lang.org
64
C++
-––
--
D
-2.076.0https://dlang.org/
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84

Nim

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thermoplastics
Alex Libman
Top Pro

Very good performance

•••
Nim consistently benchmarks ahead of Go, Java, C#, Haskell, and of course all the scripting languages.
thermoplastics
Clay Sweetser
Top Pro

Strong metaprogramming capabilities

•••
Macros, templates, and compile-time constructs allow DSL's and simplification of code.
Andreas Rumpf
Top Pro

Concise

•••
Nim programs are concise, but readable.
thermoplastics
Alex Libman
Top Pro

Best ratio of performance to programmer difficulty

•••
If you want the best performance at any cost you of course go with C, but most of the time you want to maximize both performance and developer effort. Nim's benchmark results are almost equal to Rust, and well ahead of Go, Java, C#, etc. Nim's programmer difficulty is almost as low as Pyth...
Chloe Montanez
Tiberium
Top Pro

Static and safe type system

•••
Nim checks your code for type errors at compile-time.
Chloe Montanez
Tiberium
Top Pro

Easy to read

•••
Nim has a lot of common with Python in terms of syntax. Indentation-based syntax, for/while loops.
Chloe Montanez
Tiberium
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.
Dominik Picheta
Chloe Montanez
Tiberium
Top Pro

Type inferencing

•••
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

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

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

Built-in Unicode support

•••
You can use unicode names for variables, there is "unicode" module for operations with unicode
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

Really crossplatform

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

Multi paradigm

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

Strict typing

•••
Checks your code at compile time.
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

Has built-in async support

•••
Nim has "asyncdispatch" module, which allows you to write async applications.
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
WhiteLilac
Federico C
Top Pro

Very fast compile time

•••
Also, recompiling is often faster than plain GCC.
WhiteLilac
Federico C
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).
Alex
ExuberantTiamat
Top Pro

Very easy FFI

•••
Can easily import from C, C++, js with pragma.
WhiteLilac
Federico C
Top Pro

Safe, race-free threading model

•••
Safe, race-free threading model using the built-in disjoint check.
John Parsons
Endi Sukaj
Andreas Rumpf
Top Con

Unfinished (as of May 2018)

•••
Still needs more polish, but it's getting better all the time.
grengo1234
Top Con

Still in pre 1.0

•••
Not very stable and has a rather small community.
Alex
Tiberium
thermoplastics
Top Con

Non-standard multithreading model

•••
Nim has very strict rules on memory sharing between threads, in order to keep garbage collection latency to a minimum. Message passing and copying must be used. This may change in the future.
Tiberium
ideasman42
Top Con

Garbage Collected

•••
But Nim has very good GC - you can tweak settings for real-time app for example
See 24 more Pros & ConsSee 24 more Pros & Cons
82

C

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Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Extremely efficient

•••
The C language's mentality is to trust the programmer. With all great powers comes great responsibilities. C allows you to harness the full power of the underlying hardware. No garbage collection is a blessing, not a curse. It forces the programmer to be aware of what he's writing. It'...
Endi Sukaj
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 and Mac) and only needs a program to be recompiled to work. This allows anyone on any operating sy...
Endi Sukaj
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.
Endi Sukaj
thermoplastics
郭春林
Top Pro

Very compact

•••
C is compact and very fast. It is ideal for embedded programming, which requires only small resources. C is straight forward and very portable especially in a Unix environment. Most popular languages are descendant from C. C programmers do not requires any fancies like class, template or overload...
ndrewxie
Top Pro

Simple

•••
C has a very minimal syntax that makes it easy to pick up, create a compiler for and use.
Fabian Peter Hammerle
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.
Fabian Peter Hammerle
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...
Fabian Peter Hammerle
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.
Nick McCurdy
Top Con

Unsafe

•••
C makes it extremely easy to make mistakes. Your language should help you be productive by abstracting mistakes away from you.
Endi Sukaj
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.
Endi Sukaj
Top Con

