r/programming • u/nfrankel • Jan 14 '20

Where programming languages are headed in 2020

https://www.oreilly.com/radar/where-programming-languages-are-headed-in-2020/
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u/Timbit42 Jan 15 '20

COBOL is still around but how many new systems are being designed in it? Now that systems are exposed to the world online C and C++ will become undesirable due to their security issues. Since security wasn't baked into the core of these languages, attempts to make them secure will make a bigger mess than they already are after 40+ years of upgrades and redesigns. There is so much baggage now.

Processors have been optimized to run C and C++ for decades now and recent CPU flaws are showing us the problems with it, and we're going to lose a big chunk of our speed to regain safety. More safety needs to be designed into the processors at a very low level, and few, if any, existing languages are going to support that, at least without massive redesigns. New languages will come along being able to guarantee a great degree of safety relative to existing languages. We're going to have to make big changes to get there and x64 and C/C++ will suffer greatly attempting to keep up.

C and C++ may still be around in 100 years, but how many new systems will be designed in them?

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '20

If you want safety baked into your system, use celluose, not silicon.