the Problems

Wed, Oct 21, 2015

I like programming languages, so I was thinking about what I would want in my favorite one.

Here are the basic essentials for a language to have a chance at being my favorite:

  1. Strict Type Checking
  2. No Nil Pointer
  3. Green Threads with both go-like channels and mutexes.
  4. Compiles to binary, without a virtual machine.
  5. Still runs on all platforms that I care about.
  6. Parametric Polymorphism
  7. Methods with dot syntax
  8. Fast compilation, fast running
  9. Lisp- or scheme-style macros of some sort
  10. User specified Operators with precedence
  11. Mutation
  12. A clean syntax (I’m aware how subjective this is)

Okay! Let’s see how languages do:

Go

Fails on: 2,6,9,10

Nil pointers are annoying but not a dealbreaker. Lack of polymorphism is where it falls apart.

Python

Fails on: 1,2,3,4,8,9,10

Too many to talk about.

C++

Fails on: 2,3,8,9,10,12

Java

Fails on: 2,4,9,10,12

Haskell

Fails on: 7,9,11

Easily the best so far, but that lack of mutation is a killer. State is so useful sometimes. You’ll notice it’s the only one that passes 10, and the only one that fails 11.

Rust

Fails on: 3,10,12

The lack of green threads is unfortunate, and damn is it ugly, but other than that rust is a great contender.

Edit

Revisiting this post, I see that OCaml wasn’t mentioned!

OCaml

Fails on: 7

Damn. I didn’t even know about OCaml!

Charles, etc