Does not support modules; header file annoyances

•••
Header files are a poor man's implementation of modules. Modern programming languages make use of modules which eliminate the need for C includes and header files and the many issues caused by them, such as the complete lack of dependency checking. Header files often contain even more include...
See 9 more Pros & ConsSee 9 more Pros & Cons
81

Rust

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Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Built-in concurrency

•••
Rust has built-in support for concurrency.
Chloe Montanez
Johan 't Hart
Top Pro

Dependency management

•••
Rust has an easy to use, advanced, platform agnostic dependency management system. One can even define Git repositories as dependencies so one can avoid the use of Git submodules. Also it is very easy and convenient to distribute reusable packages.
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.
Chloe Montanez
ideasman42
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Advanced 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. With support for pattern matching, recursive invocation and a small macro grammar.
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

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
Chloe Montanez
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. Its 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 pr...
Monika
Belle
KindheartedSif
Top Pro

Helpful compiler

•••
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. Compiler usually gives good explanations about what you did wrong and sometimes ev...
Endi Sukaj
Peng Ding
Top Pro

Safe and Unsafe code session

•••
This mechanism ensures that if you stick with the safe code, once compiled, there will be no memory issues.
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.
Deri Herdianto
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.
Monika
ElatedCinteotl
Top Pro

Zero-cost futures or Async I/O

•••
ElatedCinteotl
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.
Monika
Michael Murphy
Top Pro

Experienced developers can rapidly prototype & deliver products

•••
Out of all the systems languages, and even non-systems languages, Rust seems to make its users the most productive. This phenomenon is an increasing trend which is regularly reported by those who have gained enough experience with Rust to call themselves Rust programmers. Newcomers often struggle...
ideasman42
Top Con

Immature Tooling & Ecosystem

•••
Compared to C/C++, there isn't yet the wide range of tools available (IDE's, static analysis, build systems), while unavoidable for any new language and improving over time - its a noticeable down-side.
Endi Sukaj
Top Con

Hard to find learning resources or libraries

•••
Because it's still a relatively new language, Rust does not enjoy a following as large as other languages/environments. Rust development has also been rather volatile for a long time during the beginning of the development of the language adding to this issue. Because of the small community, i...
Chloe Montanez
CharmingEpiales
Top Con

Does not provide stable ABI yet

•••
The language does not provide stable ABI yet: different versions of the compiler may provide different backward-breaking machine code. There are a lot of things to be done before stabilizing the ABI. So if Rust-developers want to have stable ABI they use C one. As another result, every crate in Ru...
Alex
Michael Murphy
Top Con

Integer generics unsolved

•••
Although Rust supports generics, it does not yet support integer generics. Crates exist to alleviate issues with this, but the ultimate solution has yet to be done. This also affects generics with fixed-size arrays, although array slices are easily used as a workaround.
Ray
truthful koschei
Top Con

Very new and untested

•••
At this point, one can look at their Github page and see in the issues that Rust isn't as safe as it is claimed to be. Safety is only second to weird conversations about "harmful" features. Old unsafe bugs don't get solved while discussions about some language feature having probl...
truthful koschei
Chloe Montanez
thermoplastics
Top Con

Very ugly and verbose syntax

•••
Compared to Nim. Fix: 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.
Alex
penilloppee
Top Con

Very hard to read. Bad for large code bases

•••
The syntax is hard to read and very terse.
See 19 more Pros & ConsSee 19 more Pros & Cons
64

C++

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Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Highly portable

•••
Implementations exist for hundreds of operating environments, from mainframes and super computers all the way down to tiny embedded devices.
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Multi-Paradigm

•••
Supports procedural, object oriented, generic, and other paradigms.
Endi Sukaj
Laura Kyle
Johan 't Hart
Top Pro

Powerful generic (meta) programming capabilities with templates

•••
When you leverage the power of the c++ templating system enough, you can make the compiler execute a Turing complete program. You can even e.g. calculate prime numbers during compile time. This is far more powerful than simple generics in e.g. Java and C#. On top of type safe containers one can u...
Endi Sukaj
Johan 't Hart
Top Pro

