What would make a programming language better?

General Discussions
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What would make a programming language better?

Obviously, a better language would avoid pitfalls and deficiencies found in other languages and incorporate their most powerful and convenient features/constructs.

Would you like to share your opinions, please?

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Thank you, Eugene! Excellent idea for a discussion topic because, in my view, it is so subjective!

  • What is the reference context that evokes “issues” with a language?

  • What specific traits are considered/deemed “deficiencies”?

  • What functional capabilities are considered improperly “manifested” in some other language?

  • What implementation “features” are perceived to be missing?

  • What procedural concepts that are at the forefront of evolving Mathematical logic have yet to emerge in some form encorporated in a software tool?

Lastly, let us not forget that ancient pearl of wisdom:

One person’s garbage is another’s person gold!

… which is the impulse behind so many stances on any of the existing capabilities, driving the explosive diversity of software offerings!

:slight_smile:

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Oh, I see some of you are a bit surprised by this question.

Let me explain, please. I am very interested in programming languages from the beginning of my professional career. I have used about a dozen of languages, not counting dialects and implementations. I have been programming professionally.

And I would be glad to compare my personal opinions to community experience.

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My surprised face was more to evoke the feeling of

  • “Oh goodie! Something that everybody has some strong opinion about an aspect that is an irritant to them!”

For me, the single most irritating feature of any language is that logical software blocks don’t have distinct delimitation characters!

For me, that is most critical because I always like to “semi-automate” various aspects of my coding, which involves both

  • the creation of code … and
  • the parsing of existing code.

It is this latter task/process which, from my perception of the automation standpoint, is the most irritating and difficult to implement for the likes of Python, again, IMHO. I’ve mentionned that issue in the past, and I repeat it here.

Not to say that I do NOT use Python, just that it is a tool of last resort when no other option is available to me. :frowning:

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Thank you, Eric! You get the point: I’m interested in subjective opinions of our fellows on what they consider pros and cons of programming languages they do use.

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