Programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...

s are used for controlling the behavior of a machine (often a

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...

). Like

natural language In neuropsychology, linguistics, and philosophy of language, a natural language or ordinary language is any language that has evolved naturally in humans through use and repetition without conscious planning or premeditation. Natural languages ...

s, programming languages follow the rules for

syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituenc ...

and

semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...

. There are thousands of programming languages and new ones are created every year. Few languages ever become sufficiently popular that they are used by more than a few people, but professional

programmer A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

s may use dozens of languages in a career. Most programming languages are not standardized by an international (or national) standard, even widely used ones, such as

Perl Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was offic ...

Standard ML Standard ML (SML) is a general-purpose, modular, functional programming language with compile-time type checking and type inference. It is popular among compiler writers and programming language researchers, as well as in the development of ...

(despite the name). Notable standardized programming languages include

ALGOL ALGOL (; short for "Algorithmic Language") is a family of imperative computer programming languages originally developed in 1958. ALGOL heavily influenced many other languages and was the standard method for algorithm description used by the ...

, C,

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

, JavaScript (under the name

ECMAScript ECMAScript (; ES) is a JavaScript standard intended to ensure the interoperability of web pages across different browsers. It is standardized by Ecma International in the documenECMA-262 ECMAScript is commonly used for client-side scripti ...

Smalltalk Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed reflective programming language. It was designed and created in part for educational use, specifically for constructionist learning, at the Learning Research Group (LRG) of Xerox PARC by Alan ...

Prolog Prolog is a logic programming language associated with artificial intelligence and computational linguistics. Prolog has its roots in first-order logic, a formal logic, and unlike many other programming languages, Prolog is intended primarily ...

Common Lisp Common Lisp (CL) is a dialect of the Lisp programming language, published in ANSI standard document ''ANSI INCITS 226-1994 (S20018)'' (formerly ''X3.226-1994 (R1999)''). The Common Lisp HyperSpec, a hyperlinked HTML version, has been derived fr ...

Scheme A scheme is a systematic plan for the implementation of a certain idea. Scheme or schemer may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''The Scheme'' (TV series), a BBC Scotland documentary series * The Scheme (band), an English pop band * ''The Schem ...

(

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...

standard),

ISLISP ISLISP (also capitalized as ISLisp) is a programming language in the Lisp family standardized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) joint working group ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/W ...

Ada Ada may refer to: Places Africa * Ada Foah, a town in Ghana * Ada (Ghana parliament constituency) * Ada, Osun, a town in Nigeria Asia * Ada, Urmia, a village in West Azerbaijan Province, Iran * Ada, Karaman, a village in Karaman Province, T ...

, Fortran,

COBOL COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily u ...

, SQL and

XQuery XQuery (XML Query) is a query and functional programming language that queries and transforms collections of structured and unstructured data, usually in the form of XML, text and with vendor-specific extensions for other data formats (JSON, b ...

. __TOC__

General comparison

The following table compares general and technical information for a selection of commonly used

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...

s. See the individual languages' articles for further information.

Type systems

Failsafe I/O and system calls

Most programming languages will print an

error message An error message is information displayed when an unforeseen occurs, usually on a computer or other device. On modern operating systems with graphical user interfaces, error messages are often displayed using dialog boxes. Error messages are use ...

or throw an exception if an

input/output In computing, input/output (I/O, or informally io or IO) is the communication between an information processing system, such as a computer, and the outside world, possibly a human or another information processing system. Inputs are the signals ...

operation or other

system call In computing, a system call (commonly abbreviated to syscall) is the programmatic way in which a computer program requests a service from the operating system on which it is executed. This may include hardware-related services (for example, acc ...

(e.g.,

chmod In Unix and Unix-like operating systems, is the command and system call used to change the access permissions and the special mode flags (the ''setuid'', ''setgid'', and ''sticky'' flags) of file system objects ( files and directories). Coll ...

kill Kill often refers to: *Homicide, one human killing another *cause death, to kill a living organism, to cause its death Kill may also refer to: Media *'' Kill!'', a 1968 film directed by Kihachi Okamoto * ''Kill'' (Cannibal Corpse album), 2006 * ...

) fails, unless the programmer has explicitly arranged for different handling of these events. Thus, these languages fail safely in this regard. Some (mostly older) languages require that programmers explicitly add checks for these kinds of errors. Psychologically, different

cognitive biases A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, m ...

(e.g.,

optimism bias Optimism bias (or the optimistic bias) is a cognitive bias that causes someone to believe that they themselves are less likely to experience a negative event. It is also known as unrealistic optimism or comparative optimism. Optimism bias is commo ...

