PROGRAMMING

A programming language is an artificial language for expressing computer programs.[1]

Programming languages typically allow software to be written in a human readable manner.

Execution of a program requires an implementation. There are two main approaches for implementing
a programming language – compilation, where programs are compiled ahead-of-time to machine
code, and interpretation, where programs are directly executed. In addition to these two extremes,
some implementations use hybrid approaches such as just-in-time compilation and bytecode
interpreters.[2]

The design of programming languages has been strongly influenced by computer architecture, with
most imperative languages designed around the ubiquitous von Neumann architecture.[3][full citation
needed] While early programming languages were closely tied to the hardware, modern languages
often hide hardware details via abstraction in an effort to enable better software with less effort.
[citation needed]

Related

Programming languages have some similarity to natural languages in that they can allow
communication of ideas between people. That is, programs are generally human-readable and can
express complex ideas. However, the kinds of ideas that programming languages can express are
ultimately limited to the domain of computation.[4]

The term computer language is sometimes used interchangeably with programming language[5] but
some contend they are different concepts. Some contend that programming languages are a subset of
computer languages.[6] Some use computer language to classify a language used in computing that is
not considered a programming language.[citation needed] Some regard a programming language as a
theoretical construct for programming an abstract machine, and a computer language as the subset
thereof that runs on a physical computer, which has finite hardware resources.[7]

John C. Reynolds emphasizes that a formal specification language is as much a programming language
as is a language intended for execution. He argues that textual and even graphical input formats that
affect the behavior of a computer are programming languages, despite the fact they are commonly not
Turing-complete, and remarks that ignorance of programming language concepts is the reason for
many flaws in input formats.[8]

History

Main article: History of programming languages

Early developments

The first programmable computers were invented during the 1940s, and with them, the first
programming languages.[9] The earliest computers were programmed in first-generation programming
languages (1GLs), machine language (simple instructions that could be directly executed by the
processor). This code was very difficult to debug and was not portable between different computer
systems.[10] In order to improve the ease of programming, assembly languages (or second-generation
programming languages—2GLs) were invented, diverging from the machine language to make
programs easier to understand for humans, although they did not increase portability.[11]

Initially, hardware resources were scarce and expensive, while human resources were cheaper.
Therefore, cumbersome languages that were time-consuming to use, but were closer to the hardware
for higher efficiency were favored.[12] The introduction of high-level programming languages (third-
generation programming languages—3GLs)—revolutionized programming. These languages abstracted
away the details of the hardware, instead being designed to express algorithms that could be
understood more easily by humans. For example, arithmetic expressions could now be written in
symbolic notation and later translated into machine code that the hardware could execute.[11] In
1957, Fortran (FORmula TRANslation) was invented. Often considered the first compiled high-level
programming language,[11][13] Fortran has remained in use into the twenty-first century.[14]

1960s and 1970s

Two people using an IBM 704 mainframe—the first hardware to support floating-point arithmetic—in
1957. Fortran was designed for this machine.[15][14]

Around 1960, the first mainframes—general purpose computers—were developed, although they
could only be operated by professionals and the cost was extreme. The data and instructions were
input by punch cards, meaning that no input could be added while the program was running. The
languages developed at this time therefore are designed for minimal interaction.[16] After the
invention of the microprocessor, computers in the 1970s became dramatically cheaper.[17] New
computers also allowed more user interaction, which was supported by newer programming
languages.[18]

Lisp, implemented in 1958, was the first functional programming language.[19] Unlike Fortran, it
supported recursion and conditional expressions,[20] and it also introduced dynamic memory
management on a heap and automatic garbage collection.[21] For the next decades, Lisp dominated
artificial intelligence applications.[22] In 1978, another functional language, ML, introduced inferred
types and polymorphic parameters.[18][23]

