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Thesis no:

URI: urn:nbn:se:bth-16837

Programming Languages

Improvements, popularity, and the need of the future

Philip Norlin

Valentin Wannesian

Faculty of Computing

Blekinge Institute of Technology

SE-371 79 Karlskrona Sweden

1 This thesis is submitted to the Faculty of Computing at Blekinge Institute of Technology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the bachelor degree in Software Engineering. The thesis is equivalent to 10 weeks of full time studies. C

ONTACT INFORMATION:

Authors:

Philip Norlin

phille.norlin@gmail.com

Valentin Wannesian

valentin.wanne@gmail.com

University advisor:

Institution of Software Engineering

Faculty of Computing Internet: www.bth.se

Blekinge Institute of Technology Phone: +46 455 38 50

SE-371 79 Karlskrona Sweden Fax: +46 455 38 50 57

2

ABSTRACT

Keywords: programming, languages, characteristics, improvements. Programming languages have come a long way over the past decades and a lot of options are available. To find out where developers want languages to go in the future, and how developers determine what language is suited for their projects. The methods of research were performed using a compiled survey and a interview made for this research as well as external ones complemented with literatures used to crosscheck to determine accountability. Results show that modern languages have improved compared to their predecessors in the terms of syntax, ease of use, and automation. Through large communities, languages have gained popularity from the vast resources available to learn from. Developers have shown their opinions on the future of languages and what they want to see from them. What languages a programmer decides for a project weighs heavily between what they are accustomed to, or what the project requirements limits them too. It was shown that if the programmer would be able to pick a language, it would be based on what they already know. Sticking to what the project's requirements was the most picked option in the survey conducted for the result. Developers want more simplicity, functionality, safety, and compatibility in the future. Through more compatibility with cross platforms, nicer looking code structure with easier to write syntaxes, more complex functionality, and better safety against bad code.