) may affect novices and experts alike and lead them to skip these checks. This can lead to erroneous behavior. Failsafe I/O is a feature of 1C:Enterprise,

(exceptions),

(exceptions or return value depending on function),

Ballerina A ballet dancer ( it, ballerina fem.; ''ballerino'' masc.) is a person who practices the art of classical ballet. Both females and males can practice ballet; however, dancers have a strict hierarchy and strict gender roles. They rely on ye ...

, C#,

("conditions and restarts" system),

Curry A curry is a dish with a sauce seasoned with spices, mainly associated with South Asian cuisine. In southern India, leaves from the curry tree may be included. There are many varieties of curry. The choice of spices for each dish in trad ...

, D (throwing on failure), Erlang, Fortran, Go (unless result explicitly ignored),

Gosu Gosu (고수) is a Korean term used to refer to a highly skilled person. In computer gaming the term is usually used to refer to a person who dominated games like ''StarCraft'', ''Counter-Strike'', Tekken, ''Warcraft III'', ''Diablo II'', ''Dot ...

Harbour A harbor (American English), harbour (British English; see spelling differences), or haven is a sheltered body of water where ships, boats, and barges can be docked. The term ''harbor'' is often used interchangeably with ''port'', which is ...

Haskell Haskell () is a general-purpose, statically-typed, purely functional programming language with type inference and lazy evaluation. Designed for teaching, research and industrial applications, Haskell has pioneered a number of programming lan ...

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

Julia Julia is usually a feminine given name. It is a Latinate feminine form of the name Julio and Julius. (For further details on etymology, see the Wiktionary entry "Julius".) The given name ''Julia'' had been in use throughout Late Antiquity (e.g ...

, Kotlin,

LabVIEW Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench (LabVIEW) is a system-design platform and development environment for a visual programming language from National Instruments. The graphical language is named "G"; not to be confused with G-c ...

Mathematica Wolfram Mathematica is a software system with built-in libraries for several areas of technical computing that allow machine learning, statistics, symbolic computation, data manipulation, network analysis, time series analysis, NLP, optimiza ...

Objective-C Objective-C is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style messaging to the C programming language. Originally developed by Brad Cox and Tom Love in the early 1980s, it was selected by NeXT for its NeXT ...

(exceptions),

OCaml OCaml ( , formerly Objective Caml) is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm programming language Programming paradigms are a way to classify programming languages based on their features. Languages can be classified into multiple paradigms. ...

(exceptions),

OpenLisp OpenLisp is a programming language in the Lisp family developed by Christian Jullien from Eligis. It conforms to the international standard for ISLISP published jointly by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and Internationa ...

, PHP, Python, Raku, Rebol,

Rexx Rexx (Restructured Extended Executor) is a programming language that can be interpreted or compiled. It was developed at IBM by Mike Cowlishaw. It is a structured, high-level programming language designed for ease of learning and reading. P ...

(with optional signal on... trap handling), Ring,

Ruby A ruby is a pinkish red to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum ( aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called ...

Rust Rust is an iron oxide, a usually reddish-brown oxide formed by the reaction of iron and oxygen in the catalytic presence of water or air moisture. Rust consists of hydrous iron(III) oxides (Fe2O3·nH2O) and iron(III) oxide-hydroxide (FeO( ...

(unless result explicitly ignored), Scala,

, Swift ≥ 2.0 (exceptions), Tcl,

Visual Basic Visual Basic is a name for a family of programming languages from Microsoft. It may refer to: * Visual Basic .NET (now simply referred to as "Visual Basic"), the current version of Visual Basic launched in 2002 which runs on .NET * Visual Basic ( ...

Visual Basic .NET Visual Basic, originally called Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET), is a multi-paradigm, object-oriented programming language, implemented on .NET, Mono, and the .NET Framework. Microsoft launched VB.NET in 2002 as the successor to its original Visua ...

, Visual Prolog,

Wolfram Language The Wolfram Language ( ) is a general multi-paradigm programming language developed by Wolfram Research. It emphasizes symbolic computation, functional programming, and rule-based programming and can employ arbitrary structures and data. It ...

, Xojo,

XPath XPath (XML Path Language) is an expression language designed to support the query or transformation of XML documents. It was defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and can be used to compute values (e.g., strings, numbers, or Boolean v ...

(exceptions), and Zeek. No Failsafe I/O:

AutoHotkey AutoHotkey is a free and open-source custom scripting language for Microsoft Windows, initially aimed at providing easy keyboard shortcuts or hotkeys, fast macro-creation and software automation that allows users of most levels of computer skil ...

(global ErrorLevel must be explicitly checked), C, gcc can warn on unchecked

errno errno.h is a header file in the standard library of the C programming language. It defines macros for reporting and retrieving error conditions using the symbol errno (short for "error number").International Standard for Programming Language C ( ...