After ALGOL (ALGOrithmic Language) was released in 1958 and 1960,[24] it became the standard in
computing literature for describing algorithms. Although its commercial success was limited, most
popular imperative languages—including C, Pascal, Ada, C++, Java, and C#—are directly or indirectly
descended from ALGOL 60.[25][14] Among its innovations adopted by later programming languages
included greater portability and the first use of context-free, BNF grammar.[26] Simula, the first
language to support object-oriented programming (including subtypes, dynamic dispatch, and
inheritance), also descends from ALGOL and achieved commercial success.[27] C, another ALGOL
descendant, has sustained popularity into the twenty-first century. C allows access to lower-level
machine operations more than other contemporary languages. Its power and efficiency, generated in
part with flexible pointer operations, comes at the cost of making it more difficult to write correct
code.[18]

Prolog, designed in 1972, was the first logic programming language, communicating with a computer
using formal logic notation.[28][29] With logic programming, the programmer specifies a desired
result and allows the interpreter to decide how to achieve it.[30][29]

1980s to 2000s

A small selection of programming language textbooks

During the 1980s, the invention of the personal computer transformed the roles for which
programming languages were used.[31] New languages introduced in the 1980s included C++, a
superset of C that can compile C programs but also supports classes and inheritance.[32] Ada and
other new languages introduced support for concurrency.[33] The Japanese government invested
heavily into the so-called fifth-generation languages that added support for concurrency to logic
programming constructs, but these languages were outperformed by other concurrency-supporting
languages.[34][35]
Due to the rapid growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web in the 1990s, new programming
languages were introduced to support Web pages and networking.[36] Java, based on C++ and
designed for increased portability across systems and security, enjoyed large-scale success because
these features are essential for many Internet applications.[37][38] Another development was that of
dynamically typed scripting languages—Python, JavaScript, PHP, and Ruby—designed to quickly
produce small programs that coordinate existing applications. Due to their integration with HTML,
they have also been used for building web pages hosted on servers.[39][40]

2000s to present

During the 2000s, there was a slowdown in the development of new programming languages that
achieved widespread popularity.[41] One innovation was service-oriented programming, designed to
exploit distributed systems whose components are connected by a network. Services are similar to
objects in object-oriented programming, but run on a separate process.[42] C# and F# cross-pollinated
ideas between imperative and functional programming.[43] After 2010, several new languages—Rust,
Go, Swift, Zig and Carbon —competed for the performance-critical software for which C had
historically been used.[44] Most of the new programming languages use static typing while a few
numbers of new languages use dynamic typing like Ring and Julia.[45][46]

Some of the new programming languages are classified as visual programming languages like Scratch,
LabVIEW and PWCT. Also, some of these languages mix between textual and visual programming
usage like Ballerina.[47][48][49][50] Also, this trend lead to developing projects that help in
developing new VPLs like Blockly by Google.[51] Many game engines like Unreal and Unity added
support for visual scripting too.[52][53]

Definition

A language can be defined in terms of syntax (form) and semantics (meaning), and often is defined via
a formal language specification.

Syntax

Main article: Syntax (programming languages)

Parse tree of Python code with inset tokenization

Syntax highlighting is often used to aid programmers in recognizing elements of source code. The
language above is Python.

A programming language's surface form is known as its syntax. Most programming languages are
purely textual; they use sequences of text including words, numbers, and punctuation, much like
written natural languages. On the other hand, some programming languages are graphical, using
visual relationships between symbols to specify a program.

The syntax of a language describes the possible combinations of symbols that form a syntactically
correct program. The meaning given to a combination of symbols is handled by semantics (either
formal or hard-coded in a reference implementation). Since most languages are textual, this article
discusses textual syntax.

The programming language syntax is usually defined using a combination of regular expressions (for
lexical structure) and Backus–Naur form (for grammatical structure). Below is a simple grammar, based
on Lisp:

expression ::= atom | list

atom ::= number | symbol

number ::= [+-]?['0'-'9']+

symbol ::= ['A'-'Z''a'-'z'].*

list ::= '(' expression* ')'

This grammar specifies the following:

an expression is either an atom or a list;

an atom is either a number or a symbol;

a number is an unbroken sequence of one or more decimal digits, optionally preceded by a plus or
minus sign;

a symbol is a letter followed by zero or more of any alphabetical characters (excluding whitespace);
and
a list is a matched pair of parentheses, with zero or more expressions inside it.