Class destructor support

•••
Resource Acquisition Is Initialization is actually a term used in c++ to basically say it has destructors. Originally it is used to free class resources. But because class destructors are called guaranteed at the end of the scope of where a value is used, one can leverage this property to do all k...
smurfer17
Top Pro

Teaches problem solving

•••
The great STL is the most powerful Data Structure and Algorithms Library. It would benefit you very much in problem solving, your main main way to love programming. The code is much compact compared to Java and C#. No unnecessary classes are in your way; yet when you need classes they are availab...
smurfer17
Top Pro

Powerful memory management

•••
Allows puting large arrays on the "heap" to avoid "stack overflow".
smurfer17
Top Pro

STD is often updated

•••
The functionalities keep growing throughout the years. C++11 gave us a soft type of garbage collecting with the smart pointers.
smurfer17
Top Pro

C code can be used in C++ code

•••
Most C code will work as C++
smurfer17
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++
smurfer17
Top Pro

Teaches fundamental OOP

•••
Teaches you to leverage object oriented programming.
smurfer17
Top Pro

Excellent compiler optimization

•••
Both open source compilers (such as Clang and GCC), and proprietary ones (like Intel's and Microsoft's) are very good at analyzing program flow and program optimization. This is mostly due to the widespread usage of C/C++ applications running everything from mobile/desktop/server Operating...
smurfer17
Top Pro

Best way to understand algorithms

•••
gilch
Top Con

Atrocious complexity

•••
The grammar is undecidable. Subtle errors can make the meaning of the program "undefined" by the spec.
gilch
Top Con

Slow compilation

•••
C++ is such a complicated language that compilers don't work very quickly.
gilch
Johan 't Hart
Top Con

Complicated programs due to powerful template mechanism

•••
Developers with advanced understanding of the template mechanism can create programs so arcane that they are hard to understand even for other professional c++ developers.
Laura Kyle
Travis Rigg
Top Con

Rather useless compiler errors

•••
An error in C++ can be a result of many things, so often the compiler doesn't have very useful advice about just what the problem is. Sometimes this can feel like the error is "IT BROKE" and the solution advice is "FIX IT".
Endi Sukaj
Johan 't Hart
Top Con

No cross-platform dependency management

•••
C++ doesn't come with a platform independent dependency management system like Maven for Java, Nuget for .net or Cargo for Rust. Most solutions are platform specific, like Nuget for Visual Studio. In Linux the package management system is often used for c/c++ dependency management. (apt-get bu...
Johan 't Hart
Endi Sukaj
Top Con

Separate header files

•••
One has to duplicate e.g. object interface declaration in header files. Making some object member public is not enough to make it accessible for other cpp files. However the feature request for module support is high on the wishlist. This would solve this issue.
See 16 more Pros & ConsSee 16 more Pros & Cons
--

D

Endi Sukaj
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
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.
Endi Sukaj
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...
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.
Martin Tschierschke
Top Pro

Offers rdmd for compiled scripting

•••
Because of the very fast compilation, D can very convinietly be used for scripting, too. No need to switch to an other language for prototyping either.
Endi Sukaj
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
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.
Endi Sukaj
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
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
Jonathan MERCIER
Top Pro

Has an open source implementation

•••
D has at least two robust open source compilers: GDC ( gcc-based D compiler) and LDC (LLVM-based D compiler)
Endi Sukaj
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.
moytrage
Top Pro

Great packaging and build system DUB

•••
DUB simplifies compiling/building project of any complexity by specifying all project settings inside JSON build file, there you can list all source files and project folders, also list all necessary dependency packages and their versions. All public DUB packages are stored in DUB online registry (...
moytrage
Top Pro

Memory safe language subset - SafeD

•••
SafeD is a possibility for compiler to check functions not to use unsafe operations that can lead to memory corruptions, also bounds of structures are checked. Thus SafeD almost guaranties that your code will not corrupt memory and crash.
moytrage
Top Pro

