Micron Document




List of programming languages by type
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This is a list of notable programming languages, grouped by type.

The groupings are overlapping; not mutually exclusive. A language can be listed in multiple groupings.

Contents

Pure
Impure
Notes

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Agent-oriented programming languages

Agent-oriented programming allows the developer to build, extend and use software agents, which are abstractions of objects that can message other agents.

F#
GOAL
SARL

Array languages

Array programming (also termed vector or multidimensional) languages generalize operations on scalars to apply transparently to vectors, matrices, and higher-dimensional arrays.

A+
Ada
APL
Chapel
Fortran (As of Fortran 90)
GAUSS
J
Julia
K
MATLAB
Octave
Q
R
Rakucite-ref-1[1]
S
Scilab
S-Lang
X10
ZPL

Aspect-oriented programming languages

Aspect-oriented programming enables developers to add new functionality to code, known as "advice", without modifying that code itself; rather, it uses a pointcut to implement the advice into code blocks.

Ada
Groovy
Rakucite-ref-2[2]cite-ref-3[3]

Assembly languages

Assembly languages directly correspond to a machine language (see below), so machine code instructions appear in a form understandable by humans, although there may not be a one-to-one mapping between an individual statement and an individual instruction. Assembly languages let programmers use symbolic addresses, which the assembler converts to absolute or relocatable addresses. Most assemblers also support macros and symbolic constants.

Authoring languages

An authoring language is a programming language designed for use by a non-computer expert to easily create tutorials, websites, and other interactive computer programs.

Lasso
PILOT
TUTOR

Command-line interface languages

Command-line interface (CLI) languages are also called batch languages or job control languages. Examples:

4DOS (shell for IBM PCs)
4OS2 (shell for IBM PCs)
Batch files for DOS and Windows

COMMAND.COM command language for DOS and pre-Windows NT Windows
cmd.exe command language for Windows NT

sh (standard Unix shell, by Stephen R. Bourne) and compatibles

bash (the Bourne-Again shell from GNU)
ksh (a standard Unix shell, written by David Korn)

CLIST (MVS Command List)
csh (C shell, by Bill Joy) and compatibles

tcsh
Hamilton C shell (a C shell for Windows)

DIGITAL Command Language CLI for OpenVMS
EXEC 2
Expect (a Unix automation and test tool)
fish (a Unix shell)
• Nushell (a cross-platform shell)
PowerShell (.NET-based CLI)
rc (shell for Plan 9)
Rexx
zsh (a Unix shell)

Compiled languages

These are languages typically processed by compilers, though theoretically any language can be compiled or interpreted.

ArkTS
Ada (multi-purpose language)

JOVIAL
NELIAC

ALGOL 60 (influential design)

SMALL a Machine ALGOL

Ballerinabytecode runtime
BASIC (including the first version of Dartmouth BASIC)
BCPL
C (widely used procedural language)
C++ (multiparadigm language derived from C)
C# (into CIL runtime)
Ceylon (into JVM bytecode)
CHILL
CLIPPER 5.3 (DOS-based)
CLEO for Leo computers
Clojure (into JVM bytecode)
COBOL
Cobra
Curl
D (from a reengineering of C++)
• DASL→Java, JS, JSP, Flex.war
Delphi (Borland's Object Pascal development system)
DIBOL (a Digital COBOL)
Dylan
Eiffel (developed by Bertrand Meyer)

Sather

Elm
Erlang
Factor
Fortran (first compiled by IBM's John Backus)
GAUSS
Go
Gosu (into JVM bytecode)
Groovy (into JVM bytecode)
HolyC
Inform (usually story files for Glulx or Z-code)
Java (usually JVM bytecode; to machine code)
JOVIAL
Julia (on the fly to machine code)
Kotlin (Kotlin/Native uses LLVM to produce binaries)
Mesa
Nemerle (into intermediate language bytecode)
Nim
P
Pascal (most implementations)
PL/I (originally for IBM mainframes)
Plus
Pony
Python (to intermediate VM bytecode)
RPG (Report Program Generator)
Red
Rust
Scala (into JVM bytecode)
Scheme (e.g. Gambit)
SequenceL – purely functional, parallelizing and race-free
Simula (object-oriented superset of ALGOL 60)
Smalltalk platform independent VM bytecode
Swift
ML

Standard ML (SML)

Alice

OCaml
F# (into CIL, generates runtime)

Turing
Vala (GObject type system)
Visual Basic (CIL JIT runtime)
Xojo
Zig

Concatenative programming languages


Factor
Forth
jq (function application is also supported)
Joy
Raku

Concurrent languages

Message passing languages provide language constructs for concurrency. The predominant paradigm for concurrency in mainstream languages such as Java is shared memory concurrency. Concurrent languages that make use of message passing have generally been inspired by process calculi such as communicating sequential processes (CSP) or the π-calculus.

