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Ask HN: Suggest me a new programming language with small user community to learn

7 points by grepgeek 7y ago

I want to learn a very new programming language. It should not be too popular. It should not have a large user community. It should be relatively new compared to Go, JavaScript, etc. My intention in learning behind a language like this is to see if I can contribute run-of-the-mill libraries to this language's ecosystem. If it is new and not so popular yet, there is a good chance its ecosystem would be lacking where I can contribute my time and effort to improve it.

shpx 7y ago
https://www.idris-lang.org https://www.idris-lang.org the book is great. https://urbit.org/docs/learn/hoon/ https://urbit.org/docs/learn/hoon/ has a small, welcoming community. It's pretty out there though. There's also nim (fast Python) and Crystal (fast Ruby).
- throwaway8879 7y ago
  I've been meaning to check out urbit thoroughly for a while but they seem to have gone overboard with the esoteric terminology, at least for me personally. I was put off by the naming schemes in the docs last I looked at them about a year ago. I suppose I'll have another look again. Maybe they grow on you once you are familiar with them.
throwaway8879 7y ago
Zig is very cool. Not sure whether it has a community yet. I liked the authors talks and livestreams on YouTube.
dom96 7y ago
Nim sounds like a perfect opportunity for you :)
amirouche 7y ago
Scheme is big and small at the same time. It is old, but the last report on the language was released a couple of years back and it is still growing. There is still many areas that needs some love. Checkout http://scheme-lang.com/ http://scheme-lang.com/
- elderK 7y ago
  You beat me to it! I'd recommend checking out Chicken Scheme. Not only is it a kick-butt implementation but its community, #chicken on Freenode, is truly fantastic. Give it a whirl :)
codegladiator 7y ago
What do you consider as "run-of-the-mill" libraries ? like data-structures/algos ? or say something like a database connector / http router ?
brianush1 7y ago
Odin[0] is very new and has a pretty small community, but it's promising and very well thought-out. [0]: https://github.com/odin-lang/Odin https://github.com/odin-lang/Odin
_proofs 7y ago
Lua!
- jazoom 7y ago
  Lua is 26 years old. The OP said younger than Go. Go is 9 years old.
siriniok 7y ago
I'd try Racket (Scheme family) or ReasonML.
skaffolder 7y ago
https://elm-lang.org/ https://elm-lang.org/ no more runtime errors
em-bee 7y ago
there are plenty of older but less popular languages that could use some help to improve the ecosystem. pharo smalltalk for example. (i can give you a list of things i'd like to have there right now.) pike is a nice language with a small community. plenty of room for interesting things to add. red-lang is another one that could use some help. bonus: if you pick that up any of these three i'll offer to mentor you :-)
hazz99 7y ago
I'd recommend Dart. It's a great language but the ecosystem was severely lacking when I lasted used it. An additional benefit is that it's super easy to contribute to the Flutter codebase!

7 points by grepgeek 7y ago

shpx 7y ago

https://www.idris-lang.org https://www.idris-lang.org the book is great. https://urbit.org/docs/learn/hoon/ https://urbit.org/docs/learn/hoon/ has a small, welcoming community. It's pretty out there though. There's also nim (fast Python) and Crystal (fast Ruby).

throwaway8879 7y ago
I've been meaning to check out urbit thoroughly for a while but they seem to have gone overboard with the esoteric terminology, at least for me personally. I was put off by the naming schemes in the docs last I looked at them about a year ago. I suppose I'll have another look again. Maybe they grow on you once you are familiar with them.

throwaway8879 7y ago

Zig is very cool. Not sure whether it has a community yet. I liked the authors talks and livestreams on YouTube.

dom96 7y ago

Nim sounds like a perfect opportunity for you :)

amirouche 7y ago

Scheme is big and small at the same time. It is old, but the last report on the language was released a couple of years back and it is still growing. There is still many areas that needs some love. Checkout http://scheme-lang.com/ http://scheme-lang.com/

elderK 7y ago
You beat me to it! I'd recommend checking out Chicken Scheme. Not only is it a kick-butt implementation but its community, #chicken on Freenode, is truly fantastic. Give it a whirl :)

codegladiator 7y ago

What do you consider as "run-of-the-mill" libraries ? like data-structures/algos ? or say something like a database connector / http router ?

brianush1 7y ago

Odin[0] is very new and has a pretty small community, but it's promising and very well thought-out. [0]: https://github.com/odin-lang/Odin https://github.com/odin-lang/Odin

_proofs 7y ago

Lua!

jazoom 7y ago
Lua is 26 years old. The OP said younger than Go. Go is 9 years old.

siriniok 7y ago

I'd try Racket (Scheme family) or ReasonML.

skaffolder 7y ago

https://elm-lang.org/ https://elm-lang.org/ no more runtime errors

em-bee 7y ago

there are plenty of older but less popular languages that could use some help to improve the ecosystem. pharo smalltalk for example. (i can give you a list of things i'd like to have there right now.) pike is a nice language with a small community. plenty of room for interesting things to add. red-lang is another one that could use some help. bonus: if you pick that up any of these three i'll offer to mentor you :-)

hazz99 7y ago

I'd recommend Dart. It's a great language but the ecosystem was severely lacking when I lasted used it. An additional benefit is that it's super easy to contribute to the Flutter codebase!