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Top Programming Languages 2025

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Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#411

Post by ttfvjktesd »

ptrhvns wrote: post #384
ttfvjktesd wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, one can see it as another layer of abstraction. Most programmers are not aware of how the assembly code generated from their programming language actually plays out, so they rely on the high-level language as an abstraction of machine code. Now we have an additional layer of abstraction, where we can instruct an LLM in natural language to write the high-level code for us. natural language -> high l…

Assembly is generally generated deterministically. LLM code is not.

Different compiler versions, target architectures, or optimization levels can generate substantially different assembly from the same high-level program. Determinism is thus very scoped, not absolute.

Also almost every software has know unknowns in terms of dependencies that gets permanently updated. No one can read all of its code. Hence, in real life if you compile on different systems (works on my machine) or again but after some time has passed (updates to compiler, os libs, packages) you will get a different checksum for your build with unchanged high level code that you have written. So in theory given perfect conditions you are right, but in practice it is not the case.

There are established benchmarks for code generation (such as HumanEval, MBPP, and CodeXGLUE). On these, LLMs demonstrate that given the same prompt, the vast majority of completions are consistent and pass unit tests. For many tasks, the same prompt will produce a passing solution over 99% of the time.

I would say yes there is a gap in determinism, but it's not as huge as one might think and it's getting closer as time progresses.

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#412

Post by array_key_first »

zabzonk wrote: post #320
qwertyuiop_ wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven’t seen or heard them because they are abstracted away by APIs, circuit breakers and proxies. Almost ALL banks, credit card companies, travel systems and other high throughput transaction systems run on mainframe that is written in COBOL.

I think the issue here is that people working in fintech don't seem to come across these systems much, if at all - if you know one specifically, please tell us.

I worked briefly at a company that wrote applications that interacted with bank mainframes. Think end point bank teller systems and in branch customer/account management. They definitely do exist - every major bank has a mainframe written in (usually) cobol.

But it's very abstracted, part of our main product offering WAS abstracting it. On top of our ready to use applications, we offered APIs for higher-level data retrieval and manipulation. Under the hood, that orchestrates mainframe calls.

But even then that there could be more level of abstractions. Not every bank used screen-level mainframe access. Some used off the shelf mainframe abstractors like JxChange (yes, there's a market for this).

Fintech would be even more abstracted, I imagine. At that point you can only interact with the mainframe a few levels up, but it's still there. Out of sight.

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#413

Post by [deleted] »

kstrauser wrote: post #77
wormius wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HTML is a declarative programming language. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declarative_programming#Domain...

Nah. It’s a declarative language, but not a programming language. To prove me wrong, show an HTML program that does any kind of computation whatsoever. There’s not one. It’s not Turing complete. I doubt it’s even Turing partial. It’s a markup language, not a PL.

[deleted]

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#414

Post by thfuran »

somethingsome wrote: post #402
bitwize wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If code is actually viewed as a tool to express ideas, making it easy to read and figure out should be a goal.

I like programming, I like clean code, so it's something I struggled with when I began research. But actually, producing easy to read code when you don't have specifications, because you don't know yet if the idea will work, and you are discovering problems on that idea as you go doesn't lead to readable code naturally. You refactor all the time, but then something that you misunderstood becomes a concern, and you ne…

But if you are iterating on code and using an LLM without even looking at the code, there's a reasonable chance that when you prompt "okay, now handle factor y also", you end up with code that handles factor y but also handles pre-existing factor x differently for no good reason. And scientific work is probably more likely than average programming to be numerics stuff where seemingly innocuous changes to how things are computed can have significant impacts due to floats being generally unfriendly.

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#415

Post by ratStallion »

melasadra wrote: post #207

Java still so popular after all this time. I've been re-learning java using the excellent University of Helsinki's MOOC course. Was thinking of learning some spring boot and create a small project or two to reinforce what I've learned. However it feels like tutorials for spring boot is of so much lower quality compared to newer language/frameworks like JS/React/Python. Often times it's just a talking head over a powe…

This site has great tutorials for Java and Spring:

https://www.marcobehler.com/courses/spring-professional

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#416

Post by fuzztester »

fuzztester wrote: post #344
yolo3000 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what are the main languages there? Go? Python?

I've read that C++, Java, Python, JavaScript, and recently Golang are the main languages used at Google. Edit: And maybe some Dart and Kotlin too.

