Talk:Programming language

message: It repeats many common places, many of them wrong!, but repeated again, and again, in many programming courses given in basic education based on outdated information. Also many "complete idiot's guide", "learn in N days" or "for dummies" like those in the photo with tech books, repeat again and again.
Many people know some programming language and write code. That does not make then an authority in the subject. However many of them feel they are.
This article seems written from notes taken in basic programming courses.
Has discussions like: How many angels can be in the tip of a needle?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.124.211.115 (talk) 05:53, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: What a pedantic message. Kwiky (talk) 19:04, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article is a total mess! 

message: Wikipedia currently says a "programming language" is "a formal language that specifies a set of instructions that can be used to produce various kinds of output" which is true-ish, but vague. The phrase "various kinds of output" hints at the relevant characteristic, but still doesn't pin it down. Dictionary.com defines a "programming language" as "a high-level language used to write computer programs, as COBOL or BASIC, or, sometimes, an assembly language." This gibberish dances around it for a moment... but it makes no difference whether it is the highest-level symbolic meta-language or lowest-level machine code. An alternate Dictionary.com definition starts getting closer, "a simple language system designed to facilitate the writing of computer programs" but simplicity has nothing to do with it either and this definition still doesn't capture the essence. The important nugget here is the specification of decision making. A "computer language" is any predefined set of symbols and syntax that allows people to communicate with a computer system. But a "programming language" is a language among the broader set of computer languages that specifically enables a person to specify decision-making rules. CPUs make logical (true/false) decisions. The specification of a logical decision-making process is where the rubber meets the road. As example, HTML is a computer language, but not a programming language. If I want my computer's clock to display upside down, but only on Tuesdays, I can't use HTML to accomplish that. Get it? (HTML is really just a data markup language used to specify the metadata and the semantic structure of a Web document.)
Shall I take a crack at rewriting the first paragraph on the "programming language" page and I'll let you all have a look? I won't spend too much time on it unless the community wants me to, so let me know what you think.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dlampton (talk • contribs) 00:39, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Defining the term "programming language" properly 

message: you used some ref names that don't exist in the Abstractions section. Could you please fill those in? -- Fyrael (talk) 21:58, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: @Fyrael Fixed :D Squoop (talk) 00:19, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Broken refs 

message: A recent edit by  corrected  to , but it was reverted by . Using "semantics" as singular is standard in the field, for example:
* 
I favor 's version of this sentence. Freoh (talk) 16:20, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Fine to reinstate it if you like; it looked like a well-meaning but incorrect tweak to me, but you seem to know what you're talking about. Girth Summit (blether) 16:51, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: . Freoh (talk) 17:01, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't know if you noticed, but there were quite a few other tweaks I reverted in that edit - feel free to review them and reinstate if you think I erred. Girth Summit (blether) 17:33, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Semantics" is singular 

message: It would be helpful if there were a small set of "standard" tasks and all pages on programming languages showed how to do them all (e.g., compute prime numbers, compute the squares of the numbers 1 to 10, print "Hello, world!").  Where should I suggest this? LachlanA (talk) 01:00, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Standard examples 

message: Oracle asserting something shouldn't be taken a evidence, needs better sources. FallingPineapple (talk) 02:05, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proprietary section needs better citations 

message: I think this article needs a thorough cleanup.
* The entire article is needlessly verbose.
* A lot of the content is irrelevant or covered in other articles.
* Lots of the information is unsourced and could be original research.
I feel like the article as a whole fails to provide accurate and useful information about programming languages.
I tried to improve the introduction but I'm sure my improvements still have issues...
Could a cleanup tag/tags be added? I'm not an experienced Wikipedian so I'm not sure what needs to be done. Squoop (talk) 01:19, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Your concerns are valid ... but not actionable. Need more detail on what you think is needlessly verbose, irrelevant and unsourced. Stevebroshar (talk) 12:54, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Needs article-wide cleanup? 

message: The source code example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_language#/media/File:C_Hello_World_Program.png mentions that sayHello is a function and in between brackets 'method'. This is not a method, a method is associated with an object/class, C has no classes. 2A02:8389:2200:9F90:B5B9:15B4:D8AA:5901 (talk) 09:54, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source code example's usage of method 

