List of programming languages by category


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Programming language
lists

This is a list of programming languages grouped by category.

Contents

Array languages

See also: Category:Array programming languages

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

Aspect-oriented languages

Assembly languages

Main article: List of assemblers

Assembly languages directly correspond to a machine language (see below) in order to allow machine code instructions to be written in a form understandable by humans. Assembly languages allow programmers to use symbolic addresses which are later converted to absolute addresses by the assembler. Most assemblers also allow for macros and symbolic constants.

Authoring languages

Command line interface languages

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

Compiled languages

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

Concurrent languages

See also: Category:Concurrent programming languages

Message passing languages provide language constructs for concurrency. The predominant paradigm for concurrency in mainstream languages such as Java is shared memory concurrency based on monitors. Concurrent languages that make use of message passing have generally been inspired by CSP or the π-calculus, but have had little commercial success, except for Ada and Erlang. Ada is a multipurpose language and concurrent programming is only one option available.

  • Ada (multi-purpose language)
  • Afnix – concurrent access to data is protected automatically (previously called Aleph, but unrelated to Alef)
  • Alef – concurrent language with threads and message passing, used for systems programming in early versions of Plan 9 from Bell Labs
  • ChucK – domain specific programming language for audio, precise control over concurrency and timing
  • Cilk – a concurrent C
  • Cω – C Omega, a research language extending C#, uses asynchronous communication
  • Concurrent Pascal (by Brinch-Hansen)
  • Corn
  • Curry
  • E – uses promises, ensures deadlocks cannot occur
  • Eiffel (through the SCOOP mechanism, Simple Concurrent Object-Oriented Computation)
  • Erlang – uses asynchronous message passing with nothing shared
  • Java
  • Join-calculus
  • Joule – dataflow language, communicates by message passing
  • Limbo – relative of Alef, used for systems programming in Inferno (operating system)
  • MultiLisp – Scheme variant extended to support parallelism
  • occam – influenced heavily by Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP).
  • Oz – multiparadigm language, supports shared-state and message-passing concurrency, and futures
  • Pict – essentially an executable implementation of Milner's π-calculus
  • SALSA – actor language with token-passing, join, and first-class continuations for distributed computing over the Internet
  • SR – research language

Curly-bracket languages

See also: Category:Curly bracket programming languages

The curly bracket programming languages have a syntax that defines statement blocks using the "curly bracket" or "brace" characters { and }. All these languages descend from or are strongly influenced by C. Examples of curly-bracket languages include:

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:

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:

Data-structured languages

See also: Category:Data-structured programming languages

Data-structured languages are those where logic is structured in ways similar to their data. Such languages are generally well suited to reflection and introspection. There are three main types:

Assembly languages which statically link data inline with instructions can also be considered data-structured, in the most primitive way.

Declarative languages

See also: Category:Declarative programming languages

Declarative languages describe a problem rather than defining a solution. Declarative programming stands in contrast to imperative programming via imperative programming languages, where serial orders (imperatives) are given to a computer. In addition to the examples given just below, all (pure) functional and logic-based programming languages are also declarative. In fact, "functional" and "logical" constitute the usual subcategories of the declarative category.

Esoteric languages

See also: Category:Esoteric programming 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.

Extension languages

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

Fourth-generation languages

See also: Category:4GL

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

Functional languages

See also: Category:Functional languages

Functional programming languages define programs and subroutines as mathematical functions. Many so-called functional languages are "impure", containing imperative features. Not surprisingly, many of these languages are tied to mathematical calculation tools. Functional languages include:

Interactive mode languages

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 is seen immediately.

Interpreted languages

Interpreted languages are programming languages which programs may be executed from source code form, by an interpreter.

Iterative languages

Iterative languages are built around or offering generators.

List-based languages – LISPs

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

Little languages

Little languages serve a specialized problem domain.