Faculty of Computing Internet: www.bth.se

Blekinge Institute of Technology Phone: +46 455 38 50

SE-371 79 Karlskrona Sweden Fax: +46 455 38 50 57

3

Table of content

Contact Information: 2

Abstract3

1. Introduction 6

1.1 Background 6

1.2 Definitions 6

1.2.1 Developer 6

1.2.2 Business 6

1.2.3 Programming language 6

1.2.4 Memory leak 6

1.2.5 Undefined behavior 6

1.3 Purpose 7

1.4 Scope 7

1.4.1 Limitations 7

1.4.2 Motivation 7

2. Research Questions 8

3. Literature Review 10

3.1.1 Reviews 10

3.1.2 Our Research 12

3.1.3 Conclusion 12

4. Research Method 13

4.1 External data 13

4.2 Survey data 13

4.3 Interview 13

4.4 Research methods 14

4.4.1 Portals 14

4.4.2 Keywords 14

5. Analysis and Results 15

5.1 RQ1 15

5.1.1 The languages 15

5.1.2 Small and noticeable changes 15

5.1.3 Memory management 16

5.5.4 Conclusion 17

5.2 RQ2 18

5.2.1 Survey results 18

5.2.2 The interview 18

Faculty of Computing Internet: www.bth.se

Blekinge Institute of Technology Phone: +46 455 38 50

SE-371 79 Karlskrona Sweden Fax: +46 455 38 50 57

4

5.2.3 Conclusion 19

5.3 RQ3 20

5.3.1 Analysis 20

5.3.2 Result 20

5.3.3 Conclusion 20

5.4 RQ4 21

5.4.1 Analysis 21

5.4.2 Result 21

5.4.3 Conclusion 21

6. Conclusion 23

7. Future Work 24

8. References 25

9. Annexes 27

9.1 Survey 27

9.1.1 Author notes 27

9.1.2 Survey design 27

9.1.3 Survey data 30

9.2 Interview questions and responses 37

9.2.1 What are deciding factors when you choose a language to work with? 37

9.2.2 What is lacking in the languages that we work with today? 37

9.2.3 Is there a language that does things right that others do not, or should be

able to? 37

9.2.4 Is there things you would like to see in future languages (changes,

additions, etc.)? 38

9.2.5 In what direction are we heading when it comes to language design? 38

9.2.6 are newer languages becoming superfluous? 39

9.2.7 Is there an area where limitations force us to design a new language for it?

40

9.2.8 Is there a language you think will replace another? 40

9.2.9 What do you like specifically in a language (feature, syntax, etc.)? 40

Faculty of Computing Internet: www.bth.se

Blekinge Institute of Technology Phone: +46 455 38 50

SE-371 79 Karlskrona Sweden Fax: +46 455 38 50 57

5

1. INTRODUCTION

In this chapter we shortly explain what a programming language is and what kinds there are as well as what differs them in the major sense. We will present some background to give an understanding of how the language situation has evolved and and what we question with the situation. We also present the purpose of this study and its value as well as the scope we intend to cover in an attempt to limit our research to only the that of interest.

1.1 Background

A programming language is a collection of instructions used to create various kinds of outputs from a computer. They are often divided into two major categories, low level and high level. A low level language is machine readable form such as machine code which contains binary code. High level language is human readable form such as Java, and C. Low level language are platform dependent meaning they can run on the same hardware and configuration while high level are platform independent as they can run on different hardware and configuration [12]. From the first high level programming languages of the early 1960s developed by Konrad Zuse [13] to the hundred of choices in 2018, there have been many languages with diverse functionality and usage [14]. New languages are created to increase functionality, to better performance, or solve current problems. How do these languages compare to the older ones? What have they improved? What is it that the developers, that will utilize these languages, really want in the future? As a vast amount of languages have appeared, researching to see why some reach popularity and why some fall in the cracks provide a good historical understanding of the state they are in.

1.2 Definitions

1.2.1 Developer

An individual that creates software and applications.

1.2.2 Business

In the case of this paper, a business will be referring to an organization that works within the IT field either by developing software or managing it.

1.2.3 Programming language

Also referred to as 'language', is a collection of instructions used to create various kinds of outputs from a computer.

1.2.4 Memory leak

A resource which continuously allocates memory, in which the end result could be a program crash due to all memory being in use.

1.2.5 Undefined behavior

When executed code violates the language specification and its behaviour cannot be determined.

Faculty of Computing Internet: www.bth.se

Blekinge Institute of Technology Phone: +46 455 38 50

SE-371 79 Karlskrona Sweden Fax: +46 455 38 50 57

6

1.3 Purpose

The purpose is to provide a basic overview for businesses and developers to research on and get a general understanding of what factors in a language, and opinions that the users have on languages and their usage. As a invaluable source, it allows businesses to better choose a language to support their developers and software, and developers to better identify the pros of a language. The goal for this document is to bring an understanding of what causes a language to become a success, what can developers do to improve upon their languages, and what can be done to make a language attractive to developers. Written in a way that business owners and technologically interested people can understand without much in-depth knowledge on the subject, this paper aims to bring answers to a series of questions regarding comparisons, popularity factors, wants and needs of the language users.

1.4 Scope

This paper is about researching the different factors that affect a programming languages popularity, how the languages have improved compared to their older counterparts, what developers think and want from the future of languages, and how they decide what to use for their projects.

1.4.1 Limitations

The paper will be limited to include programming languages, developers, their opinions, and comparisons between languages, and will focus solely on the languages in their most basic form, not covering external tools, business models, or creators. The comparisons of languages and their improvements compared to their predecessors were limited to C-like languages, mainly because of its legacy and because active languages used today have based their syntax and design on C while also advertising them as being a part of the C-family of languages.

1.4.2 Motivation

The reason for our limitations is because we're covering a large subject and do not have the time or manpower to go through every available language and a very large data set. What we are doing is to skim the top of the programming languages and find out certain details regarding their popularity and the improvements they bring. We also skim the top of the developers opinion on the future of programming languages and what they actually want themselves to see in the future. This is an important topic because it shows what is necessary for a successful language, it gives developers and idea of what is needed to evolve in the future of languages, it allows companies to understand the process of which developers decide the foundation to build software.