The following are examples of well-formed token sequences in this grammar: 12345, () and (a b c232
(1)).

Not all syntactically correct programs are semantically correct. Many syntactically correct programs
are nonetheless ill-formed, per the language's rules; and may (depending on the language
specification and the soundness of the implementation) result in an error on translation or execution.
In some cases, such programs may exhibit undefined behavior. Even when a program is well-defined
within a language, it may still have a meaning that is not intended by the person who wrote it.

Using natural language as an example, it may not be possible to assign a meaning to a grammatically
correct sentence or the sentence may be false:

"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously." is grammatically well-formed but has no generally accepted
meaning.

"John is a married bachelor." is grammatically well-formed but expresses a meaning that cannot be
true.

The following C language fragment is syntactically correct, but performs operations that are not
semantically defined (the operation *p >> 4 has no meaning for a value having a complex type and p-
>im is not defined because the value of p is the null pointer):

complex *p = NULL;

complex abs_p = sqrt(*p >> 4 + p->im);

If the type declaration on the first line were omitted, the program would trigger an error on the
undefined variable p during compilation. However, the program would still be syntactically correct
since type declarations provide only semantic information.

The grammar needed to specify a programming language can be classified by its position in the
Chomsky hierarchy. The syntax of most programming languages can be specified using a Type-2
grammar, i.e., they are context-free grammars.[54] Some languages, including Perl and Lisp, contain
constructs that allow execution during the parsing phase. Languages that have constructs that allow
the programmer to alter the behavior of the parser make syntax analysis an undecidable problem, and
generally blur the distinction between parsing and execution.[55] In contrast to Lisp's macro system
and Perl's BEGIN blocks, which may contain general computations, C macros are merely string
replacements and do not require code execution.[56]

Semantics

Logical connectives

NOT

{\displaystyle \neg A,-A,{\overline {A}},{\sim }A}

AND

⋅
B

&

&

&

{\displaystyle A\land B,A\cdot B,AB,A\mathop {\&} B,A\mathop {\&\&} B}

NAND

,
A

{\displaystyle A\mathrel {\overline {\land }} B,A\uparrow B,A\mid B,{\overline {A\cdot B}}}

OR

B
{\displaystyle A\lor B,A+B,A\mid B,A\parallel B}

NOR

{\displaystyle A\mathrel {\overline {\lor }} B,A\downarrow B,{\overline {A+B}}}

XNOR

B
¯

{\displaystyle A\odot B,{\overline {A\mathrel {\overline {\lor }} B}}}

└ equivalent

{\displaystyle A\equiv B,A\Leftrightarrow B,A\leftrightharpoons B}

XOR

{\displaystyle A\mathrel {\underline {\lor }} B,A\oplus B}

└ nonequivalent

{\displaystyle A\not \equiv B,A\not \Leftrightarrow B,A\nleftrightarrow B}

implies

{\displaystyle A\Rightarrow B,A\supset B,A\rightarrow B}

nonimplication (NIMPLY)

{\displaystyle A\not \Rightarrow B,A\not \supset B,A\nrightarrow B}

converse

{\displaystyle A\Leftarrow B,A\subset B,A\leftarrow B}

converse nonimplication

{\displaystyle A\not \Leftarrow B,A\not \subset B,A\nleftarrow B}

Related concepts

Propositional calculusPredicate logicBoolean algebraTruth tableTruth functionBoolean

functionFunctional completenessScope (logic)

Applications

Digital logicProgramming languagesMathematical logicPhilosophy of logic

Category

Semantics refers to the meaning of content that conforms to a language's syntax.