And later, I thought I'd check, you know, what Google itself has to say on this: ;)

what are the main programming languages used at Google

Result (unformatted):

AI Overview Google utilizes a diverse set of programming languages across its various products and services. The main programming languages used at Google include:

C++: Widely used for performance-critical applications and system-level programming, such as in the core search engine, Google Chrome, and other backend infrastructure. Java: Essential for Android app development and significant portions of Google's backend systems. Python: Employed for a wide range of tasks including scripting, data analysis, machine learning, and web development (e.g., YouTube). JavaScript: Fundamental for web application development and frontend interactions across Google's web-based services. Go (Golang): Google's own open-source language, increasingly used for cloud-based projects, microservices, and network programming due to its efficiency and concurrency features.

    SQL:
    Crucial for managing and interacting with databases, which are integral to almost all data-driven applications at Google.
While these are the primary languages, Google also utilizes other languages such as Rust (for projects like Fuchsia OS), Kotlin (for Android development), and Dart (for Flutter framework development) for specific use cases and projects. The choice of language often depends on the project's requirements for performance, scalability, development time, and existing infrastructure. Dive deeper in AI Mode AI responses may include mistakes. Learn more

So it looks like the main ones I missed were Rust and SQL.

Dang! I should have thought of SQL, at least for their IT ops, but I was thinking only about their customer-facing apps.

Anyway ...

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#417

Post by melasadra »

stonemetal12 wrote: post #356
ramblerman wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I truly don't understand this on a tech forum. You have 6000 karma, is this a bot interaction to promote votes? How does searching "Helsinki MOOC java" not immediately give you the result you are after?

I copy pasted it in to google. The first result might be it but it says "Please note, that this is a legacy course. ... The course content is also no longer updated or maintained." No hint on how old and moldy it is. Does it teach a relatively recent Java or 1995 Java? So asking if that is the right one doesn't seem out of line.

It teaches Java 8 which is used by most enterprises.

Supposedly enterprises are finally starting to upgrade to Java 17 and 21.

Example : How Netflix Uses Java - 2025 Edition

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpunFFS-n8I&t=4s

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#418

Post by melasadra »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #331
ramblerman wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I truly don't understand this on a tech forum. You have 6000 karma, is this a bot interaction to promote votes? How does searching "Helsinki MOOC java" not immediately give you the result you are after?

I mean :/ Let me be devil's advocate, You have added yet another comment without actually giving a link to that... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFrggyDXdUk&list=PL2s7AeEJ2f... And I mean, I do feel like that as long as they aren't actively harming the "ethos" of hackernews, then we can cut each other a little slack each other I feel like I have sometimes done a disservice like this too to HN where I ask for links…

Interesting, the one I actually used was the text based course hosted by Helsinki U itself.

https://java-programming.mooc.fi/

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#419

Post by somethingsome »

thfuran wrote: post #414
somethingsome wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like programming, I like clean code, so it's something I struggled with when I began research. But actually, producing easy to read code when you don't have specifications, because you don't know yet if the idea will work, and you are discovering problems on that idea as you go doesn't lead to readable code naturally. You refactor all the time, but then something that you misunderstood becomes a concern, and you ne…

But if you are iterating on code and using an LLM without even looking at the code, there's a reasonable chance that when you prompt "okay, now handle factor y also", you end up with code that handles factor y but also handles pre-existing factor x differently for no good reason. And scientific work is probably more likely than average programming to be numerics stuff where seemingly innocuous changes to how things a…

Totally agree, in my experience we are far from having reliable research code based on prompts.

We are clearly not there yet, but I feel that the article is pushing in that direction, maybe to push research in that direction.

There was a long time ago an article from the creators of Mathematica or maple, I don't remember that said something similar. The question was: why do we learn about matrix operations at school, when (modern) tools are able to perform everything. We should teach at school matrix algebra and let students use the software (a little bit like using calculators). This would allow to make children learn more abstract thinking and test way more interesting ideas. (if someone has the reference I'm interested)

I feel the article follow the same lines. But with current tools.

(of course I'm skipping the fact that Mathematica is deterministic in doing algebra, and LLMs are far from it)

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#420

Post by mpalmer »

psychoslave wrote: post #197

> AI assistance means that programmers can concern themselves less and less with the particulars of any language. Sure. Until we need to. Then we face some apparently tiny concern, which is actually deeply intricated with the rest of this whole mess, and we are ready for a ride in the rabbit hole. > most developers today don’t pay much attention to the instruction sets and other hardware idiosyncrasies of the CPUs th…

All they've done is widened the plank over the abyss.
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