Powerful mixins mechanism

•••
D has mixins that allow to generate and embed any code at compile time. This is a powerful replacement for macros in C++.
moytrage
Top Pro

Lots of powerful meta programming features

•••
In D almost anything can be done in field of meta programming and self-reflection, there are many features in the language that allow easily to get information about anything that happens in the code.
moytrage
Top Pro

Compile-time functions

•••
D can run powerful functions totally at compile time. Lots of standard library code is implemented in such a way that it can be run at compile time. Almost any computational work can be done at compile time.
moytrage
Top Pro

Implements all wanted features that C++ was missing

•••
D was created as an improvement and replacement for C++. D implements all features that were long wanted and missing in C++, also all drawbacks of C++ were fixed.
moytrage
Top Pro

Has a very rich standard library Phobos

•••
Phobos library is a part of standard compiler package. Phobos implements everything that standard C++ library has including structures and algorithms similar to C++ STL, also many extra features that you can find in C++ boost.
moytrage
Top Pro

Very fast compilation

•••
Huge project with dozens of source files like "dlangui" compiles in seconds.
Evolution Pixels
Top Pro

Easy to read and understand code

•••
Evolution Pixels
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 f...
Evolution Pixels
Top Pro

Compile-time Function Execution

•••
Evolution Pixels
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...
Evolution Pixels
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.
Evolution Pixels
Top Pro

Built-in Unicode support

•••
Evolution Pixels
Top Pro

Industrial quality

•••
Evolution Pixels
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();
Evolution Pixels
Top Pro

Supports calling functions from types in an object-oriented manner.

•••
if (exists(file)) {} may be written as if (file.exists) {}. writeln(file); may be written as file.writeln(); isDivisibleBy(10, 2); may be written as 10.isDivisibleBy(2); writeln(isEven(add(5, 5))); may be written as 5.add(5).isEven().writeln();
Evolution Pixels
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
Top Con

Reference implementation not open source

•••
Part of the reference compiler DMD was made at Symantec and cannot be relicensed.
ideasman42
Top Con

Garbage Collected

•••
While optional, this uses a garbage collected runtime.
Alex Libman
Top Con

Not permissively licensed

•••
Endi Sukaj
Steven Sagaert
Top Con

Not widely used

•••
Vester Saguban
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...
Vester Saguban
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 p...
Vester Saguban
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.
See 34 more Pros & ConsSee 34 more Pros & Cons
--

ParaSail

Add Video or Image
gilch
Top Pro

Designed for parallel processing

•••
Can evaluate subexpressions in parallel.
gilch
Top Pro

No garbage-collected global heap

•••
Memory management is region-based.
gilch
Top Pro

No globals

•••
gilch
Top Pro

Has both an interpreter and a compiler

•••
gilch
Top Pro

Race conditions detected at compile time

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

Object Pascal

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Daniele Teti
Top Pro

Multiplatform (Delphi, FreePascal)

•••
Daniele Teti
Top Pro

Strongly typed

•••
thermoplastics
Daniele Teti
Top Pro

Clear, simple syntax, no hidden behaviors

•••
thermoplastics
Daniele Teti
Top Pro

Supports generics

•••
Yoshiyuki
John Parsons
Top Pro

Understanding of basics

•••
Because of the verbosity and easy syntax, Pascal language is relatively easier to be learned and understood, even for someone who has no programming knowledge. It's said that Pascal code —if written well— is like reading pseudo code. Pascal / Object pascal was also used in schools during the 2...
John Parsons
Top Pro

Fast compilation

•••
The compiler is fast, really fast. Compared to C/C++, the delphi compiler is designed to compile a decent sized desktop application in seconds rather than minutes.
Yoshiyuki
John Parsons
Top Pro

Cross-platform

•••
Pascal development tools are available almost on every available platform, especially using Free Pascal. Pascal language is available on desktop like Mac, BSD, Linux, Windows, Solaris, etc.; on mobile like iOS, Android, etc.; also on managed environments like Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and .Net/Mo...
Ray
John Parsons
Top Pro