. Newer versions of

Visual Studio Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs including web site, websites, web apps, web services and mobile apps. Visual Studio uses Microsoft software development platfor ...

usually throw exceptions on failed I/O when using

stdio The C programming language provides many standard library functions for file input and output. These functions make up the bulk of the C standard library header . The functionality descends from a "portable I/O package" written by Mike Lesk at ...

, Eiffel (it actually depends on the library and it is not defined by the language),

GLBasic GLBasic is a commercial BASIC programming language that can compile to various platforms including Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and some handheld devices. The language is designed to be simple and intuitive. Overview GLBasic started as an interpret ...

(will generally cause program to crash), RPG, Lua (some functions do not warn or throw exceptions), and

. Some I/O checking is built in

( STL iostreams throw on failure but C APIs like

POSIX The Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) is a family of standards specified by the IEEE Computer Society for maintaining compatibility between operating systems. POSIX defines both the system- and user-level application programming in ...

do not) and

Object Pascal Object Pascal is an extension to the programming language Pascal that provides object-oriented programming (OOP) features such as classes and methods. The language was originally developed by Apple Computer as ''Clascal'' for the Lisa Worksh ...

, in

Bash Bash or BASH may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Bash!'' (Rockapella album), 1992 * ''Bash!'' (Dave Bailey album), 1961 * '' Bash: Latter-Day Plays'', a dramatic triptych * ''BASH!'' (role-playing game), a 2005 superhero game * "Bash" ('' ...

it is optional.

Expressiveness

The literature on programming languages contains an abundance of informal claims about their relative expressive power, but there is no framework for formalizing such statements nor for deriving interesting consequences. This table provides two measures of expressiveness from two different sources. An additional measure of expressiveness, in GZip bytes, can be found on the Computer Language Benchmarks Game.

Benchmarks

Benchmarks are designed to mimic a particular type of workload on a component or system. The computer programs used for compiling some of the benchmark data in this section may not have been fully optimized, and the relevance of the data is disputed. The most accurate benchmarks are those that are customized to your particular situation. Other people's benchmark data may have some value to others, but proper interpretation brings many challenges.

The Computer Language Benchmarks Game The Computer Language Benchmarks Game (formerly called The Great Computer Language Shootout) is a free software project for comparing how a given subset of simple algorithms can be implemented in various popular programming languages. The project ...

site warns against over-generalizing from benchmark data, but contains a large number of micro-benchmarks of reader-contributed code snippets, with an interface that generates various charts and tables comparing specific programming languages and types of tests.

Timeline of specific language comparisons

* 1974 – Comparative Notes on Algol 68 and PL/I – S. H. Valentine – November 1974 * 1976 – Evaluation of

ALGOL 68 ALGOL 68 (short for ''Algorithmic Language 1968'') is an imperative programming language that was conceived as a successor to the ALGOL 60 programming language, designed with the goal of a much wider scope of application and more rigorously d ...

JOVIAL JOVIAL is a high-level programming language based on ALGOL 58, specialized for developing embedded systems (specialized computer systems designed to perform one or a few dedicated functions, usually embedded as part of a larger, more complete dev ...

J3B,

Pascal Pascal, Pascal's or PASCAL may refer to: People and fictional characters * Pascal (given name), including a list of people with the name * Pascal (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name ** Blaise Pascal, Frenc ...

Simula Simula is the name of two simulation programming languages, Simula I and Simula 67, developed in the 1960s at the Norwegian Computing Center in Oslo, by Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard. Syntactically, it is an approximate superset of ALGO ...

67, and TACPOL Versus TINMAN – Requirements for a Common High Order Programming Language. Report Number: 1021-14
--> * 1977 – A comparison of PASCAL and ALGOL 68 –

Andrew S. Tanenbaum Andrew Stuart Tanenbaum (born March 16, 1944), sometimes referred to by the handle ast, is an American-Dutch computer scientist and professor emeritus of computer science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands. He is the author ...

– June 1977. * 1993 – Five Little Languages and How They Grew –

BLISS BLISS is a system programming language developed at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) by W. A. Wulf, D. B. Russell, and A. N. Habermann around 1970. It was perhaps the best known system language until C debuted a few years later. Since then, C b ...

BCPL BCPL ("Basic Combined Programming Language") is a procedural, imperative, and structured programming language. Originally intended for writing compilers for other languages, BCPL is no longer in common use. However, its influence is still ...

& C – Dennis M. Ritchie – April 1993. * 2009 – On Go – oh, go on – How well will Google's Go stand up against Brand X programming language? – David Given – November 2009

General comparison

Type systems

Failsafe I/O and system calls

Expressiveness

Benchmarks

Timeline of specific language comparisons

See also

References

Further reading