Static semantics

Static semantics defines restrictions on the structure of valid texts that are hard or impossible to
express in standard syntactic formalisms.[57][failed verification] For compiled languages, static
semantics essentially include those semantic rules that can be checked at compile time. Examples
include checking that every identifier is declared before it is used (in languages that require such
declarations) or that the labels on the arms of a case statement are distinct.[58] Many important
restrictions of this type, like checking that identifiers are used in the appropriate context (e.g. not
adding an integer to a function name), or that subroutine calls have the appropriate number and type
of arguments, can be enforced by defining them as rules in a logic called a type system. Other forms of
static analyses like data flow analysis may also be part of static semantics. Programming languages
such as Java and C# have definite assignment analysis, a form of data flow analysis, as part of their
respective static semantics.[59]

Dynamic semantics

Main article: Semantics of programming languages

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Once data has been specified, the machine must be instructed to perform operations on the data. For
example, the semantics may define the strategy by which expressions are evaluated to values, or the
manner in which control structures conditionally execute statements. The dynamic semantics (also
known as execution semantics) of a language defines how and when the various constructs of a
language should produce a program behavior. There are many ways of defining execution semantics.
Natural language is often used to specify the execution semantics of languages commonly used in
practice. A significant amount of academic research goes into formal semantics of programming
languages, which allows execution semantics to be specified in a formal manner. Results from this field
of research have seen limited application to programming language design and implementation
outside academia.[59]

Features

A language provides features for the programmer for develop software. Some notable features are
described below.

Type system

Main articles: Data type, Type system, and Type safety

A data type is a set of allowable values and operations that can be performed on these values.[60]
Each programming language's type system defines which data types exist, the type of an expression,
and how type equivalence and type compatibility function in the language.[61]
According to type theory, a language is fully typed if the specification of every operation defines types
of data to which the operation is applicable.[62] In contrast, an untyped language, such as most
assembly languages, allows any operation to be performed on any data, generally sequences of bits of
various lengths.[62] In practice, while few languages are fully typed, most offer a degree of typing.[62]

Because different types (such as integers and floats) represent values differently, unexpected results
will occur if one type is used when another is expected. Type checking will flag this error, usually at
compile time (runtime type checking is more costly).[63] With strong typing, type errors can always be
detected unless variables are explicitly cast to a different type. Weak typing occurs when languages
allow implicit casting—for example, to enable operations between variables of different types without
the programmer making an explicit type conversion. The more cases in which this type coercion is
allowed, the fewer type errors can be detected.[64]

Commonly supported types

See also: Primitive data type

Early programming languages often supported only built-in, numeric types such as the integer (signed
and unsigned) and floating point (to support operations on real numbers that are not integers). Most
programming languages support multiple sizes of floats (often called float and double) and integers
depending on the size and precision required by the programmer. Storing an integer in a type that is
too small to represent it leads to integer overflow. The most common way of representing negative
numbers with signed types is twos complement, although ones complement is also used.[65] Other
common types include Boolean—which is either true or false—and character—traditionally one byte,
sufficient to represent all ASCII characters.[66]

Arrays are a data type whose elements, in many languages, must consist of a single type of fixed
length. Other languages define arrays as references to data stored elsewhere and support elements of
varying types.[67] Depending on the programming language, sequences of multiple characters, called
strings, may be supported as arrays of characters or their own primitive type.[68] Strings may be of
fixed or variable length, which enables greater flexibility at the cost of increased storage space and
more complexity.[69] Other data types that may be supported include lists,[70] associative
(unordered) arrays accessed via keys,[71] records in which data is mapped to names in an ordered
structure,[72] and tuples—similar to records but without names for data fields.[73] Pointers store
memory addresses, typically referencing locations on the heap where other data is stored.[74]
The simplest user-defined type is an ordinal type, often called an enumeration, whose values can be
mapped onto the set of positive integers.[75] Since the mid-1980s, most programming languages also
support abstract data types, in which the representation of the data and operations are hidden from
the user, who can only access an interface.[76] The benefits of data abstraction can include increased
reliability, reduced complexity, less potential for name collision, and allowing the underlying data
structure to be changed without the client needing to alter its code.[77]

Static and dynamic typing

In static typing, all expressions have their types determined before a program executes, typically at
compile-time.[62] Most widely used, statically typed programming languages require the types of
variables to be specified explicitly. In some languages, types are implicit; one form of this is when the
compiler can infer types based on context. The downside of implicit typing is the potential for errors to
go undetected.[78] Complete type inference has traditionally been associated with functional
languages such as Haskell and ML.[79]