Ada – multi-purpose language
Alef – concurrent language with threads and message passing, used for systems programming in early versions of Plan 9 from Bell Labs
Ateji PX – an extension of the Java language for parallelism
Ballerina – a language designed for implementing and orchestrating micro-services. Provides a message based parallel-first concurrency model.
ChucK – domain specific programming language for audio, precise control over concurrency and timing
Cilk – a concurrent C
– C Omega, a research language extending C#, uses asynchronous communication
Clojure – a dialect of Lisp for the Java virtual machine
Chapel
Concurrent Pascal (by Brinch-Hansen)
Curry
E – uses promises, ensures deadlocks cannot occur
Eiffel (through the SCOOP mechanism, Simple Concurrent Object-Oriented Computation)
Elixir (runs on the Erlang VM)
Emerald – uses threads and monitors
Erlang – uses asynchronous message passing with nothing shared
Gambit Scheme – using the Termite library
Gleam (runs on the Erlang VM)
Go
Haskell – supports concurrent, distributed, and parallel programming across multiple machines
Java

Join Java – concurrent language based on Java
X10

Julia
Joule – dataflow language, communicates by message passing
Limbo – relative of Alef, used for systems programming in Inferno (operating system)
MultiLispScheme variant extended to support parallelism
OCaml
occam – influenced heavily by Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP)

occam-π – a modern variant of occam, which incorporates ideas from Milner's π-calculus

Orc
Oz – multiparadigm language, supports shared-state and message-passing concurrency, and futures, and Mozart Programming System cross-platform Oz
P
Pony
Pict – essentially an executable implementation of Milner's π-calculus
Python – uses thread-based parallelism and process-based parallelismcite-ref-4[4]
Rakucite-ref-5[5]
Rust
Scala – implements Erlang-style actors on the JVM
SequenceL – purely functional, automatically parallelizing and race-free
SR – research language
XProc – XML processing language, enabling concurrency

Constraint programming languages

A constraint programming language is a declarative programming language where relationships between variables are expressed as constraints. Execution proceeds by attempting to find values for the variables which satisfy all declared constraints.

Claire
CHIP
Oz
Rakucite-ref-6[6]

Curly bracket languages

A curly bracket or curly brace language has syntax that defines a block as the statements between curly brackets, a.k.a. braces, {}. This syntax originated with BCPL (1966), and was popularized by C. Many curly bracket languages descend from or are strongly influenced by C. Examples:

Alef
AWK
ArkTS
B
bc
BCPL
C – developed circa 1970 at Bell Labs
C++
C#
Ceylon
Chapel
ChucK – audio programming language
Cilk – concurrent C for multithreaded parallel programming
Cyclone – a safer C variant
D
Dart
• DASL – based on Java
E

JScript

GLSL
Go
HLSL
Java

Groovy
Kotlin
Tea
X10

Limbo
LPC
MEL
Nemerle (curly braces optional)cite-ref-nemerle-offside-7-0[7]
PCASTL
Perl
PHP
Pico
Pike
R
Raku
Rust
S-Lang
Scala (curly-braces optional)
sed
Soliditycite-ref-8[8]
Swift
Yorick
YASS
Zig

Dataflow languages

Dataflow programming languages rely on a (usually visual) representation of the flow of data to specify the program. Frequently used for reacting to discrete events or for processing streams of data. Examples of dataflow languages include:

BMDFM
• G (used in LabVIEW)
Lucid
Max
Oz
VEE
VHDL
VisSim
Vvvv

Data-oriented languages

Data-oriented languages provide powerful ways of searching and manipulating the relations that have been described as entity relationship tables which map one set of things into other sets. Examples of data-oriented languages include:

dBase a relational database access language
MUMPS (an ANSI standard general-purpose language with specializations for database work)
Caché ObjectScript (a proprietary superset of MUMPS)
RDQL
SPARQL
SQL
Visual FoxPro – a native RDBMS engine, object-oriented, RAD

Decision table languages

Decision tables can be used as an aid to clarifying the logic before writing a program in any language, but in the 1960s a number of languages were developed where the main logic is expressed directly in the form of a decision table, including:


Declarative languages

Declarative languages express the logic of a computation without describing its control flow in detail. Declarative programming stands in contrast to imperative programming via imperative programming languages, where control flow is specified by serial orders (imperatives). (Pure) functional and logic-based programming languages are also declarative, and constitute the major subcategories of the declarative category. This section lists additional examples not in those subcategories.

Curry
Cypher
• Distributed Application Specification Language (DASL) (combine declarative programming and imperative programming)
ECL
Lustre
Nix
Prolog
QML
Oz
RDQL
SequenceL – purely functional, automatically parallelizing and race-free
SPARQL
SQL (Only DQL, not DDL, DCL, and DML)
• WOQL (TerminusDB)
xBase

Embeddable languages

In source code

Source embeddable languages embed small pieces of executable code inside a piece of free-form text, often a web page.

Client-side embedded languages are limited by the abilities of the browser or intended client. They aim to provide dynamism to web pages without the need to recontact the server.

Server-side embedded languages are much more flexible, since almost any language can be built into a server. The aim of having fragments of server-side code embedded in a web page is to generate additional markup dynamically; the code itself disappears when the page is served, to be replaced by its output.

Server side

PHP
Tcl – server-side in NaviServer and an essential component in electronics industry systems

The above examples are particularly dedicated to this purpose. A large number of other languages, such as Erlang, Scala, Perl, Ring and Ruby can be adapted (for instance, by being made into Apache modules).

Client side
In object code

A wide variety of dynamic or scripting languages can be embedded in compiled executable code. Basically, object code for the language's interpreter needs to be linked into the executable. Source code fragments for the embedded language can then be passed to an evaluation function as strings. Application control languages can be implemented this way, if the source code is input by the user. Languages with small interpreters are preferred.

