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Programming languages taxonomically fall into a few families which are similar in many respects. Between families there are also significant similarities. Alm
by drallison 9y ago
Programming languages taxonomically fall into a few families which are similar in many respects. Between families there are also significant similarities. Almost no programming language is strikingly distinct and without a cohort of two. Future languages will, I believe, look a lot like current languages.
Future programming languages may appear very from different contemporary languages for much the same reason movies made in the 1940's and 1950's look their age. Movies depend upon conventions, styles, and assumptions to provide clues to plot, characters, situational understanding, and context. Today's programming languages have one set of assumptions; future programming languages have a different set of assumptions. Not everything about a computation is expressed in the programming language.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> Programming languages taxonomically fall into a few families which are similar in many ways. Truish, but... > Future languages will, I guess, look a lot like current languages but with a few extra features. The number of useful-to-distinguish language families isn't constant; the fact that languages are usually found in families doesn't mean that new language families aren't created over time.
- brucephillips 9y agoWhen was the last time a new language family was created?
- drallison 9y agoProlog in 1970 or so. Erlang in 1986.
- dragonwriter 9y agoWhile it has roots in the ML family (which, being from 1973, is one of the newer families itself), Haskell (1990) could be considered the branch point of a distinct new language family which also includes Curry, Agda, Idris, Elm, and others.