Comparison of programming languages

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Programming language comparisons

Programming languages are used for controlling the behavior of a machine (often a computer). Like natural languages, programming languages conform to rules for syntax and semantics.

There are thousands of programming languages[1] 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 programmers may use dozens of languages in a career.

Contents


General comparison [edit]

The following table compares general and technical information for a selection of commonly used programming languages. See the individual languages' articles for further information. Please note that the following table may be missing some information.

Language Intended use Paradigm(s) Standardized?
ActionScript 3.0 Application, client-side, Web event-driven, imperative, object-oriented 1996, ECMA
Ada Application, embedded, realtime, system concurrent,[2] distributed,[3] generic,[4] imperative object-oriented,[5] procedural,[6] 1983, 2005, 2012, ANSI, ISO, GOST 27831-88[7]
Aldor Highly domain-specific, symbolic computing imperative, functional, object-oriented No
ALGOL 58 Application imperative No
ALGOL 60 Application imperative 1960, IFIP WG 2.1, ISO[8]
ALGOL 68 Application concurrent, imperative 1968, IFIP WG 2.1, GOST 27974-88,[9]
Ateji PX Parallel application object-oriented, pi calculus No
APL Application, data processing array-oriented, tacit 1989, ISO
Assembly language General any, imperative, syntax is usually highly specific, related to the target processor No
AutoHotkey GUI automation (macros), highly domain-specific imperative No
AutoIt GUI automation (macros), highly domain-specific event-driven, imperative, procedural No
BASIC Application, education imperative, procedural 1983, ANSI, ISO
BBj Application, business, Web object-oriented, procedural No
BeanShell Application, scripting functional, imperative, object-oriented, reflective In progress, JCP[10]
BLISS System procedural No
BlitzMax Application, game imperative, object-oriented, procedural No
Boo Application No
C System[11] imperative, procedural 1989, ANSI C89, ISO C90, ISO C99, ISO C11[12]
C++ Application, system generic, imperative, object-oriented, procedural, functional 1998, ISO/IEC 1998, ISO/IEC 2003, ISO/IEC 2011[13]
C# Application, business, client-side, general, server-side, Web, Robotics structured, functional,[14] generic, imperative, object-oriented, reflective, concurrent, event-driven 2000, ECMA, ISO[15]
Clarion General, business, Web functional,[16] imperative, object-oriented Unknown
Clean General functional, generic No
Clojure General concurrent, functional No
CLU General generic, imperative, object-oriented, procedural No
COBOL Application, business imperative, object-oriented 2002 (ISO/IEC 1989)
Cobra Application, business, general, Web functional, generic, imperative, object-oriented, reflective No
ColdFusion (CFML) Web object-oriented, procedural No
Common Lisp General functional, generic, imperative, object-oriented, reflective 1994, ANSI
COMAL 80 Education imperative, procedural No
Crystal 1.0.0 Education functional, imperative, procedural No
Cython Application, general, numerical computing aspect-oriented, functional, imperative, object-oriented, reflective No
D Application, system generic, generative, imperative, object-oriented, functional, concurrent No
Dart Application, Web imperative, structured, object-oriented No
Dylan Application functional, object-oriented No
DYL-280 Application, system imperative, procedural No
Eiffel Application generic, imperative, object-oriented 2005, ECMA, ISO[17]
Erlang Application, distributed, telecom concurrent, distributed, functional No
Euphoria Application. Since the interpreter is shared for system and application code, system is not an intended use because application crashes would affect the whole system. procedural, reflective No
Factor stack-oriented No
Falcon General, Application procedural, functional, object oriented, prototype OOP, message oriented, tabular programming No
FP functional No
F# Application functional, generic, imperative, object-oriented No
Forth General imperative, stack-oriented 1994, ANSI
Fortran Application, numerical computing generic, imperative, object-oriented, procedural 1966, ANSI 66, ANSI 77, MIL-STD-1753, ISO 90, ISO 95, ISO 2003
G2 Application, inference, expert system common graphical development and runtime environment, event-driven, imperative, object-oriented No
Gambas Application event-driven, imperative, object-oriented No
Game Maker Language Application, games event-driven, imperative, object-oriented No
GLBasic Application, games imperative, procedural, simple object-oriented No
Go Application, system concurrent, imperative No
Gosu Application, general, scripting, Web generic, imperative, object-oriented, reflective No
GraphTalk Application logic, object-oriented No
Groovy Application, Web aspect-oriented, imperative, object-oriented, functional In progress, JCP[18]