Ch
• EEL
Io
jq (C and Go)
Julia
Lua
Luau
Python
Ring
Ruby (via mruby)
Tcl

Educational programming languages

Languages developed primarily for the purpose of teaching and learning of programming.

Alice
COMAL
Elan
Ezhil
Logo
Pascal
Racket
Scheme
Snap!
Turing

Esoteric languages

An esoteric programming language is a programming language designed as a test of the boundaries of computer programming language design, as a proof of concept, or as a joke.

Chef
Piet

Extension languages

Extension programming languages are languages embedded into another program and used to harness its features in extension scripts.

AutoLISP (specific to AutoCAD)
CAL
C/AL (C/SIDE)
Guile
JavaScript and some dialects, e.g., JScript
Lua (embedded in many games)
OpenCL (extension of C and C++ to use the GPU and parallel extensions of the CPU)
OptimJ (extension of Java with language support for writing optimization models and powerful abstractions for bulk data processing)
Perl
Pike
Python (embedded in Maya, Blender, and other 3-D animation packages)
Rexx
Ring
Ruby (Google SketchUp)
S-Lang
SQL
Tcl
Vim script (vim)

Fourth-generation languages

Fourth-generation programming languages are high-level programming languages built around database systems. They are generally used in commercial environments.

ABAP
CSC's GraphTalk
CA-IDEAL (Interactive Development Environment for an Application Life) for use with CA-DATACOM/DB
Easytrieve report generator (now CA-Easytrieve Plus)
FOCUS
LiveCode (Not based on a database; still, the goal is to work at a higher level of abstraction than 3GLs.)
MAPPER (Unisys/Sperry) – now part of BIS
MARK-IV (Sterling/Informatics) now VISION:BUILDER of CA
SAS
SQL
Ubercode (VHLL, or Very-High-Level Language)
xBase

Functional languages

Functional programming languages define programs and subroutines as mathematical functions and treat them as first-class. Many so-called functional languages are "impure", containing imperative features. Many functional languages are tied to mathematical calculation tools. Functional languages include:

Pure

Agda
Clean
Curry
Elm
Hope
Idris
Joy
jq (but functions are 2nd class)
Lean
Pure
Ur
KRC
Rocq (previously known as Coq)
SAC
SASL

Impure

APL
ATS
CAL
C++ (since C++11)
C#
VB.NET
Ceylon
Curl
D
Dart

JScript
Source
ArkTS

Erlang

Elixir
Gleam
LFE

• Fexl
Flix
Groovy
Hop
J
Julia
Kotlin
Lisp

Clojure
Dylan
LFE
Logo
Racket
Scheme

Guile

Tea

ML

Standard ML (SML)

Alice

OCaml
F#

Nim
Opal
OPS5
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Raku
Rebol
Red
Ring
Ruby
REFAL
Rust
Scala
Swift
Tcl

Hardware description languages

In electronics, a hardware description language (HDL) is a specialized computer language used to describe the structure, design, and operation of electronic circuits, and most commonly, digital logic circuits. The two most widely used and well-supported HDL varieties used in industry are Verilog and VHDL. Hardware description languages include:

HDLs for analog circuit design

Verilog-AMS (Verilog for Analog and Mixed-Signal)
VHDL-AMS (VHDL with Analog/Mixed-Signal extension)

HDLs for digital circuit design
Imperative languages

Imperative programming languages may be multi-paradigm and appear in other classifications. Here is a list of programming languages that follow the imperative paradigm:

Ada

JOVIAL
NELIAC

ALGOL 60 (very influential language design)
BASIC
C
C++
C#
Ceylon
CHILL
COBOL
D
Dart

JScript
Source

GAUSS
Go
Groovy
Icon
Java
Julia
Lua
MATLAB
MUMPS
Nim
OCaml
Oberon
Open Object Rexx (ooRexx)
Pascal
Perl
PHP
PL/I
PL/S
PROSE
Python
Raku
Rexx
Ring
Ruby
Rust
SETL
Swift
Tcl

Interactive mode languages

Known as REPL - Interactive mode languages act as a kind of shell: expressions or statements can be entered one at a time, and the result of their evaluation seen immediately.

APL
BASIC (some dialects)
Dart (with Observatory or Dartium's developer tools)

JScript
Source
ArkTS

Erlang
Elixir (with iex)
F#
Fril
GAUSS
Groovy
Guile
Haskell (with the GHCi or Hugs interpreter)
IDL
J
Java (since version 9)
Julia
Lua
MUMPS (an ANSI standard general-purpose language)
Maple
MATLAB
ML
Nim (with INim)
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Pike
PowerShell (.NET-based CLI)
Prolog
Python
PROSE
R
Raku
Rebol
Red
Rexx
Ring
Ruby (with IRB)
Scala
Scheme
Smalltalk (anywhere in a Smalltalk environment)
S-Lang (with the S-Lang shell, slsh)
Swift
Tcl (with the Tcl shell, tclsh)

Interpreted languages

Interpreted languages are programming languages in which programs may be executed from source code form, by an interpreter. Theoretically, any language can be compiled or interpreted, so the term interpreted language generally refers to languages that are usually interpreted rather than compiled.

