What is the most beautiful programming language?

Question

The common languages have been around for a long time.

Simply spoken, they are used so much today because everybody knows them and it's convenient, and because it would suck having to rewrite all that old code.

Not necessarily because the language itself is beautiful, right?

Java is often called too verbose, C++ is just big and maybe therefore can be hard to understand, Python, although it wants to simplify things, still reeks quite a bit of C with all its pointers to 'self'...

What language, if we forget its popularity for once, is syntactically and structurally, from the viewpoint of efficiency or expressiveness, the most beautiful language?

And what factors determine such a 'close to ideal' language?

Answer 1

Which is the most beautiful person in the world?

The one you love - right?

It is the same here

Answer 2

Well I found this but it seems to be different people's opinions, which makes me think that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

https://www.quora.com/Which-is-the-most-lovely-programming-language

Answer 3

Sonic you know it :D Haskell has its warts but usually the code is very pretty and terse and you can convey so much information with so little code. Like it's core features (partial application, lazy evaluation, monads, type inference, ...) go such a long way.
The LISPs also deserve a mention, it really doesn't get any more expressive than that. It's the programmable programming language.
Rust has always struck me as really well thought out but I don't use it much.

But if we all agreed on what is beautiful or ideal we wouldn't have so many different languages. :P

(All I know is that PHP isn't)

Answer 4

In my aspect, Java is beautiful programming language. I love java programming.

Answer 5

Ruby because it's clean, it's simple, it's full of syntactic sugar, its key words are like natural language, it's powerful and hides the complexity of its built-ins under short commands.

Answer 6

I'm not surprised that no one nominated PHP, Javascript or C++.

Answer 7

HonFu, this questions can be answer on many points in respect to time limit, syntax, usability, performance and optimization.

1) I have tried first from C language which is beautiful in giving optimization and powerful working in involved with hardware and embedded system programming. It gives fast access while using in any embedded system developement and during designing of compiler C is most prefers language along with assembly subroutines written for library. In game development too it is used for giving support to graphics and making back-end powerful and optimized the game performance. it's syntax and pointer are sometimes hard to understand but it is most powerful language.C also used in socket programming

2) python is one more good language which is made by using C language concepts. Python has big library and most easy syntax used in many places, Artificial intelligence, machine learning, neural networks and it's framework Django used in web scraping and very easy interface for socket programming

Answer 8

From my experience, I like about Python, that it does away with { and ;, that it almost sounds like English, that we don't have to *really* understand computers to use it.

I like that you can solve many problems with one swift movement of your hand, using builtin functionality like all, any, in and the like in combination with slices and comprehensions, making the occasions where you actually have to write a loop rather scarce.

At the same time I *dislike* that it hides the machine that much, that you never compress something you want to do into 'raw' flow control.

So basically I like what I dislike - complicated. 😅

I could write similar things about C, upside down.

I know too little about even the main languages - but let's compare them a bit, maybe Schindi tells us more about Haskell, maybe we cook up our ideal language in this thread (leaving the coding to others).

Answer 9

Python.
It resembles pseudocode so much that people who've had no programming language experience can read Python code and at least assume what it's supposed to do.
It's compact, beautiful, useful👍👍👍☺

Answer 10

3) Ruby is another language which syntax is easy and very good for give result in least time but sometimes it's development can be hard to reduce that the framework ruby on rails is increased its power and code usability so that ruby development can be possible for industry purpose.

4) C# is one of the shining language used in game development and app development. It is also an C family object oriented language used .Net framework and site code for development and vitally used in game development for providing large interactivity and fast run time response in game.

5) kotlin is another language which is used for fast result in least memory cycle uses and in android app development it is used so much.

But in memory uses Go and Pascal is language which uses least memory space for solving task but to use C is still applies as it is used in various fields and give really fast results.

https://thenewstack.io/which-programming-languages-use-the-least-electricity/

Answer 11

I think that whatever we fantasise, there will never be one super language that mostly kills off everything else. Perhaps this is because some variables/aspects of what we consider to be beautiful (brevity, multi-domain applicability, machine level accessibility etc.) might run counter to one another. Occasionally, we may see one language borrowing the features of another or doing things better than another and making the latter redundant just as what JS with ES6 has done to Coffeescript or what Python has done to Perl. But in general, we might always have a host of programming languages. Another reason for why diversity may never die out may simply be due to people's preferences, long term relationship and at times religious-like following of particular languages. Just like the universality of English hasn't completely killed off other Natural languages, Java and Python (or anything else for that matter) won't completely take over the world. And sorry IK this wasn't the original topic of the question.

Answer 12

I bet Schindlabua is going to say Haskell though.

Answer 13

old is gold and gold is beautiful, and what is old, C so C==gold==beautiful

Answer 14

C has a comforting simplicity in that it's a language that consists of "not much" and I feel like I can understand everything that is happening down to the CPU instruction.
(Though I understand it isn't as simple as that)

Simply programming in it makes me want to save space wherever I can, because memory management is always at the forefront of my mind.

Answer 15

Quick AMA:

(False, False)

Answer 16

Okay, guys, I guess I sort of asked for this with my question.

But when I wake up tomorrow, I don't want to read a hundred posts like:

'I like language XY.'

What makes the language of your heart more beautiful than another? What does it better than the competition?

My aim is to find some value here about what makes up a well-designed language!

Schindlabua has made a good start at least *naming* the properties he likes - although many of us including me will have to google what it even means. :)

Anyway: What is a beautiful language?

Answer 17

If you don't like random punctuation symbols in your code then Haskell is right for you, because we don't (typically) use { or ;. Also we don't use () for calling functions:

add 4 3

So clean.
Though some of the libraries get a bit silly with operator names. The lens package has `a <<//~ b`. Am I supposed to know what that does?

I do like that you can define custom operators though.

Answer 18

Wow, completely self-made operators? How do they handle operator precedence?

Answer 19

{ 𝄋 ℒ 𝄋 }, I suppose I may be overly conscious and picky of these details because I'm a grown-up noob who never really coded before his 40th year.

So I may struggle with stuff that doesn't bother younger learners that much, or they don't care. Maybe I'm just slow at picking things up.

Another reason might be that I have a degree in (natural) languages and literature and have spent (unreasonably?) much time pondering the characteristics of written language.

Answer 20

CSS! Obviously!
For looks anyway! For me it is Python, so easy to read!
Ugly? Java and C++
Java is too long and VERY hard for me
C++ is quite messy and unreadable, still better than Java tho