Faculty of Computing Internet: www.bth.se

Blekinge Institute of Technology Phone: +46 455 38 50

SE-371 79 Karlskrona Sweden Fax: +46 455 38 50 57

7

2. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

RQ1. How do newer languages compare to their predecessors in regards to what they do better? Comparisons between the new languages and their predecessor are important to determine if a language is superior or has improved. This could be in relation to speed, maintainability, performance, or functionality available. It will assist in being able to tell when a language is better as well as valuable information if previously existing issues have been resolved which can in turn determine if it is a worthwhile investment to change language. The goal of the research here is to find why some are considered better, and what gives them this point. The importance of this is to see if languages have improved over the decades and if they have solved the problems older languages are facing. We expect to find factors between languages that are considered better than their predecessors and counterparts, such as improved performance, nicer syntax, easier maintainability. We hope that we uncover these factors to be able to show that languages are improving and bringing new technology to the table. RQ2. What are the deciding factors for when choosing a programming language for a project? Deciding what programming language to use in a project could have a significant impact on the product. Whether projects want to be easily maintained, implemented fast, or perform at its best relies heavily on what the language is capable of, and the associated binaries that can translate the language to produce functioning and a well performed application. The goal of the research here hopes to answer what the standard thought process are and what results are to be expected once a decision has been made, and what challenges could occur. The importance of this lies in the ability to quickly be able to determine what limits a project when it comes to choice of language and how developers think when deciding the path to take. We expect to find a thought process involving certain factors such as performance, stability, or scalability, when it comes to deciding the language for a project. Due to the different limitations of languages and how requirements for projects differ and don't always match with the developers ability, we want to know how a developer thinks when they decide on a language.

Faculty of Computing Internet: www.bth.se

Blekinge Institute of Technology Phone: +46 455 38 50

SE-371 79 Karlskrona Sweden Fax: +46 455 38 50 57

8 RQ3. Why are some languages more popular than others? A popular language is usually defined by certain factors, a few examples are syntax, accessibility, ease of use, community and security. Finding out why a programming language fades in popularity could help pave the way for making future languages better. How to avoid the same mistakes or to bring better design and market choices to the table, this is highly important to not repeat old mistakes and eventually help filter out 'bad' languages by not giving them the opportunity to grow due to them not having the 'popularity factors'. Our goal is to find out what exactly causes a programming language to gain popularity, whether it is a newly release language, or something that has existed for a while. We expect to find some sort of pattern of popularity and be able to compare it to the less popular ones following the pattern to find if this is true, a pattern could be anything from a language being popular due to its easy syntax and large community, or high complexity and functionality. We believe this to be the case because most popular languages tend to be similar in some ways and being able to pinpoint that detail should be of great benefit to the future languages. RQ4. What is it developers expect and want from newer languages? Developers in all the IT fields are the target audience for these languages so their opinion should be of the highest interest to the language developers, knowing what their user base want will help in bringing quality, features, functionality, and fixing older problems [15]. This is important to allow the evolution of programming languages to head the direction we need it to go. The goal is to provide a small base of information where developers have stated what they expect and want from a language and how they work with them. This is highly important for someone creating a language due to the direct opinion they can focus their work on making the improvements that are necessary to please their user base. We expect to have a collection of information from our survey data and be able to find a common consensus as to what factors, needs, or wants that developers wish to see in the future. Due to us collecting and comparing survey data to other sources we hope that it will help us answer this question as knowing the what the most sought out 'want' with future languages is will be valuable for language developers to bring this to their languages both to increase popularity and open up new avenues for the developers to work with..

Faculty of Computing Internet: www.bth.se

Blekinge Institute of Technology Phone: +46 455 38 50

SE-371 79 Karlskrona Sweden Fax: +46 455 38 50 57

9

3. LITERATURE REVIEW

3.1.1 Reviews

Language & Documentations [20, 21, 22, 23]

Language developers provides documentations and specifications about languages, and hosts them freely on their dedicated developer pages. Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and Google have all provided and update their documentations, even allowing community contributions to create examples which display the language and newer features for every new release they put out. Because the sites hold documentations provided by the developers, and considering that it isquotesdbs_dbs17.pdfusesText_23

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