Harbour Application, business, data processing, general, Web declarative, functional, generic, imperative, object-oriented, procedural, reflective No
Haskell Application functional, generic, lazy evaluation 2010, Haskell 2010[19]
Haxe Application, general, Web imperative, object-oriented, functional, generic, reflective No
HyperNext Application, education event-driven, procedural, weakly typed No
Io Application, host-driven scripting imperative, object-oriented No
ISLISP General functional, generic, imperative, object-oriented 1997, ISO
J Data processing array-oriented, function-level, tacit No
JADE Application, distributed imperative, object-oriented No
Java Application, business, client-side, general, server-side, Web generic, imperative, object-oriented, reflective De facto standard via Java Language Specification
JavaScript Client-side, Server-side, Web functional, imperative, prototype-based, reflective 1997, ECMA
Joy Research functional, stack-oriented No
K Data processing, business array-oriented, tacit Unknown
LabVIEW (G) Application, industrial instrumentation-automation dataflow, visual No
Lisp General functional Unknown
Logtalk Artificial intelligence, application event-driven, logic, object-oriented, reflective No
Lua Application, embedded scripting aspect-oriented, functional, imperative, object-oriented, procedural, reflective No[20]
Maple Symbolic computation, numerical computing procedural, functional, imperative, object-oriented, distributed No
Mathematica Symbolic language functional, procedural, imperative, logic, distributed, object-oriented No
MATLAB Highly domain-specific, numerical computing imperative, object-oriented, procedural No
Modula-2 Application, system generic, imperative 1996, ISO[21]
Modula-3 Application generic, imperative, object-oriented No
Oberon Application, system imperative, object-oriented No
Objective-C Application imperative, object-oriented, reflective No[22]
OCaml Application functional, generic, imperative, object-oriented No
Object Pascal (Delphi) Application, business, client-side, general, server-side, Web aspect-oriented,[23] event-driven, functional, generic, imperative, object-oriented, procedural, reflective No
Occam General concurrent, imperative, procedural, process-oriented No
Opa Web applications functional, generic, imperative, distributed No
Oxygene Application generic, imperative, object-oriented No
Oz Application, distribution, education concurrent, functional, imperative, logic, object-oriented No
Pascal Application, education imperative, procedural 1983, ISO[24]
Pawn Embedded, host-driven scripting imperative No
Perl Application, scripting, text processing, Web functional, generic, imperative, object-oriented, procedural, reflective No
PHP Server-side, Web Application, Web imperative, object-oriented,[25] procedural,[26] reflective No
PL/I Application imperative, object-oriented, procedural 1969
Plus Application, system development imperative, procedural No
Prolog Application, artificial intelligence logic 1995, ISO
PureBasic Application procedural No
Python Application, general, Web, scripting aspect-oriented, functional, imperative, object-oriented, reflective De facto standard via Python Enhancement Proposals (PEP)s.
Racket Education, general, scripting functional, procedural, modular, object-oriented, logic, reflective, meta No
REALbasic Application procedural Unknown
REBOL Distributed dialected, functional, imperative, object-oriented No
RPG (IBM) Application, system imperative, procedural No
Ruby Application, scripting, Web aspect-oriented, functional, imperative, object-oriented, reflective 2011(JIS X 3017), 2012(ISO/IEC 30170)
Rust Application, system concurrent, functional, generic, imperative, object-oriented, reflective No
S Application, statistics functional, imperative, object-oriented, procedural No
S-Lang Application, numerical, scripting imperative, procedural No
Scala Application, distributed, Web functional, generic, imperative, object-oriented De facto standard via Scala Language Specification (SLS)
Scheme Education, general functional 1998, R6RS
Simula Education, general discrete event simulation, event-driven, imperative, multi-threaded (quasi-parallel) program execution, object-oriented 1968
Small Basic Application, education, games component-oriented, event-driven, imperative No
Smalltalk Application, education concurrent, declarative, event-driven, object-oriented, reflective 1998, ANSI
SNOBOL Text processing Unknown
Standard ML Application functional, generic, imperative 1997, SML '97[27]
Tcl Application, scripting, Web event-driven, imperative, procedural, reflective No
Visual Basic Application, education component-oriented, event-driven, imperative No
Visual Basic .NET Application, education, Web event-driven, imperative, object-oriented No
Visual Prolog Application declarative, event-driven, functional, imperative, logic, object-oriented No
Windows PowerShell Administration functional, imperative, object-oriented, pipeline, reflective No
XL concept programming, imperative, object-oriented No
Language Intended use Paradigm(s) Standardized?