With dynamic typing, the type is not attached to the variable but only the value encoded in it. A single
variable can be reused for a value of a different type. Although this provides more flexibility to the
programmer, it is at the cost of lower reliability and less ability for the programming language to check
for errors.[80] Some languages allow variables of a union type to which any type of value can be
assigned, in an exception to their usual static typing rules.[81]

Concurrency

See also: Concurrent computing

In computing, multiple instructions can be executed simultaneously. Many programming languages

support instruction-level and subprogram-level concurrency.[82] By the twenty-first century,
additional processing power on computers was increasingly coming from the use of additional
processors, which requires programmers to design software that makes use of multiple processors
simultaneously to achieve improved performance.[83] Interpreted languages such as Python and Ruby
do not support the concurrent use of multiple processors.[84] Other programming languages do
support managing data shared between different threads by controlling the order of execution of key
instructions via the use of semaphores, controlling access to shared data via monitor, or enabling
message passing between threads.[85]

Exception handling
Main article: Exception handling

Many programming languages include exception handlers, a section of code triggered by runtime
errors that can deal with them in two main ways:[86]

Termination: shutting down and handing over control to the operating system. This option is
considered the simplest.

Resumption: resuming the program near where the exception occurred. This can trigger a repeat of
the exception, unless the exception handler is able to modify values to prevent the exception from
reoccurring.

Some programming languages support dedicating a block of code to run regardless of whether an
exception occurs before the code is reached; this is called finalization.[87]

There is a tradeoff between increased ability to handle exceptions and reduced performance.[88] For
example, even though array index errors are common[89] C does not check them for performance
reasons.[88] Although programmers can write code to catch user-defined exceptions, this can clutter a
program. Standard libraries in some languages, such as C, use their return values to indicate an
exception.[90] Some languages and their compilers have the option of turning on and off error
handling capability, either temporarily or permanently.[91]

Design and implementation

Main article: Programming language design and implementation

One of the most important influences on programming language design has been computer
architecture. Imperative languages, the most commonly used type, were designed to perform well on
von Neumann architecture, the most common computer architecture.[92] In von Neumann
architecture, the memory stores both data and instructions, while the CPU that performs instructions
on data is separate, and data must be piped back and forth to the CPU. The central elements in these
languages are variables, assignment, and iteration, which is more efficient than recursion on these
machines.[93]

Many programming languages have been designed from scratch, altered to meet new needs, and
combined with other languages. Many have eventually fallen into disuse.[citation needed] The birth of
programming languages in the 1950s was stimulated by the desire to make a universal programming
language suitable for all machines and uses, avoiding the need to write code for different computers.
[94] By the early 1960s, the idea of a universal language was rejected due to the differing
requirements of the variety of purposes for which code was written.[95]

Tradeoffs

Desirable qualities of programming languages include readability, writability, and reliability.[96] These
features can reduce the cost of training programmers in a language, the amount of time needed to
write and maintain programs in the language, the cost of compiling the code, and increase runtime
performance.[97]

Although early programming languages often prioritized efficiency over readability, the latter has
grown in importance since the 1970s. Having multiple operations to achieve the same result can be
detrimental to readability, as is overloading operators, so that the same operator can have multiple
meanings.[98] Another feature important to readability is orthogonality, limiting the number of
constructs that a programmer has to learn.[99] A syntax structure that is easily understood and special
words that are immediately obvious also supports readability.[100]

Writability is the ease of use for writing code to solve the desired problem. Along with the same
features essential for readability,[101] abstraction—interfaces that enable hiding details from the
client—and expressivity—enabling more concise programs—additionally help the programmer write
code.[102] The earliest programming languages were tied very closely to the underlying hardware of
the computer, but over time support for abstraction has increased, allowing programmers to express
ideas that are more remote from simple translation into underlying hardware instructions. Because
programmers are less tied to the complexity of the computer, their programs can do more computing
with less effort from the programmer.[103] Most programming languages come with a standard library
of commonly used functions.[104]