Clear syntax

•••
The syntax is clear and concise, for example: procedure test();begin DoSomething();end;
LikableKul
Top Pro

Easy GUI creation

•••
Visual Basic may have predated Delphi but Delphi was the ground breaking visual designer which set the standards expected today by most GUI developers. Its rich component set was well designed, structured and extensible, it even has the ability to display live data from the attached database in its...
John Parsons
Top Pro

Fast execution

•••
The compiler generates fast and optimized code. No stop-the-universe garbage collection.
John Parsons
Top Pro

Reliable language and code base

•••
Most code from the Turbo Pascal days in the 80s still compiles, yet the language has since been adapted and extended with modern concepts, introducing OOP and interfaces, exception handling, native Unicode support, anonymous methods, generics, ARC and more.
John Parsons
Top Pro

Enforces good programming practice

•••
Numerous strong compile time checks with optional runtime checks ensure one doesn't do stupid things and even when one does (because the compiler can't prove it at compile time), the binary will check and report it at runtime. Correct modular programming implementation with proper namespac...
John Parsons
Top Pro

Extensive third party libraries

•••
There are large collections of third party components, many free which enable developers to add wide ranging and complex functionality to their code with ease
John Parsons
Top Pro

Language depth

•••
Object Pascal is being used to write custom kernels (Ultibo) and operating-systems for various ARM boards. So the way you work with the code scales from low-level to pure OOP high-level. Object Pascal has the same level of depth that you find in C/C++ but with added productivity.
John Parsons
Top Pro

Rich existing libraries

•••
Both shipped with implementations and spread all over the web. Both natively written or bindings to libraries written in other languages. Typically to build non-trivial applications there's no need to surf the web as many things are implemented already. Streaming, output templating, socket &am...
Daniele Teti
Top Pro

Exceptional retrocompatibility

•••
thermoplastics
Daniele Teti
Top Pro

Supports reflection (Delphi)

•••
Daniele Teti
Top Pro

Supports anonymous methods (Delphi)

•••
John Parsons
Top Con

No language standard

•••
After the Wirth era, practically there is no official Pascal language standard. Delphi used to be the dé facto standard especially for industry, but today Free Pascal is starting to get better support. However, there are some other Pascal language variants such as Smart Pascal, Oxygene (from RemObj...
John Parsons
Top Con

No up to date version of language standards

•••
In 1983, the language was standardized, created two standards ISO/IEC 7185:1990 Pascal and ISO/IEC 10206:1990 Extended Pascal. Object Pascal extensions to the language are no official standards. Their are no standards for modern features and enhancements. Various Pascal dialects like Delphi or HP P...
John Parsons
Top Con

All variables, types, constants and functions must be declared at the beginning of the code

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

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gilch
Top Pro

Safe concurrency

•••
ATS can prove its concurrent programs have no deadlocks or race conditions.
gilch
Top Pro

Good module system

•••
Similar to Modula-3. This makes ATS a viable choice even for large-scale projects.
gilch
Top Pro

High-performance systems language

•••
ATS works as a low-level systems language. ATS programs have performance and footprint comparable to programs written in C/C++.
Monika
gilch
Top Pro

Functional programming

•••
The syntax is ML-like with the usual functional language features like pattern matching and tail-call optimization.
Monika
gilch
Top Pro

Free and open-source compiler

•••
The compiler (ATS/Postiats) is GPLv3.
Monika
gilch
Top Pro

Built-in formal specification

•••
ATS has a theorem-proving type system powerful enough to prove that its functions meet their specifications. This happens at compile time with no performance impact at runtime. This can be used to prove that an ATS program doesn't have bugs commonly found in C++ programs, like "this functi...
gilch
Top Con

No Windows version

•••
But it does run on Cygwin.
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Idris

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Swift

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Francisco
OptimisticDeipneus
Top Pro