Ant
APL
AutoHotkey scripting language
AutoIt scripting language
BASIC (some dialects)
Programming Language for Business (PL/B, formerly DATABUS, later versions added optional compiling)
Eiffel (via Melting Ice Technology in EiffelStudio)
FOCAL
Groovy
J
jq
Julia (compiled on the fly to machine code, by default, interpreting also available)
Lisp (early versions, pre-1962, and some experimental ones; production Lisp systems are compilers, but many of them still provide an interpreter if needed)
LPC
Lua
MUMPS (an ANSI standard general-purpose language)
Maple
MATLAB
OCaml
Pascal (early implementations)
PCASTL
Perl
PHP
PROSE
Python
Rexx
R
Raku
Rebol
Red
Ring
Ruby
S-Lang
Seed7
Standard ML (SML)
Spin
Tcl
Tea
Windows PowerShell.NET-based CLI
• Some scripting languages – below

Iterative languages

Iterative languages are built around or offering generators.

Aldor
C++
C#
CLU
Cobra
ECMAScript (ES6+)
Eiffel, through "agents"
Icon
IPL-v
jq
Julia
Lua
Nim
PHP
Python
Rakucite-ref-9[9]
Sather

Languages by memory management type

Garbage collected languages

Garbage Collection (GC) is a form of automatic memory management. The garbage collector attempts to reclaim memory that was allocated by the program but is no longer used.

APL
C#
Clean
Dart

JScript
Source

Erlang
Go
Groovy
Java
Julia
Kotlin
Lisp (originator)

Arc
Clojure
Dylan
Guile
Racket
Scheme
Logo

Lua
ML

Standard ML (SML)

Alice

OCaml

Perl
PHP
Python
Ring
Ruby

Languages with manual memory management

Assembly (various)
BLISS
C
C++
Forth
Oberon
Pascal
PL/I
Zig

Languages with optional manual memory management

Adacite-ref-11[a]
Blitz BASICcite-ref-12[11]cite-ref-13[12]cite-ref-14[13]
COBOLcite-ref-15[14]cite-ref-16[15]cite-ref-17[16]
Dcite-ref-18[17]
Nimcite-ref-19[18]
Objective-Ccite-ref-20[19]
PostScriptcite-ref-22[b]
Rustcite-ref-23[21]
Vcite-ref-24[22]
Valacite-ref-25[23]

Some programming languages without the inherent ability to manually manage memory, like Cython,cite-ref-26[24] Swift,cite-ref-27[c] and Scalacite-ref-28[25] (Scala Native only), are able to import or call functions like malloc and free from C through a foreign function interface.

Languages with deterministic memory management

Ada
C
C++
Nim
Pascal
Rustcite-ref-29[26]cite-ref-30[27]
Zig

Languages with automatic reference counting (ARC)

Nim
Perl
Swift
Xojo

List-based languages – LISPs

List-based languages are a type of data-structured language that are based on the list data structure.

Lisp

Arc
Clojure
Dylan
Guile
Racket
Scheme
Logo

Joy
R
Source
Tcl

Tea

TRAC

Little languages

Little languagescite-ref-31[28] serve a specialized problem domain.

awk – used for text file manipulation.
sed – parses and transforms text
SQL – has only a few keywords and not all the constructs needed for a full programming languagecite-ref-32[d] – many database management systems extend SQL with additional constructs as a stored procedure language

Logic-based languages

Logic-based languages specify a set of attributes that a solution must-have, rather than a set of steps to obtain a solution.

Notable languages following this programming paradigm include:

ALF
Alma-0
Curry
Fril
Flix (a functional programming language with first-class Datalog constraints)
Janus
λProlog (a logic programming language featuring polymorphic typing, modular programming, and higher-order programming)
Oz, and Mozart Programming System cross-platform Oz
Prolog (formulates data and the program evaluation mechanism as a special form of mathematical logic called Horn logic and a general proving mechanism called logical resolution)

Mercury (based on Prolog)
Visual Prolog (object-oriented Prolog extension)

ROOP

Machine languages

Machine languages are directly executable by a computer's CPU. They are typically formulated as bit patterns, usually represented in octal or hexadecimal. Each bit pattern causes the circuits in the CPU to execute one of the fundamental operations of the hardware. The activation of specific electrical inputs (e.g., CPU package pins for microprocessors), and logical settings for CPU state values, control the processor's computation. Individual machine languages are specific to a family of processors; machine-language code for one family of processors cannot run directly on processors in another family unless the processors in question have additional hardware to support it (for example, DEC VAX processors included a PDP-11 compatibility mode). They are (essentially) always defined by the CPU developer, not by 3rd parties.cite-ref-33[e] The symbolic version, the processor's assembly language, is also defined by the developer, in most cases. Some commonly used machine code instruction sets are:

RISC-V
ARM

• Original 32-bit
• 16-bit Thumb instructions (subset of registers used)
64-bit (major architecture change)

DEC:

16-bit: PDP-11 (influenced VAX and M68000)
• 32-bit: VAX
• 64-bit: Alpha



x86:

16-bit x86, first used in the Intel 8086

Intel 8086 and 8088 (the latter was used in the first and early IBM PC)
Intel 80286 (the first x86 processor with protected mode, used in the IBM PC AT)

IA-32, introduced in the 80386
x86-64 – The original specification was created by AMD. There are vendor variants, but they're essentially the same:

AMD's AMD64


• Burroughs B5000 instruction set

IBMcite-ref-submodels-34-0[f]

305
650
701
702, 705 and 7080
704, 709, 7040, 7044, 7090, 7094
1400 series, 7010
7030
7070, 7072, 7074
System/360 and successors, including z/Architecture

MIPS
Motorola 68000 series (CPUs used in early Macintosh and early Sun computers)

6510 (CPU for Commodore 64)

POWER, first used in the IBM RS/6000

PowerPC – used in Power Macintosh and in many game consoles, particularly of the seventh generation.
Power ISA – an evolution of PowerPC.

