this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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Programming

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Why are there so many programming languages? And why are there still being so many made? I would think you would try to perfect what you have instead of making new ones all the time. I understand you need new languages sometimes like quantumcomputing or some newer tech like that. But for pc you would think there would be some kind of universal language. I'm learning java btw. I like programming languages. But was just wondering.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It has been achieved by many different projects: The K framework is probably the closest to a universal language.

There’s also the possibility of formally defining code as an Agda spec which also allows that code to be converted to any other language without adding new bugs.

Then, you have category theory which is literally a universal language that describes ALL processes in a program.

Then you also have lambda calculus which does the same thing.

[–] gnus_migrate 2 points 1 year ago

I mean if youre going to think of it that way any Turing complete language fits the bill, but what I mean by universal is a language you would reach for to solve any problem you have and it would be better than any other language. It's not a computer science problem it's a software engineering problem.