Sensible language constructs

•••
Swift developers have made the syntax easier for programming simple constructs such as equality and assignment. Many experts call this "syntactic sugar" but in this case, the proof is in the pudding.
Izem Lavrenti
SmartOmeteotl
Top Con

Not really a systems programming language

•••
Apple created this programming language to help software engineers develops apps.
Federico C
Top Con

Swift is a moving target

•••
They've released 1.2 so far, and 2.0 is coming soon. Every small update brings adjustments to paradigms (such as how to do type casting) that can be a little frustrating to absorb. Objective C was also constantly updating, however, but not at the same rate these days.
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--

OCaml

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Kristaps
schlaumeier
Top Pro

Very capable type systems helps avoid errors

•••
The very strong yet flexible (you do not actually write the types, the compiler determines them) helps to prevent type related errors.
Kristaps
schlaumeier
Top Pro

Practical multi paradigm language

•••
Ocaml is a functional language in first place but also supports an pragmatic imperative programming style (for..loops, etc) and objects.
Kristaps
schlaumeier
Top Pro

Very fast compiled code

•••
Almost in the C league (might in the end depend on the subject).
Zack H
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 reposit...
Know any negative aspects of this option?
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--

C#

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Endi Sukaj
Wernight
Top Pro

Easily process data from various sources

•••
LINQ (Language Integrated Query) adds native querying capabilities to C# akin to SQL. You can write queries (either for objects or a DB) in the code and it'll get parsed by the compiler. It also allows to perform complex operations on any kind of collection.
DedicatedEtugenEke
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...
Belle
DedicatedEtugenEke
Top Pro

Very high demand in the industry

•••
Belle
DedicatedEtugenEke
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.
thermoplastics
Wernight
Top Pro

.NET code can run on many platforms

•••
It's not compiled natively but pre-compiled, and the same pre-compiled code can run on many platforms.
thermoplastics
Wernight
Top Pro

.NET library is extensive and easy to learn

•••
Outside of the language itself, there is a really good library of objects to use for all common tasks. It's well written in a cross-platform way.
Wernight
Top Pro

Class properties

•••
Wernight
Top Pro

Built-in support for events and delegates

•••
thermoplastics
Wernight
Top Pro

Good garbage collector (Windows)

•••
At least on Windows the .NET GC works in the background and is really efficient.
Wernight
Top Pro

Supports structures and HEAP

•••
You don't have to use garbage collected objects, you can use the HEAP with structures that are treated as value.
thermoplastics
Jay
Top Con

Garbage collection

•••
Impossible to realistically write a system that demands real time handling of events and deterministic behaviour when a garbage collection routine could run at any time. There are projects aimed to create such systems, i.e. Microsoft's Singularity OS, but they still rely on C, C++ and ASM to s...
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--

Red/System

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Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Built-in support for concurrency

•••
Red has built-in support for concurrency and multi-core CPUs.
Endi Sukaj
Top Con

Not ready for production

•••
Red is still on version 0.6.0. Which means that it still has some way to go before being used in production and in large projects.
--

Ada

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SkillfulManat
Top Pro

Safety Critical Application, IOT

•••
SkillfulManat
Top Con

IDE not mature

•••
--

Myrddin

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--

Ark

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--

Common Lisp

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HardwareHero
Top Pro

Flexible, does not force you to a particular paradigm

•••
Common Lisp can be a very flexible language. You can either follow functional paradigms and rules or you can go the imperative route. You can also use OOP because of the powerful Common Lisp Object System (CLOS).
HardwareHero
Top Pro

Software written in Common Lisp can exceed C/C++ performance

•••
Some CL implementations (most notably SBCL) with some careful design can surpass even C/C++ code in production when it comes to efficiency and speed.
HardwareHero
Top Pro

Portable

•••
Common Lisp is very portable across multiple platforms. With a myriad of implementations available.
HardwareHero
Top Pro