Reliability means that a program performs as specified in a wide range of circumstances.[105] Type
checking, exception handling, and restricted aliasing (multiple variable names accessing the same
region of memory) all can improve a program's reliability.[106]

Programming language design often involves tradeoffs.[107] For example, features to improve
reliability typically come at the cost of performance.[108] Increased expressivity due to a large
number of operators makes writing code easier but comes at the cost of readability.[108]

Natural-language programming has been proposed as a way to eliminate the need for a specialized
language for programming. However, this goal remains distant and its benefits are open to debate.
Edsger W. Dijkstra took the position that the use of a formal language is essential to prevent the
introduction of meaningless constructs.[109] Alan Perlis was similarly dismissive of the idea.[110]
Specification

Main article: Programming language specification

The specification of a programming language is an artifact that the language users and the
implementors can use to agree upon whether a piece of source code is a valid program in that
language, and if so what its behavior shall be.

A programming language specification can take several forms, including the following:

An explicit definition of the syntax, static semantics, and execution semantics of the language. While
syntax is commonly specified using a formal grammar, semantic definitions may be written in natural
language (e.g., as in the C language), or a formal semantics (e.g., as in Standard ML[111] and
Scheme[112] specifications).

A description of the behavior of a translator for the language (e.g., the C++ and Fortran specifications).
The syntax and semantics of the language have to be inferred from this description, which may be
written in natural or formal language.

A reference or model implementation, sometimes written in the language being specified (e.g., Prolog
or ANSI REXX[113]). The syntax and semantics of the language are explicit in the behavior of the
reference implementation.

Implementation

Main article: Programming language implementation

An implementation of a programming language is the conversion of a program into machine code that
can be executed by the hardware. The machine code then can be executed with the help of the
operating system.[114] The most common form of interpretation in production code is by a compiler,
which translates the source code via an intermediate-level language into machine code, known as an
executable. Once the program is compiled, it will run more quickly than with other implementation
methods.[115] Some compilers are able to provide further optimization to reduce memory or
computation usage when the executable runs, but increasing compilation time.[116]

Another implementation method is to run the program with an interpreter, which translates each line
of software into machine code just before it executes. Although it can make debugging easier, the
downside of interpretation is that it runs 10 to 100 times slower than a compiled executable.[117]
Hybrid interpretation methods provide some of the benefits of compilation and some of the benefits
of interpretation via partial compilation. One form this takes is just-in-time compilation, in which the
software is compiled ahead of time into an intermediate language, and then into machine code
immediately before execution.[118]

Proprietary languages

Although most of the most commonly used programming languages have fully open specifications and
implementations, many programming languages exist only as proprietary programming languages
with the implementation available only from a single vendor, which may claim that such a proprietary
language is their intellectual property. Proprietary programming languages are commonly domain-
specific languages or internal scripting languages for a single product; some proprietary languages are
used only internally within a vendor, while others are available to external users.[citation needed]

Some programming languages exist on the border between proprietary and open; for example, Oracle
Corporation asserts proprietary rights to some aspects of the Java programming language,[119] and
Microsoft's C# programming language, which has open implementations of most parts of the system,
also has Common Language Runtime (CLR) as a closed environment.[120]

Many proprietary languages are widely used, in spite of their proprietary nature; examples include
MATLAB, VBScript, and Wolfram Language. Some languages may make the transition from closed to
open; for example, Erlang was originally Ericsson's internal programming language.[121]

Open source programming languages are particularly helpful for open science applications, enhancing
the capacity for replication and code sharing.[122]

Use

Thousands of different programming languages have been created, mainly in the computing field.[123]
Individual software projects commonly use five programming languages or more.[124]

Programming languages differ from most other forms of human expression in that they require a
greater degree of precision and completeness. When using a natural language to communicate with
other people, human authors and speakers can be ambiguous and make small errors, and still expect
their intent to be understood. However, figuratively speaking, computers "do exactly what they are
told to do", and cannot "understand" what code the programmer intended to write. The combination
of the language definition, a program, and the program's inputs must fully specify the external
behavior that occurs when the program is executed, within the domain of control of that program. On
the other hand, ideas about an algorithm can be communicated to humans without the precision
required for execution by using pseudocode, which interleaves natural language with code written in a
programming language.

