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Consider these 4 possible combinations for programming languages: (1) Low-level, static types (2) Low-level, dynamic types (3) High-level, static types (4)
by adrianmonk 5y ago
Consider these 4 possible combinations for programming languages:
(1) Low-level, static types
(2) Low-level, dynamic types
(3) High-level, static types
(4) High-level, dynamic types
For whatever reason, historically #1 and #4 have been most popular. C, C++, Pascal, Ada, and Java are #1. Python, JavaScript, Perl, and BASIC are #4.
There haven't been a lot of #2 or #3 languages. Some #3 languages (TypeScript and Python with types) have come along, but relatively recently.
A person who experiences only #1 and #4 might notice that they can whip up programs faster in a #4 language than in a #1 language, then falsely attribute that difference to the static types. Whereas the real reason is working at a different level of abstraction.
- DylanSp 5y agoI don't really see how Java is closer to C than it is to Python in terms of what level of abstraction it's working on, could you elaborate?
- nayuki 5y agoIt's a matter of opinion whether Java's level is closer to C or Python. But I can name a bunch of high-level features in Python that aren't in Java: List literals, dictionary literals, tuples, bigint literals, byte strings, f-strings, sequence unpacking assignment, named parameters (kwargs), decorators, closures (functions within functions), metaclasses, generators, async, list/set/dict/generator comprehensions, multiple inheritance, natural JSON support, ...
- Jensson 5y agoHowever Java do support dynamic typing for every object even if it is a bit cumbersome so putting it at the same level as C++ isn't accurate either.
- jayd16 5y agoC# has most of this stuff and I think Java has at least a few of these but I wouldn't say any of these are really much of a differentiator.
- pjmlp 5y agoAnd at what level of abstraction does ISO C work on? "C Is Not a Low-level Language, Your computer is not a fast PDP-11." https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3212479 https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3212479
- Jensson 5y agoThat would be a good point if you actually could write the final code for CPU's, but you can't since the CPU internals do that for you. So from an application programmers perspective machine code is as low as it gets and C maps really well to machine code so C is a low level language.
- SubjectToChange 5y ago> So from an application programmers perspective machine code is as low as it gets and C maps really well to machine code so C is a low level language. C only "maps really well" to PDP-11 style machine code. If you want SIMD, parallel algorithms, heterogeneous programming, memory hierarchies/domains, etc then ISO C is completely useless.
- pjmlp 5y agoOnly if that machine is a 8 or 16 bit CPU, with code compiled as -O0. And even then, it's impossible to write something like malloc() without using either an external Assembler or language extensions.
- fuckf4ce 5y agoLumping Java and C together is a stretch. Even Ada and C. I think Ada is a good example that your proposed classification scheme is invalid -- what is low vs high level? Maybe Java has historically been weak in the language features department but it has had non-optional automatic memory management from the get go. What about C#? It's not exactly unpopular.
- shpongled 5y ago#3 languages have been around since the 80's (SML) and 90's (Haskell)
- pansa2 5y agoExactly. IMO we still don't have a good #3 language - in particular, all of the popular languages that can be compiled into native code are in category #1.