Type systems [edit]

Brief definitions

  • Compatibility among composite types describes the behavior of functions applied to data typed similarly to its intended type. Name-based compatibility means that functions work only on data of its intended type and declared subtypes. Property-based compatibility means that functions work on any data that has the same properties as its intended type.
  • Type checking determines whether and when types are verified. Static checking occurs at compile-time. Dynamic checking occurs at run-time.
Language Type strength Type safety Type expression Type compatibility among composites Type checking
ActionScript 3.0 strong safe implicit with optional explicit typing static
Ada strong safe[TS 1] explicit name-based partially dynamic[TS 2]
Aldor strong unsafe implicit static
ALGOL 58 strong safe explicit static
ALGOL 60 strong safe explicit static
ALGOL 68 strong safe explicit property-based static
APL strong safe dynamic
AutoHotkey none
Ateji PX strong safe explicit name-based static
BASIC varies by dialect
BLISS none n/a n/a n/a n/a
BeanShell strong safe name-based dynamic
Boo strong safe implicit with optional explicit typing static with optional dynamic typing
C weak unsafe explicit name-based static
C++ (ISO/IEC 14882) strong unsafe explicit name-based static[TS 3]
C# strong safe[TS 4] implicit with optional explicit typing name-based static[TS 5]
Clean strong safe implicit static
Clojure strong safe implicit with optional explicit typing dynamic
COBOL strong static
ColdFusion (CFML) strong safe implicit dynamic
Common Lisp strong safe implicit with optional explicit typing dynamic
Curl strong safe name-based
Cython strong safe implicit with optional explicit typing name-based (extension types) and property-based (Python) dynamic with optional static typing
D strong unsafe[TS 6] explicit name-based static
Dylan strong safe dynamic
Eiffel strong safe name-based static
Erlang strong safe implicit dynamic
Euphoria strong safe explicit, implicit with objects name-based static, dynamic with objects
F# strong safe implicit name-based static
Falcon strong safe implicit property-based dynamic
Forth none n/a n/a n/a n/a
Fortran strong safe explicit[TS 7] name-based static
Gambas strong safe explicit name-based
GLBasic strong safe explicit. Non-explicit declarations available through project options name-based static
Go[28] strong safe implicit with optional explicit typing property-based static
Gosu strong safe partially implicit (local type inference) name-based (subclassing) and property-based (structural) static
GraphTalk weak
Groovy strong safe implicit with optional explicit typing dynamic with optional static typing
Harbour strong safe implicit with optional explicit typing dynamic
Haskell strong safe implicit with optional explicit typing property-based static
Haxe strong safe implicit with optional explicit typing name-based (subclassing) and property-based (structural) static with optional dynamic typing
Io strong safe implicit dynamic
ISLISP strong safe dynamic
J strong safe dynamic
Java strong safe[29] explicit name-based static
JavaScript weak implicit dynamic
Joy strong safe dynamic
Lua weak safe implicit dynamic
Maple weak safe dynamic
Mathematica strong dynamic
MATLAB M-code dynamic
Modula-2 strong unsafe[TS 6] explicit name-based static
Modula-3 strong unsafe[TS 6] explicit property-based static
Oberon strong safe explicit name-based static and partially dynamic[TS 8]
Objective-C weak safe explicit name-based (subclassing) and property-based (protocols) dynamic with optional static typing[30]
OCaml strong safe implicit with optional explicit typing property-based static
Object Pascal (Delphi) strong safe explicit name-based static
Opa strong safe implicit with optional explicit typing property-based static
Oxygene strong unsafe implicit static
Oz strong safe implicit property-based dynamic
Pascal strong unsafe[TS 6] explicit name-based static
Perl 5 weak implicit dynamic
Perl 6 partially implicit[TS 9] dynamic with optional static typing
PHP weak implicit dynamic
Plus strong safe explicit property-based static, dynamic (optional)
Prolog strong dynamic
Pure dynamic
Python strong safe implicit property-based dynamic
REBOL strong safe implicit dynamic
RPG (IBM) strong unsafe static
Ruby strong safe implicit property-based dynamic
Rust strong safe implicit with optional explicit typing static with optional dynamic typing
S strong dynamic
S-Lang strong safe implicit dynamic
Scala strong safe partially implicit (local type inference) name-based (subclassing) and property-based (structural) static
Scheme strong implicit dynamic (latent)
Simula strong safe static[TS 10]
Smalltalk strong safe implicit dynamic
Standard ML strong safe implicit with optional explicit typing property-based static
Tcl dynamic
Visual Basic strong safe implicit with optional explicit typing name-based static
Visual Basic .NET strong unsafe[TS 6] explicit static
Visual Prolog strong safe partially implicit name-based static
Windows PowerShell strong safe implicit dynamic
XL strong safe name-based static
Language Type strength Type safety Type expression Type compatibility among composites Type checking
  1. ^ Unsafe operations are well isolated by a "Unchecked_" prefix.
  2. ^ Dynamic type checking is used when type safety can not be determined statically, i.e., for tagged types (type extension / inheritance), numeric ranges and array bounds.
  3. ^ with optional dynamic type casting (see dynamic_cast)
  4. ^ Safe, but supports unsafe code through an explicit declaration
  5. ^ with optional dynamic type (see dynamic member lookup)
  6. ^ a b c d e It is almost safe, unsafe features are not commonly used.
  7. ^ Optionally, typing can be explicitly implied by the first letter of the identifier (known as implicit typing within the Fortran community).
  8. ^ dynamic checking of type extensions i.e. inherited types
  9. ^ explicit for static types
  10. ^ optional for formal and virtual procedures