UNIVACcite-ref-submodels-34-1[f]

• 30-bit computers: 490, 492, 494, 1230
36-bit computers

1101, 1103, 1105


Macro languages

Textual substitution macro languages

Macro languages transform one source code file into another. A "macro" is essentially a short piece of text that expands into a longer one (not to be confused with hygienic macros), possibly with parameter substitution. They are often used to preprocess source code. Preprocessors can also supply facilities like file inclusion.

Macro languages may be restricted to acting on specially labeled code regions (pre-fixed with a # in the case of the C preprocessor). Alternatively, they may not, but in this case it is still often undesirable to (for instance) expand a macro embedded in a string literal, so they still need a rudimentary awareness of syntax. That being the case, they are often still applicable to more than one language. Contrast with source-embeddable languages like PHP, which are fully featured.

cpp (the C preprocessor)
m4 (originally from AT&T, bundled with Unix)
ML/I (general-purpose macro processor)
TTM (developed at the California Institute of Technology)

Application macro languages

Scripting languages such as Tcl and ECMAScript (ActionScript, ECMAScript for XML, JavaScript, JScript) have been embedded into applications. These are sometimes called "macro languages", although in a somewhat different sense to textual-substitution macros like m4.

Metaprogramming languages

Metaprogramming is the writing of programs that write or manipulate other programs, including themselves, as their data or that do part of the work that is otherwise done at run time during compile time. In many cases, this allows programmers to get more done in the same amount of time as they would take to write all the code manually.

C++
CWIC
Curl
D
Elixir
F#
Groovy
Julia
Lisp
Lua
META II (and META I, a subset)
• MetaOCaml
Nim
Perl
Python
Rakucite-ref-35[29]
Red
Ring
Ruby
Rustcite-ref-36[30]
Scheme
Source

Multiparadigm languages

Multiparadigm languages support more than one programming paradigm. They allow a program to use more than one programming style. The goal is to allow programmers to use the best tool for a job, admitting that no one paradigm solves all problems in the easiest or most efficient way.

1C:Enterprise programming language (generic, imperative, object-oriented, prototype-based, functional)
Alma-0 (constraint, imperative, logic)
APL (functional, imperative, object-oriented (class-based))
BETA (functional, imperative, object-oriented (class-based))
C++ (generic, imperative, object-oriented (class-based), functional, metaprogramming)
C# (generic, imperative, object-oriented (class-based), functional, declarative)
Ceylon (generic, imperative, object-oriented (class-based), functional, declarative)
ChucK (imperative, object-oriented, time-based, concurrent, on-the-fly)
Cobra (generic, imperative, object-oriented (class-based), functional, contractual)
Common Lisp (functional, imperative, object-oriented (class-based), aspect-oriented (user may add further paradigms, e.g., logic))
Curl (functional, imperative, object-oriented (class-based), metaprogramming)
Curry (concurrent, functional, logic)
D (generic, imperative, functional, object-oriented (class-based), metaprogramming)
Dart (generic, imperative, functional, object-oriented (class-based))
Delphi Object Pascal (generic, imperative, object-oriented (class-based), metaprogramming)
Dylan (functional, object-oriented (class-based))
ECMAScript (functional, imperative, object-oriented (prototype-based))

JScript

Eiffel (imperative, object-oriented (class-based), generic, functional (agents), concurrent (SCOOP))
F# (functional, generic, object-oriented (class-based), language-oriented)
Fantom (functional, object-oriented (class-based))
Go (imperative, procedural),
Groovy (functional, object-oriented (class-based), imperative, procedural)
Hop
J (functional, imperative, object-oriented (class-based))
Java (generic, imperative, object-oriented (class-based), functional)
Julia (imperative, multiple dispatch ("object-oriented"), functional, metaprogramming)
LabVIEW (visual, dataflow, concurrent, modular, functional, object-oriented, scripting)
Lua (functional, imperative, object-oriented (prototype-based))
Mercury (functional, logical, object-oriented)
Metaobject protocols (object-oriented (class-based, prototype-based))
Nemerle (functional, object-oriented (class-based), imperative, metaprogramming)
Objective-C (imperative, object-oriented (class-based), reflective)
OCaml (functional, imperative, object-oriented (class-based), modular)
Oz (functional (evaluation: eager, lazy), logic, constraint, imperative, object-oriented (class-based), concurrent, distributed), and Mozart Programming System cross-platform Oz
Object Pascal (imperative, object-oriented (class-based))
Perl (imperative, functional (can't be purely functional), object-oriented, class-oriented, aspect-oriented (through modules))
PHP (imperative, object-oriented, functional (can't be purely functional))
Pike (interpreted, general-purpose, high-level, cross-platform, dynamic programming language )
Prograph (dataflow, object-oriented (class-based), visual)
Python (functional, compiled, interpreted, object-oriented (class-based), imperative, metaprogramming, extension, impure, interactive mode, iterative, reflective, scripting)
R (array, interpreted, impure, interactive mode, list-based, object-oriented prototype-based, scripting)
Racket (functional, imperative, object-oriented (class-based) and can be extended by the user)
Raku (concurrent, concatenative, functional, metaprogramming generic, imperative, reflection object-oriented, pipelines, reactive, and via libraries constraints, distributed)
Rebol (functional, imperative, object-oriented (prototype-based), metaprogramming (dialected))
Red (functional, imperative, object-oriented (prototype-based), metaprogramming (dialected))
ROOP (imperative, logic, object-oriented (class-based), rule-based)
Ring (imperative, functional, object-oriented (class-based), metaprogramming, declarative, natural)
Ruby (imperative, functional, object-oriented (class-based), metaprogramming)
Rust (concurrent, functional, imperative, object-oriented, generic, metaprogramming, compiled)
Scala (functional, object-oriented)
Seed7 (imperative, object-oriented, generic)
SISAL (concurrent, dataflow, functional)
Spreadsheets (functional, visual)
Swift (protocol-oriented, object-oriented, functional, imperative, block-structured)
Tcl (functional, imperative, object-oriented (class-based))