  • apply is a domain-specific language for image processing on parallel and conventional architectures
  • awk can serve as a prototyping language for C, because the syntax is similar
  • SQL has only a few keywords, and not all the constructs needed for a full programming language

Logic-based languages

See also: Category:Logic programming languages

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

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 group of npatterns (often 1 or more bytes) causes the circuits in the CPU to execute one of the fundamental operations of the hardware. The activation of specific electrical inputs (eg, CPU package pins for microprocessors), and logical settings for CPU state values, control the processor's computation. Individual machine languages are processor specific and are not portable. They are (essentially) always defined by the CPU developer, not by 3rd parties. The symbolic version, the processor's assembly language, is also defined by the developer, in most cases. Since processors come in families which are based on a shared architecture, the same basic assembly language style can often be used for more than one CPU. Each of the following CPUs served as the basis for a family of processors:

Macro languages

See also: Category:Macro programming languages

Macro languages embed small pieces of executable code inside a piece of free-form text.

Scripting languages such as Tcl and ECMAScript (ActionScript, DMDScript, E4X, JavaScript, JScript) have been embedded into applications so that they behave like macro languages.

Metaprogramming languages

Metaprogramming is writing of programs that write or manipulate other programs (or 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.

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.

  • Ada (concurrent, distributed, generic (template metaprogramming), imperative, object-oriented (class-based))
  • ALF (functional, logic)
  • APL (functional, imperative)
  • BETA (functional, imperative, object-oriented (class-based))
  • C++ (generic, imperative, object-oriented (class-based))
  • C# (generic, imperative, object-oriented (class-based), functional, declarative)
  • ChucK (imperative, object-oriented, time-based, concurrent, on-the-fly)
  • Common Lisp (functional, imperative, object-oriented (class-based), aspect-oriented (user may add further paradigms, e.g., logic))
  • Corn (concurrent, generic, imperative, object-oriented (class-based))
  • Curl (functional, imperative, object-oriented (class-based), metaprogramming)
  • Curry (concurrent, functional, logic)
  • D (generic, imperative, functional, object-oriented (class-based), metaprogramming)
  • Dylan (functional, object-oriented (class-based))
  • ECMAScript (functional, imperative, object-oriented (prototype-based))
  • Eiffel (imperative, object-oriented (class-based), generic)
  • Fan (functional, object-oriented (class-based))
  • J (functional, imperative, object-oriented (class-based))
  • LabVIEW (dataflow, visual)
  • Lasso (macro, object-oriented (prototype-based), procedural, scripting)
  • Lava (object-oriented (class-based), visual)
  • Leda (functional, imperative, logic, object-oriented (class-based))
  • Lua (functional, imperative, object-oriented (prototype-based))
  • Metaobject protocols (object-oriented (class-based, prototype-based))
  • Nemerle (functional, object-oriented (class-based), imperative, metaprogramming)
  • Objective Caml (functional, imperative, object-oriented (class-based))
  • Oz (functional (evaluation: eager, lazy), logic, constraint, imperative, object-oriented (class-based), concurrent, distributed)
  • 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)
  • Pliant (functional, imperative, object-oriented (class-based))
  • Poplog (functional, imperative, logic)
  • ppC++ (imperative, object-oriented (class-based))
  • Prograph (dataflow, object-oriented (class-based), visual)
  • Python (functional, object-oriented (class-based))
  • R
  • REBOL (functional, object-oriented (prototype-based))
  • ROOP (imperative, logic, object-oriented (class-based), rule-based)
  • Ruby (functional, object-oriented (class-based))
  • Scala (functional, object-oriented)
  • Seed7 (imperative, object-oriented, generic)
  • SISAL (concurrent, dataflow, functional)
  • Spreadsheets (functional, visual)
  • Tcl (functional, imperative, object-oriented (class-based))
  • Windows PowerShell (functional, imperative, pipeline, object-oriented (class-based))
  • XL (concept programming approach)

Numerical analysis

Non-English-based languages

Main article: non-English-based programming languages

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 key 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

Single dispatch

Object-oriented prototype-based languages

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

Off-side rule languages

Off-side rule languages are those where blocks are formed, indicated, by their indentation.

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:

Reflective languages

Reflective languages let programs examine and possibly modify their high level structure at runtime. 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:

Rule-based languages

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

Scripting languages

"Scripting language" has two apparently different, but in fact similar meanings. In a traditional sense, scripting languages are designed to automate frequently used tasks that usually involve calling or passing commands to external programs. Many complex application programs allow users to implement custom functions by providing them with built-in languages. Those which are of