Why do we need so many programming languages? Why cant we use just one universal language for everything?

Question

the other day I googled " total number of programming languages" and I found out it's around 700 - and counting . So am just curious and want to know how we ended up having so many language. I am computer illiterate. Please do illuminate me.

Answer 1

It is like human languages. Some in english some in russian some in chinese....
And who can force all the people in the world to talk only in one lang?
Elon Musk? Volandemort?

Answer 2

Programing language is a tool. And for diferent tasks there are different tools. For example: doing HTML on assemler is truly hard but possible. But coding hardware driver on JavaScript is hard like impossible.
In other language: of course you can use hammer instead of axe to chope down a tree.... But do it worth it?

Answer 3

Well... look at people, you won't find anyone who is good at everything, and the same goes with programming languages. Each of them is designed for specific purpose, they have "tools" that make them more efficient in specific things. Usually we use JavaScript for websites, Kotlin for Android apps, Swift for iOS apps, C# for desktop apps or games, Python for AI and so on..

Answer 4

I asked my self the some question many times but i found that as that we have to understand the history of computer developpment and the birthday of programming language from low level that deal only with 0 and 1 to hight level semi-understandable by humains.Then i understand why there are so many langs.