Failsafe I/O and system calls [edit]

Most programming languages will print an error message and/or throw an exception if an input/output operation or other system call (e.g., chmod, kill) 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 the programmer explicitly add checks for these kinds of errors. It is common for novice programmers to forget to add these checks, and even experts occasionally do so[citation needed]—these omissions can lead to erroneous behavior.

Language Failsafe I/O
Ada Yes (exceptions)
AutoHotkey No (global ErrorLevel must be explicitly checked)
C No[FSIO 1]
C++ No[FSIO 2]
C# Yes
Common Lisp Yes
D Yes[citation needed]
Eiffel Yes - It actually depends on the library and it is not defined by the language
Erlang Yes
Falcon Yes
Fortran Yes
GLBasic No - Will generally cause program to crash
Go No
Gosu Yes
Harbour Yes
Haskell Yes
ISLISP Yes
Java Yes
Lua No (some functions do not warn or throw exceptions)
Mathematica Yes
Object Pascal (Delphi) Some
Objective-C Yes (exceptions)
OCaml Yes (exceptions)
Perl No[FSIO 3]
PHP Yes
Python Yes
REBOL Yes
Ruby Yes
Rust Yes
S Unknown
Scala Yes[31]
Standard ML Yes[citation needed]
Tcl Yes
Visual Basic Yes
Visual Prolog Yes
Language Failsafe I/O
  1. ^ gcc can warn on unchecked error status. Newer versions of Visual Studio usually throw exceptions on failed I/O when using stdio.
  2. ^ g++ can warn on unchecked error status. Newer versions of Visual Studio usually throw exceptions on failed I/O when using stdio.
  3. ^ Considerable error checking can be enabled optionally, but by default Perl is not failsafe.

