Its Time for a New Programming Language
Today, when compared to any other point in programming history, we find ourselves spoiled for choice when it comes to programming languages. Advancements in language design, toolkits like LLVM, the democratization of programming via the internet, and a load of other factors have led to a Golden Area of new languages. Each week we see the popularization of a new language like Zig, Deno, Nim, Rust, Flutter, Kotlin, Go, Crystal, Carbon, and many, many others. And yet, when surveying the landscape of what languages are actually used, the list is almost always populated with the Usual Suspects: JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Java, Ruby, PHP, etc. The reason for this, I think, is that while new languages are always popping up, some with novel design decisions or built-in features, very few of them are “serious” in the sense that they’re designed for serious, production-level workloads and architectures. I don’t want to call them Toy Languages, but I also don’t think we’ll be seeing any serious production services running on Deno or Crystal any time soon.
“But what’s wrong with the Usual Suspects?” you might ask.
And that would be a very good question. Honestly, I don’t think the argument is about what is wrong with them less than it is more about how they fit into today’s architectures and ecosystems and the kinds of work they’re being asked to take on.