Tea (functional, imperative, object-oriented (class-based))

V (Vlang) (functional, imperative, procedural, structured, concurrent)
Windows PowerShell (functional, imperative, pipeline, object-oriented (class-based))

Numerical analysis

Several general-purpose programming languages, such as C and Python, are also used for technical computing, this list focuses on languages almost exclusively used for technical computing.

Non-English-based languages

Chinese BASIC (Chinese)
Fjölnir (Icelandic)
Rapira (Russian)
ezhil (Tamil)

Object-oriented class-based languages

Class-based object-oriented programming languages support objects defined by their class. Class definitions include member data. Message passing is a key concept, if not the main concept, in object-oriented languages.

Polymorphic functions parameterized by the class of some of their arguments are typically called methods. In languages with single dispatch, classes typically also include method definitions. In languages with multiple dispatch, methods are defined by generic functions. There are exceptions where single dispatch methods are generic functions (e.g. Bigloo's object system).

Multiple dispatch

Cecil
Dylan
Juliacite-ref-37[g]
Rakucite-ref-38[31]

Single dispatch

Actor
Ada 95 and Ada 2005 (multi-purpose language)
APL
BETA
C++
C#
Ceylon
Dart
Oxygene (formerly named Chrome)
ChucK
Cobra
Curl
D
• Distributed Application Specification Language (DASL)
E
GNU E
Eiffel

Sather

Gambas
J
Java

Groovy
Tea
X10

Lua
Modula-2 (data abstraction, information hiding, strong typing, full modularity)

Modula-3 (added more object-oriented features to Modula-2)

Oberon-2 (full object-orientation equivalence in an original, strongly typed, Wirthian manner)
Objective-C (a superset of C adding a Smalltalk derived object model and message passing syntax)
OCaml
Perl 5
PHP
Pike
Python (interpretive language, optionally object-oriented)
Revolution (programmer does not get to pick the objects)
Ring
Ruby
Scala
Simula (first object-oriented language, developed by Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard)
Smalltalk (pure object-orientation, developed at Xerox PARC)

Pharo
Squeak

Scratch


SPIN
VBScript (Microsoft Office 'macro scripting' language)
X++
Xojo
XOTcl

Object-oriented prototype-based languages

Prototype-based languages are object-oriented languages where the distinction between classes and instances has been removed:

Actor-Based Concurrent Language (ABCL, ABCL/1, ABCL/R, ABCL/R2, ABCL/c+)
Agora
Cecil

JavaScript (first named Mocha, then LiveScript)
JScript

Etoys in Squeak
Io
Lua
MOO
Obliq
R
Rebol
Red
Self (first prototype-based language, derived from Smalltalk)
TADS

Off-side rule languages

Off-side rule languages denote blocks of code by their indentation.

ISWIM, the abstract language that introduced the rule
ABC, Python's parent

Python

Cobra
Boo

Miranda, Haskell's parent

Orwell
Haskell

Curry

Elixir (, do: blocks)
F#
Nemerle (off-side optional)cite-ref-nemerle-offside-7-1[7]
Nim
Occam
SPIN
Scala (off-side optional)

Procedural languages

Procedural programming languages are based on the concept of the unit and scope (the data viewing range) of an executable code statement. A procedural program is composed of one or more units or modules, either user coded or provided in a code library; each module is composed of one or more procedures, also called a function, routine, subroutine, or method, depending on the language. Examples of procedural languages include:

Ada (multi-purpose language)

JOVIAL
NELIAC

ALGOL 60 (very influential language design)

SMALL Machine ALGOL Like Language

Alma-0
BASIC (these lack most modularity in (especially) versions before about 1990)
BCPL
BLISS
C
C++
C# (similar to Java/C++)
Ceylon
CHILL
ChucK (C/Java-like syntax, with new syntax elements for time and parallelism)
COBOL
Cobra
CPL (Combined Programming Language)
Curl
D
• Distributed Application Specification Language (DASL) (combine declarative programming and imperative programming)

JavaScript (first named Mocha, then LiveScript)
JScript
Source

Eiffel
Forth
Fortran (better modularity in later Standards)