Lots of production-ready libraries available

•••
Common Lisp is arguably the most useful Lisp to "get things done". One of the main reasons of this is the large community behind it and the large number of libraries and frameworks already built to solve virtually any problem you may have when writing programs to be used by actual users.
HardwareHero
Top Con

Too many implementations

•••
There are a lot of Common Lisp implementations out there (CLisp, SBCL, CCL, just to name a few). Some implementations are free and open source, others are proprietary and cost quite a bit. Though none of them follow 100% the Common Lisp standard for example, SBCL fails about 50 official ANSI Common...
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--

Pony

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Forth

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--

PicoLisp

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HardwareHero
Top Pro

Objects are dynamic

•••
Objects can be manipulated even after they've been created, thanks to the "slots" having such flexibility.
HardwareHero
Top Pro

Simple to understand

•••
There are only 3 types of data in PicoLisp - numbers, symbols, and lists. This makes it less confusing than other systems programming languages that have other types in addition to these.
Know any negative aspects of this option?
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232 Community Recommendations

ideasman42
Jake D'Cruz (Imagine Infinity)
André Silva
Evolution Pixels
Eugene A. Simonenko
gilch
schlaumeier
Vester Saguban
APF
Alex Libman
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+122
Request recommendations from the community
penilloppee
penilloppee
Contributor for 2 months
2
Total 
Recs.
170
Total 
Karma
C++
Recommended 2 months ago
Very portable. Together with C. These are the only programming languages that are officially supported in Android, iOS, and Windows. Also C++ is fast evolving, there are so many very good abstractions now in C++11/C++14/C++17 and next... C++20... Which will have compile time reflections and meta-classes!
Pro
 Highly portable
Pro
 Multi-Paradigm
Pro
 Powerful generic (meta) programming capabilities with templates
Pro
 Class destructor support
Pro
 Huge language supports most everything
Pro
 Powerful memory management
Pro
 Excellent compiler optimization
Pro
 Teaches fundamental OOP
Pro
 Best way to understand algorithms
Pro
 Teaches problem solving
Pro
 C code can be used in C++ code
Pro
 STD is often updated
See full
kungfu
kungfu
Contributor for 2 months
2
Total 
Recs.
50
Total 
Karma
Rust
2 months ago
Looking at rust code will give you a headache, it is such a hard language to read. And this "memory safety" is also very hard, it is not free you have to work for it for so little gain, which means your development time will increase 5x easily.
Con
 Hard to find learning resources or libraries
Con
 Asynchronous I/O is not (yet) a part of the core language
Con
 Very ugly and verbose syntax
Con
 Immature Tooling & Ecosystem
Con
 Does not provide stable ABI yet
Con
 Very new and untested
Con
 Integer generics unsolved
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MeticulousFecunditas
MeticulousFecunditas
Contributor for 19 days
1
Total 
Recs.
0
Total 
Karma
Nim
Recommended 19 days ago
Compiles to efficient C code so you can run it anywhere, but still a nice and extendable syntax. The ability to do meta-programming can also shift a lot of computation to compile-time without having to create stand-alone scripts and put magic numbers in your code.
Pro
 Concise
Pro
 Strong metaprogramming capabilities
Pro
 Very good performance
Pro
 Compile-time execution
Pro
 Static and safe type system
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Ryan Rillorta
Ryan
Contributor for 2 months
2
Total 
Recs.
0
Total 
Karma
C++
Recommended 2 months ago
Rapidly evolving, is getting more powerful and easier to use. Superior tooling. And very cross platform, it is found everywhere.
Pro
 Highly portable
Pro
 Multi-Paradigm
Pro
 Powerful generic (meta) programming capabilities with templates
Pro
 Class destructor support
Pro
 Huge language supports most everything
Pro
 Powerful memory management
Pro
 Excellent compiler optimization
Pro
 Teaches fundamental OOP
Pro
 Best way to understand algorithms
Pro
 Teaches problem solving
Pro
 C code can be used in C++ code
Pro
 STD is often updated
See full
Currently displaying 4 out of 232 total recommendations.
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