message: *Change the "Taxonomies" section title to "Classification"
*Replace the contents of the "Classification" section, after the further reading link, with:
Programming languages are often placed into four main categories: imperative, functional, logic, and object oriented.
*Imperative languages are designed to implement an algorithm in a specified order; they include visual programming languages such as .NET for generating graphical user interfaces. Scripting languages, which are partly or fully interpreted rather than compiled, are sometimes considered a separate category but meet the definition of imperative languages.
*Functional programming languages work by successively applying functions to the given parameters. Although appreciated by many researchers for their simplicity and elegance, problems with efficiency have prevented them from being widely adopted.
*Logic languages are designed so that the software, rather than the programmer, decides what order in which the instructions are executed.
*Object-oriented programming—whose characteristic features are data abstraction, inheritance, and dynamic dispatch—is supported by most popular imperative languages and some functional languages.
Although markup languages are not programming languages, some have extensions that support limited programming. Additionally, there are special-purpose languages that are not easily compared to other programming languages.
*Add to further reading the following source:
*Reason: a lot of the current text of that section is unsourced, original research, or fails verification. Buidhe paid (talk) 15:17, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: @Buidhe paid @Buidhe I'm personally fine with the changes above, I think going ahead and making these changes are fine, however, I'd like you to comply with PAID and disclose your employer/client/affiliationn on your user page for future reference :) Sohom (talk) 16:18, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks, now done. Buidhe paid (talk) 02:29, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

text: Shadow311 (talk) 16:03, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

text: Both. Sohom (talk) 18:06, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

text: , Sohom (talk) 08:40, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Edit request

message: In computing, multiple instructions can be executed simultaneously. Many programming languages support instruction-level and subprogram-level concurrency. By the twenty-first century, additional processing power on computers was increasingly coming from the use of additional processors, which requires programmers to design software that makes use of multiple processors simultaneously to achieve improved performance. Interpreted languages such as Python and Ruby do not support the concurrent use of multiple processors. Other programming languages do support managing data shared between different threads by controlling the order of execution of key instructions via the use of semaphores, controlling access to shared data via monitor, or enabling message passing between threads.
Buidhe paid (talk) 17:48, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Both. Sohom (talk) 18:06, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Concurrency

message: Many programming languages include exception handlers, a section of code triggered by runtime errors that can deal with them in two main ways: 
*Termination: shutting down and handing over control to the operating system. This option is considered the simplest.
*Resumption: resuming the program near where the exception occurred. This can trigger a repeat of the exception, unless the exception handler is able to modify values to prevent the exception from reoccurring.
Some programming languages support dedicating a block of code to run regardless of whether an exception occurs before the code is reached; this is called finalization.
There is a tradeoff between increased ability to handle exceptions and reduced performance. For example, even though array index errors are common C does not check them for performance reasons.  Although programmers can write code to catch user-defined exceptions, this can clutter a program. Standard libraries in some languages, such as C, use their return values to indicate an exception. Some languages and their compilers have the option of turning on and off error handling capability, either temporarily or permanently.
Thanks Buidhe paid (talk) 19:27, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: , Sohom (talk) 08:40, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Exception handling

message: Please change the content of the "Type system" section, after the hatnote, to:
A data type is a set of allowable values and operations that can be performed on these values. Each programming language's type system defines which data types exist, the type of an expression, and how type equivalence and type compatibility function in the language.
According to type theory, a language is fully typed if the specification of every operation defines types of data to which the operation is applicable. In contrast, an untyped language, such as most assembly languages, allows any operation to be performed on any data, generally sequences of bits of various lengths. In practice, while few languages are fully typed, most offer a degree of typing. 
Because different types (such as integers and floats) represent values differently, unexpected results will occur if one type is used when another is expected. Type checking will flag this error, usually at compile time (runtime type checking is more costly). With strong typing, type errors can always be detected unless variables are explicitly cast to a different type. Weak typing occurs when languages allow implicit casting—for example, to enable operations between variables of different types without the programmer making an explicit type conversion. The more cases in which this type coercion is allowed, the fewer type errors can be detected.  
====Commonly supported types====
Early programming languages often supported only built-in, numeric types such as the integer (signed and unsigned) and floating point (to support operations on real numbers that are not integers). Most programming languages support multiple sizes of floats (often called float and double) and integers depending on the size and precision required by the programmer. Storing an integer in a type that is too small to represent it leads to integer overflow. The most common way of representing negative numbers with signed types is twos complement, although ones complement is also used.  Other common types include boolean—which is either true or false—and character—traditionally one byte, sufficient to represent all ASCII characters. 
Arrays are a data type whose elements, in many languages, must consist of a single type of fixed length. Other languages define arrays as references to data stored elsewhere and support elements of varying types. Depending on the programming language, sequences of multiple characters, called strings, may be supported as arrays of characters or their own primitive type. Strings may be of fixed or variable length, which enables greater flexibility at the cost of increased storage space and more complexity. Other data types that may be supported include lists, associative (unordered) arrays accessed via keys, records in which data is mapped to names in an ordered structure, and tuples—similar to records but without names for data fields. Pointers store memory addresses, typically referencing locations on the heap where other data is stored.
The simplest user-defined type is an ordinal type whose values can be mapped onto the set of positive integers. Since the mid-1980s, most programming languages also support abstract data types, in which the representation of the data and operations are hidden from the user, who can only access an interface. The benefits of data abstraction can include increased reliability, reduced complexity, less potential for name collision, and allowing the underlying data structure to be changed without the client needing to alter its code.
====Static and dynamic typing====
In static typing, all expressions have their types determined before a program executes, typically at compile-time. Most widely used, statically typed programming languages require the types of variables to be specified explicitly. In some languages, types are implicit; one form of this is when the compiler can infer types based on context. The downside of implicit typing is the potential for errors to go undetected. Complete type inference has traditionally been associated with functional languages such as Haskell and ML. 
With dynamic typing, the type is not attached to the variable but only the value encoded in it. A single variable can be reused for a value of a different type. Although this provides more flexibility to the programmer, it is at the cost of lower reliability and less ability for the programming language to check for errors. Some languages allow variables of a union type to which any type of value can be assigned, in an exception to their usual static typing rules.
:I'm a bit worried about the whole article becoming a summarization of this book. This is a really good starting point, but I think we should try to work in other material. Snowmanonahoe (talk · contribs · typos) 13:20, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Edit request 2