F

GAUSS
Go
Java

Groovy
Tea

JOVIAL
Julia
Lasso
Modula-2 (fundamentally based on modules)
MATLAB
Mesa
MUMPS (first release was more modular than other languages of the time; the standard has become even more modular since then)
Nim
Oberon, Oberon-2 (improved, smaller, faster, safer follow-ons for Modula-2)

Seneca

OCaml
Occam
Oriel
Pascal (successor to ALGOL 60, predecessor of Modula-2)

Free Pascal (FPC)

PCASTL
Perl
Pike
PL/C
PL/I (large general-purpose language, originally for IBM mainframes)
Plus
PROSE
Python
R
Raku
Rapira
RPG
Rust
S-Lang

Query languages

Reflective languages

Reflective programming languages let programs examine and possibly modify their high-level structure at runtime or compile-time. This is most common in high-level virtual machine programming languages like Smalltalk, and less common in lower-level programming languages like C. Languages and platforms supporting reflection:

Ceylon
Charm
ChucK
CLI

C#

Cobra
Curl
Cypher

JScript

Eiffel
Julia
JVM

Java
Groovy
X10

Lisp

Clojure
Dylan
Logo
Scheme

Lua
Oberon-2 – ETH Oberon System
PCASTL
Perl
PHP
Pico
Poplog

POP-11

Prolog
Python
Rakucite-ref-39[32]
Rebol
Red
Ring
Ruby
Smalltalk (pure object-orientation, originally from Xerox PARC)

Self
Squeak

SNOBOL
Tcl
XOTcl
X++
Xojo

Rule-based languages

Rule-based languages instantiate rules when activated by conditions in a set of data. Of all possible activations, some set is selected and the statements belonging to those rules execute. Rule-based languages include:

awk
CLIPS
Claire
Drools
Jess
OPS5
Prolog
ToonTalk – robots are rules
XSLT

Scripting languages

AutoIt
AWK
bc
Ch (Embeddable C/C++ interpreter)
CLI

C# (compiled to bytecode, and running JIT inside VM)

CLIST

JavaScript (first named Mocha, then LiveScript)
JScript
Source

EXEC 2
Io
JASS
Julia (compiled on the fly to machine code, by default, interpreting also available)
JVM

Groovy

Lasso
Lua
MEL
Oriel
Perl
PHP (intended for Web servers)
Python
R
Raku
Rebol
Red
Rexx

Object REXX (OREXX, OOREXX)

Ring
Ruby
RUNCOM (scripting language for running CTSS) programs)
S-Lang
sed
Tea
Tcl
• Many shell command languages have powerful scripting abilities:

sh and compatibles

Ksh
Bash

DIGITAL Command Language (DCL) on VMS
PowerShell (.NET-based CLI)

Stack-based languages

Stack-based languages are a type of data-structured language that are based on the stack data structure.

Factor
Forth
Joy (all functions work on parameter stacks instead of named parameters)
Piet
Poplog via its implementation language POP-11
RPL
S-Lang

Synchronous languages

Synchronous programming languages are optimized for programming reactive systems, systems that are often interrupted and must respond quickly. Many such systems are also called realtime systems, and are used often in embedded systems.

Examples:

Argus
Lustre
Signal

Shading languages

A shading language is a graphics programming language adapted to programming shader effects. Such language forms usually consist of special data types, like "color" and "normal". Due to the variety of target markets for 3D computer graphics.

Real-time rendering

They provide both higher hardware abstraction and a more flexible programming model than previous paradigms which hardcoded transformation and shading equations. This gives the programmer greater control over the rendering process and delivers richer content at lower overhead.

Adobe Graphics Assembly Language (AGAL)cite-ref-40[33]
ARB assembly language (ARB assembly)
OpenGL Shading Language (GLSL or glslang)
High-Level Shading Language (HLSL) or DirectX Shader Assembly Language
Cg

Offline rendering

Shading languages used in offline rendering produce maximum image quality. Processing such shaders is time-consuming. The computational power required can be expensive because of their ability to produce photorealistic results.


Syntax-handling languages

These languages assist with generating lexical analyzers and parsers for context-free grammars.

ANTLR
Coco/R (EBNF with semantics)
GNU bison (FSF's version of Yacc)
• GNU Flex (FSF version of Lex)
JavaCC
lex (Lexical Analysis, from Bell Labs)
M4
Prolog
Lisp
Rakucite-ref-41[34]
Scheme
yacc (yet another compiler-compiler, from Bell Labs)

System languages

A system programming language is for low-level tasks like memory management or task management; it usually refers to a language used for systems programming; such languages are designed for writing system software, which usually requires different development approaches relative to application software.

System software is computer software designed to operate and control computer hardware, and provide a platform to run application software. System software includes software categories such as operating systems, utility software, device drivers, compilers, and linkers. Examples of system languages include:

