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We need more polyglot programmers

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We need more polyglot programmers
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We need more polyglot programmers

Too many developers limit themselves to C++ and Java, in spite of the wealth of exciting new options

Americans have a bad, though deserved, reputation for only speaking one language. Small surprise, then, that the same is often true for American programmers. Today's computer science graduate often leaves school with a strong knowledge of only one programming language -- typically a major systems language, such as Java or C++ -- and goes on to a career based almost exclusively on that language.

On the surface, this makes sense. C++ and Java are both highly versatile, complex tools. Just learning the syntax of either one is nothing compared to the amount of study it takes to become familiar with the whole ecosystem of associated libraries and frameworks. Not to mention that both languages are widely used; if you don't know either one, you cut your chances of getting a coding job dramatically.

[ The now-ubiquitous multicore chips pose new challenges to developers using traditional languages. ]

But a software development field that's based almost exclusively on two languages -- languages that are very similar, for that matter -- is also in danger of stagnating. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis holds that the patterns of human thought are profoundly influenced by the patterns of the language in which the thought is expressed. Linguists disagree as to how strictly this is true of human languages, but for computer programming languages -- which are themselves but restricted subsets of human language -- it seems particularly apt. And yet, while the study of software development has marched forward with concepts such as functional and aspect-oriented programming, mainstream languages have remained tied to the same object-oriented paradigm introduced decades ago.

Outside the mainstream, however, the field is exploding. New programming languages are ...

Original URL
http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/we-need-more-polyglot-programmers-678

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  • Public Comments

    • 7 months ago


      That was an interesting article. I have only barely heard of Axum, and that summary makes a lot of sense as to what it is intended to do. What's interesting is that Axum requires a polyglot approach to programming. I wonder how likely it is to take off?
      The Polyglot Programmer

    • Bent Rasmussen Bent Rasmussen
      7 months ago


      Not sure I'm a fan of polyglot. I'm a fan of language experimentation but also of language integration - like language integrated queries. I see DSL's as a way to rapidly prototype new language constructs and to provide different syntaxes to the same set of semantics - if someone say didn't like the syntax of Haskell, they could provide their own.

      By the way - Twine caching is broken atm - it never updates the main twine view with all these items so the twine appears empty.
      The Polyglot Programmer

      • 7 months ago


        Looks like it's fixed? I also like the approach of internal DSL's; however, I think one can make a case for using multiple languages in a project. Also, how would you define something like IronRuby or IronPython? They are written in C#, so are they DSL's, or are they too far removed?
        The Polyglot Programmer
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