Expressiveness [edit]

Language Statements ratio[32] Lines ratio[33]
C 1 1
C++ 2.5 1
Fortran 2 0.8
Java 2.5 1.5
Perl 6 6
Smalltalk 6 6.25
Python 6 6.5

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.[34] 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.[35]

The same concepts applied to measuring the expressiveness of computer programming languages can be applied to markup languages like HTML. [1]


Benchmarks [edit]

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. See this page about over-generalizing from benchmark data. The Computer Language Benchmarks Game site 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 [edit]

See also [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ As of May 2006 Diarmuid Pigott's Encyclopedia of Computer Languages hosted at Murdoch University, Australia lists 8512 computer languages.
  2. ^ Ada Reference Manual, ISO/IEC 8652:2005(E) Ed. 3, Section 9: Tasks and Synchronization
  3. ^ Ada Reference Manual, ISO/IEC 8652:2005(E) Ed. 3 Annex E: Distributed Systems
  4. ^ Ada Reference Manual, ISO/IEC 8652:2005(E) Ed. 3, Section 12: Generic Units
  5. ^ Ada Reference Manual, ISO/IEC 8652:2005(E) Ed. 3, 3.9 Tagged Types and Type Extensions
  6. ^ Ada Reference Manual, ISO/IEC 8652:2005(E) Ed. 3, Section 6: Subprograms
  7. ^ Vak.ru
  8. ^ ISO 1538:1984
  9. ^ Vak.ru
  10. ^ JSR 274
  11. ^ CM.bell-labs.com
  12. ^ ANSI C89, ISO/IEC 9899:1990, 1999, 2011
  13. ^ ISO/IEC 14882:1998, 2003, 2011
  14. ^ Codeproject.com: Functional Programming in C# 3.0 using Lambda Expression
  15. ^ ECMA-334; ISO/IEC 23270:2006
  16. ^ Softvelocity.com
  17. ^ ECMA-367; ISO/IEC 25436:2006
  18. ^ JSR 241
  19. ^ "The Haskell 2010 Language Report". Retrieved 2011-12-07.  Most Haskell implementations extend the Haskell 2010 standard.
  20. ^ Version releases are accompanied with a definitive Lua Reference Manual showing full syntax and semantics; a reference implementation, and a test suite. These are used to generate other Lua VM implementations and compilers such as Kahlua and LLVM-Lua.
  21. ^ ISO/IEC 10514-1:1996
  22. ^ GCC.GNU.org
  23. ^ Cirrus: Aspect-oriented programming in Delphi Prism
  24. ^ ISO 7185
  25. ^ PHP Manual, Chapter 19. Classes and Objects (PHP 5),
  26. ^ PHP Manual, Chapter 17. Functions
  27. ^ SMLNJ.org
  28. ^ The Go Programming Language Specification
  29. ^ Sheng Liang, Gilad Bracha. Dynamic class loading in the Java virtual machine. Volume 33, Issue 10 of ACM SIGPLAN Notices, October 1998.
  30. ^ Developer.apple.com
  31. ^ Scala runs on the Java Virtual Machine from which it inherits the runtime exception handling.
  32. ^ Data from Code Complete, p. 100. The Statements ratio column "shows typical ratios of source statements in several high-level languages to the equivalent code in C. A higher ratio means that each line of code in the language listed accomplishes more than does each line of code in C.
  33. ^ The ratio of line count tests won by each language to the number won by C when using the Compare to feature at benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org. Last updated May, 2006. C gcc was used for C, C++ g++ was used for C++, FORTRAN G95 was used for FORTRAN, Java JDK Server was used for Java, and Smalltalk GST was used for Smalltalk.
  34. ^ From On the Expressive Power of Programming Languages, Matthias Felleisen, ESOP '90 3rd European Symposium on Programming.
  35. ^ Computer Language Benchmarks Game ranking

Further reading [edit]

External links [edit]

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