| Language | Originator | First appeared | Influenced by | Used for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ESPOL | Burroughs Corporation | 1961 | ALGOL 60 | MCP |
| PL/I | IBM , SHARE | 1964 | ALGOL 60, FORTRAN, some COBOL | Multics |
| PL360 | Niklaus Wirth | 1968 | ALGOL 60 | ALGOL W |
| C | Dennis Ritchie | 1969 | BCPL | Most operating system kernels , including Windows NT and most Unix-like systems |
| PL/S | IBM | 196x | PL/I | OS/360 |
| BLISS | Carnegie Mellon University | 1970 | ALGOL-PL/I [ 35 ] | VMS (portions) |
| PL/8 | IBM | 197x | PL/I | AIX |
| PL/MP and PL/MI | IBM | 197x | PL/I | CPF , OS/400 |
| PL-6 | Honeywell, Inc. | 197x | PL/I | CP-6 |
| SYMPL | CDC | 197x | JOVIAL | NOS subsystems, most compilers, FSE editor |
| C++ | Bjarne Stroustrup | 1979 | C , Simula | See C++ Applications [ 36 ] |
| Ada | Jean Ichbiah , S. Tucker Taft | 1983 | ALGOL 68 , Pascal , C++ , Java , Eiffel | Embedded systems, OS kernels, compilers, games, simulations, CubeSat , air traffic control, and avionics |
| D | Digital Mars | 2001 | C++ | Multiple domains [ 37 ] |
| Nim | Andreas Rumpf | 2008 | Ada , Modula-3 , Lisp , C++ , Object Pascal , Python , Oberon | OS kernels, compilers, games |
| Rust | Mozilla Research [ 38 ] | 2010 | C++ , Haskell , Erlang , Ruby | Servo layout engine , RedoxOS |
| Swift | Apple Inc. | 2014 | C , Objective-C , Rust | macOS , iOS app development [ h ] |
| Zig | Andrew Kelley | 2016 | C , C++ , LLVM IR , Go , Rust , JavaScript | As a replacement for C |
| V (Vlang) | Alexander Medvednikov | 2019 | C , Go , Oberon-2 , Rust , Swift , Kotlin | Vinix OS, OS kernels, compilers, games |

Transformation languages

Transformation languages serve the purpose of transforming (translating) source code specified in a certain formal language into a defined destination format code. It is most commonly used in intermediate components of more complex super-systems in order to adopt internal results for input into a succeeding processing routine.

ATL
AWK
MOFM2T
QVT
Raku
XSLT is the best known XML transformation language

Visual languages

Visual programming languages let users specify programs in a two-(or more)-dimensional way, instead of as one-dimensional text strings, via graphic layouts of various types. Some dataflow programming languages are also visual languages.

DRAKON
Fabrik
Max
NXT-G
Pict
Scratch (written in and based on Squeak, a version of Smalltalk)
Snap!
VEE
VisSim
Vvvv
XOD

Wirth languages

Computer scientist Niklaus Wirth designed and implemented several influential languages.

Euler
Modula

Modula-2, Modula-3, variants

Obliq Modula 3 variant

Oberon (Oberon, Oberon-07, Oberon-2)


Pascal

Object Pascal (umbrella name for Delphi, Free Pascal, Oxygene, others)

XML-based languages

These are languages based on or that operate on XML.

Ant
MXML
LZX
XAML
XPath
XQuery
XProc
• eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT)

See also
Notes

cite-note-11a. Some Ada implementations include a garbage collector,cite-ref-10[10] though the language specification does not require its inclusion.
cite-note-22b. Developers initially had to manually reclaim memory using the save and restore operators. PostScript Level 2 introduced a garbage collector, but its usage is optional.cite-ref-21[20]
cite-note-27c. On Apple platforms, these functions are imported from the C standard library (which is imported from Foundation, AppKit or UIKit); on Linux, the developer needs to import Glibc, and ucrt on Windows.
cite-note-32d. The objects of SQL are collections of database records, called tables. A full programming language can specify algorithms, irrespective of runtime. Thus an algorithm can be considered to generate usable results. In contrast, SQL can only select records that are limited to the current collection, the data at hand in the system, rather than produce a statement of the correctness of the result.
cite-note-33e. A notable exception would be the Soviet/Russian 1801 series CPU, which originally used their own domestic ISA, but were later redesigned to be PDP-11 compatible as a policy decision.
cite-note-submodels-34f. Submodels are not listed, only base models.
cite-note-37g. The concept of object with the traditional single-dispatch OO semantics is not present in Julia, instead with the more general multiple dispatch on different types at runtime.
cite-note-461. Swift uses automatic reference counting.

References

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cite-note-55. "Channels and other mechanisms".
cite-note-66. "ProblemSolver".
cite-note-nemerle-offside-77. "Indentation based syntax · rsdn/nemerle Wiki". GitHub. Retrieved 2022-03-18.
cite-note-88. "Solidity: Solidity 0.8.11 documentation".
cite-note-99. "Iterator".
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cite-note-1211. "Memory Management · BlitzMax". Retrieved 2023-07-14.
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cite-note-3128. Jon Bentley (AT&T) August 1986 CACM 29 (8) "Little Languages", pp 711-721 from his Programming Pearls column
cite-note-3529. "Meta-programming: What, why and how". 2011-12-14.
cite-note-3630. "Procedural Macros for Generating Code from Attributes". doc.rust-lang.org.
cite-note-3831. "Classes and Roles".
cite-note-3932. "Meta-object protocol (MOP)".
cite-note-4033. citerefscabiaScabia, Marco. "What is AGAL". Adobe Developer Connection. Adobe. Retrieved 8 May 2018.
cite-note-4134. "Grammars".
cite-note-422. citerefwulfrussellhaberman1971Wulf, W.A.; Russell, D.B.; Haberman, A.N. (December 1971). "BLISS: A Language for Systems Programming". Communications of the ACM. 14 (12): 780–790. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.691.9765. doi:10.1145/362919.362936. S2CID 9564255.
cite-note-433. "C++ Applications".
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