Insights from Language Creators: The Future of Programming Languages

Ryan Dahl – Node.js

Q: What is its main advantage? A: Node.js distinguishes itself with non‑blocking I/O, never allowing the program to be locked. It encourages handling new events continuously, making it ideal for network programming and server‑side development where many concurrent connections must be managed.

Guido van Rossum – Python

Q: Why do some criticize Python for being slow? A: For small, performance‑critical parts of a system, Python can become a bottleneck; in such cases a more efficient language like C or C++ should be used for those sections.

Yukihiro Matsumoto – Ruby

Q: What is the ongoing development goal for Ruby? A: The goal is to make programmers happier, extending joy beyond web developers to embedded and high‑performance programmers. Matsumoto is working on a Ruby subset aimed at mobile devices, slated for release early next year.

Dmitry Jemerov – Kotlin

Q: Why choose Kotlin over Groovy or JRuby? A: While Groovy and JRuby are great for small web apps, Kotlin’s static typing makes it better suited for complex, high‑frequency interactive programs.

Martin Odersky – Scala

Q: What was the original purpose of creating Scala? A: Odersky wanted to combine functional and object‑oriented programming into a single language, offering developers a powerful, complementary tool that leverages the clarity of functional programming and the robustness of OOP for large systems.

Bjarne Stroustrup – C++

Q: When should a programmer choose a native language versus a VM‑based language? A: C++ offers unmatched advantages for infrastructure‑level requirements such as performance, reliability, resource control, and complexity. It is suited for building the core of large services (e.g., Google, Amazon, Facebook) rather than for high‑level web or scripting tasks.

Lars Bak – Dart

Q: If Dart compiles to JavaScript, why not use JavaScript directly? A: Dart runs on its own VM, which starts up and executes faster—up to ten times quicker—making it more suitable for large, complex web applications where startup time matters.

Stefan Karpinski – Julia

Q: What motivated the creation of Julia? A: Julia was designed to provide high efficiency with a simple dynamic language model, eliminating the need to rewrite performance‑critical code in C when working with scientific computing tasks traditionally handled by MATLAB, R, or NumPy.

Rich Hickey – Clojure

Q: Why did you invent Clojure? A: Hickey wanted a dynamic, functional language on the JVM because existing static languages like Java and C# were not well‑suited for functional programming. Clojure enables rapid development of small programs, ideal for startups.

Source: linux爱好者 (InfoWorld translation by 大爱数据)