A programming language provides a structured mechanism for defining pieces of data, and the
operations or transformations that may be carried out automatically on that data. A programmer uses
the abstractions present in the language to represent the concepts involved in a computation. These
concepts are represented as a collection of the simplest elements available (called primitives).[125]
Programming is the process by which programmers combine these primitives to compose new
programs, or adapt existing ones to new uses or a changing environment.

Programs for a computer might be executed in a batch process without any human interaction, or a
user might type commands in an interactive session of an interpreter. In this case the "commands" are
simply programs, whose execution is chained together. When a language can run its commands
through an interpreter (such as a Unix shell or other command-line interface), without compiling, it is
called a scripting language.[126]

Measuring language usage

Determining which is the most widely used programming language is difficult since the definition of
usage varies by context. One language may occupy the greater number of programmer hours, a
different one has more lines of code, and a third may consume the most CPU time. Some languages
are very popular for particular kinds of applications. For example, COBOL is still strong in the corporate
data center, often on large mainframes;[127][128] Fortran in scientific and engineering applications;
Ada in aerospace, transportation, military, real-time, and embedded applications; and C in embedded
applications and operating systems. Other languages are regularly used to write many different kinds
of applications.

Various methods of measuring language popularity, each subject to a different bias over what is
measured, have been proposed:

counting the number of job advertisements that mention the language[129]

the number of books sold that teach or describe the language[130]

estimates of the number of existing lines of code written in the language – which may underestimate
languages not often found in public searches[131]

counts of language references (i.e., to the name of the language) found using a web search engine.

Combining and averaging information from various internet sites, [Link] reported the ten most
popular programming languages (in descending order by overall popularity): Java, C, C++, Python, C#,
JavaScript, VB .NET, R, PHP, and MATLAB.[132]

As of June 2024, the top five programming languages as measured by TIOBE index are Python, C++, C,
Java and C#. TIOBE provides a list of top 100 programming languages according to popularity and
update this list every month.[133]

According to IEEE Spectrum staff, today's most popular programming languages may remain dominant
because of how AI works. As a result, new languages will have a harder time gaining popularity since
coders will not write many programs in them.[134]

Dialects, flavors and implementations

A dialect of a programming language or a data exchange language is a (relatively small) variation or

extension of the language that does not change its intrinsic nature. With languages such as Scheme
and Forth, standards may be considered insufficient, inadequate, or illegitimate by implementors, so
often they will deviate from the standard, making a new dialect. In other cases, a dialect is created for
use in a domain-specific language, often a subset. In the Lisp world, most languages that use basic S-
expression syntax and Lisp-like semantics are considered Lisp dialects, although they vary wildly as do,
say, Racket and Clojure. As it is common for one language to have several dialects, it can become quite
difficult for an inexperienced programmer to find the right documentation. The BASIC language has
many dialects.

Classifications

Further information: Categorical list of programming languages

Programming languages can be described per the following high-level yet sometimes overlapping
classifications:[135]

Imperative
An imperative programming language supports implementing logic encoded as a sequence of ordered
operations. Most popularly used languages are classified as imperative.[136]

Functional

A functional programming language supports successively applying functions to the given parameters.
Although appreciated by many researchers for their simplicity and elegance, problems with efficiency
have prevented them from being widely adopted.[137]

Logic

A logic programming language is designed so that the software, rather than the programmer, decides
what order in which the instructions are executed.[138]

Object-oriented

Object-oriented programming (OOP) is characterized by features such as data abstraction, inheritance,

and dynamic dispatch. OOP is supported by most popular imperative languages and some functional
languages.[136]

Markup

Although a markup language is not a programming language per se, it might support integration with a
programming language.

Special

There are special-purpose languages that are not easily compared to other programming languages.
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