message: In static typing, all expressions have their types determined before a program executes, typically at compile-time. Most widely used, statically typed programming languages require the types of variables to be specified explicitly. In some languages, types are implicit; one form of this is when the compiler can infer types based on context. The downside of implicit typing is the potential for errors to go undetected. Complete type inference has traditionally been associated with functional languages such as Haskell and ML. 
With dynamic typing, the type is not attached to the variable but only the value encoded in it. A single variable can be reused for a value of a different type. Although this provides more flexibility to the programmer, it is at the cost of lower reliability and less ability for the programming language to check for errors. Some languages allow variables of a union type to which any type of value can be assigned, in an exception to their usual static typing rules.
:I'm a bit worried about the whole article becoming a summarization of this book. This is a really good starting point, but I think we should try to work in other material. Snowmanonahoe (talk · contribs · typos) 13:20, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Static and dynamic typing

message: Also, please add the following sentence to the end of the "proprietary languages" section: "Open source programming languages are particularly helpful for open science applications, enhancing the capacity for replication and code sharing."
Thanks Buidhe paid (talk) 02:23, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Encoded Talk to me! 13:31, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Edit request 3

message: Please change the content of the article lead (beginning below "use dmy dates" template) to:
A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. 
Programming languages are described in terms of their syntax (form) and semantics (meaning), usually defined by a formal language. Most languages have a type system consisting of different data types (such as integers and strings) and catch type errors where one type is given where another is expected. Many support user-defined types including abstract data types, often used for object-oriented programming. Implementation in the form of a compiler or interpreter allows programs to be translated into machine code and executed.
Computer architecture has strongly influenced the design of programming languages, with the most common type (imperative languages—which implement operations in a specified order) developed to perform well on the popular von Neumann architecture. While early programming languages were closely tied to the hardware, over time, they have developed more abstraction to hide implementation details for greater simplicity. 
Thousands of programming languages—often classified as imperative, functional, logic, or object-oriented—have been developed for a wide variety of uses. Many aspects of programming language design involve tradeoffs—for example, exception handling reduces errors at a performance cost—such that efforts to develop a universal programming language have failed. Programming language theory is the subfield of computer science that studies the design, implementation, analysis, characterization, and classification of programming languages.
Thanks Buidhe paid (talk) 08:57, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: . Thanks for improving the lead. ― novov (t c) 05:01, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Edit request 5

message: Please replace the content of the "History" section, after the hatnote, with:
===Early developments===
The first programmable computers were invented at the end of the 1940s, and with them, the first programming languages. The earliest computers were programmed in first-generation programming languages (1GLs), machine language (simple instructions that could be directly executed by the processor). This code was very difficult to debug and was not portable between different computer systems. In order to improve the ease of programming, assembly languages (or second-generation programming languages—2GLs) were invented, diverging from the machine language to make programs easier to understand for humans, although they did not increase portability.
Initially, hardware resources were scare and expensive, while human resources were cheaper. Therefore, cumbersome languages that were time-consuming to use, but were closer to the hardware for higher efficiency were favored. The introduction of high-level programming languages (third-generation programming languages—3GLs)—revolutionized programming. These languages abstracted away the details of the hardware, instead being designed to express algorithms that could be understood more easily by humans. For example, arithmetic expressions could now be written in symbolic notation and later translated into machine code that the hardware could execute. In 1957, Fortran (FORmula TRANslation) was invented. Often considered the first compiled high-level programming language, Fortran has remained in use into the twenty-first century.
===1960s and 1970s===
Around 1960, the first mainframes—general purpose computers—were developed, although they could only be operated by professionals and the cost was extreme. The data and instructions were input by punch cards, meaning that no input could be added while the program was running. The languages developed at this time therefore are designed for minimal interaction. After the invention of the microprocessor, computers in the 1970s became dramatically cheaper. New computers also allowed more user interaction, which was supported by newer programming languages.
Lisp, implemented in 1958, was the first functional programming language. Unlike Fortran, it supports recursion and conditional expressions, and it also introduced dynamic memory management on a heap and automatic garbage collection. For the next decades, Lisp dominated artificial intelligence applications. In 1978, another functional language, ML, introduced inferred types and polymorphic parameters.
After ALGOL (ALGOrithmic Language) was released in 1958 and 1960, it became the standard in computing literature for describing algorithms. Although its commercial success was limited, most popular imperative languages—including C, Pascal, Ada, C++, Java, and C#—are directly or indirectly descended from ALGOL 60. Among its innovations adopted by later programming languages included greater portability and the first use of context-free, BNF grammar. Simula, the first language to support object-oriented programming (including subtypes, dynamic dispatch, and inheritance), also descends from ALGOL and achieved commercial success. C, another ALGOL descendant, has sustained popularity into the twenty-first century. C allows access to lower-level machine operations more than other contemporary languages. Its power and efficiency, generated in part with flexible pointer operations, comes at the cost of making it more difficult to write correct code. 
Prolog, designed in 1972, was the first logic programming language, communicating with a computer using formal logic notation. With logic programming, the programmer specifies a desired result and allows the interpreter to decide how to achieve it.  
===1980s to present===
During the 1980s, the invention of the personal computer transformed the roles for which programming languages were used. New languages introduced in the 1980s included C++, a superset of C that can compile C programs but also supports classes and inheritance. Ada and other new languages introduced support for concurrency. The Japanese government invested heavily into the so-called fifth-generation languages that added support for concurrency to logic programming constructs, but these languages were outperformed by other concurrency-supporting languages.
Due to the rapid growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web in the 1990s, new programming languages were introduced to support Web pages and networking. Java, based on C++ and designed for increased portability across systems and security, enjoyed large-scale success because these features are essential for many Internet applications. Another development was that of dynamically typed scripting languages—Python, JavaScript, PHP, and Ruby—designed to quickly produce small programs that coordinate existing applications. Due to their integration with HTML, they have also been used for building web pages hosted on servers.
During the 2000s, there was a slowdown in the development of new programming languages that achieved widespread popularity. One innovation was service-oriented programming, designed to exploit distributed systems whose components are connected by a network. Services are similar to objects in object-oriented programming, but run on a separate process. C# and F# cross-pollinated ideas between imperative and functional programming. After 2010, several new languages—Rust, Go, and Swift—competed for the performance-critical software for which C had historically been used.
 
Also, add the following source to the "further reading" section:
*
Reasons: add references, improve summary style, remove unsourced text, fix some MOS:CURRENT issues Buidhe paid (talk) 20:08, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Edit request 6

message: During the 1980s, the invention of the personal computer transformed the roles for which programming languages were used. New languages introduced in the 1980s included C++, a superset of C that can compile C programs but also supports classes and inheritance. Ada and other new languages introduced support for concurrency. The Japanese government invested heavily into the so-called fifth-generation languages that added support for concurrency to logic programming constructs, but these languages were outperformed by other concurrency-supporting languages.
Due to the rapid growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web in the 1990s, new programming languages were introduced to support Web pages and networking. Java, based on C++ and designed for increased portability across systems and security, enjoyed large-scale success because these features are essential for many Internet applications. Another development was that of dynamically typed scripting languages—Python, JavaScript, PHP, and Ruby—designed to quickly produce small programs that coordinate existing applications. Due to their integration with HTML, they have also been used for building web pages hosted on servers.
During the 2000s, there was a slowdown in the development of new programming languages that achieved widespread popularity. One innovation was service-oriented programming, designed to exploit distributed systems whose components are connected by a network. Services are similar to objects in object-oriented programming, but run on a separate process. C# and F# cross-pollinated ideas between imperative and functional programming. After 2010, several new languages—Rust, Go, and Swift—competed for the performance-critical software for which C had historically been used.
 
Also, add the following source to the "further reading" section:
*
Reasons: add references, improve summary style, remove unsourced text, fix some MOS:CURRENT issues Buidhe paid (talk) 20:08, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: 1980s to present

message: — Assignment last updated by KAN2035117 (talk) 22:51, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: IFS213-Hacking and Open Source Culture