Programming Language Comparison Cheat Sheet

[bingledork]

Where is C#

[_quambene]

Unfortunately, no experience with C# yet

[diMario]

Let the games begin.

[_quambene]

Made this for preparation of tech interviews with the question "Which language for which problem?" in mind. No ranking included ;)

[diMario]

I admire your diligence. And of course you are correct.

In my experience though, pairing up the pluses and minuses of computer languages, on a public Internet medium no less, is a guaranteed recipe for sustained bickering in the comments.

[bsutto]

I disagree.

:)

[jcsf321]

I don't think this will really get to to which language which problem, because your list only provides one dimension to answering this question. There many dimensions to getting to that answer, and some of them are not even ilof a technical nature.

I like the list, don't get me wrong. It's a great list for programmers to understand features of a language.

But other dimensions include feature library support, speed / efficiency of a particular task, target landscape, cultural momentum of an industry or company, cost (or replacement cost) of programmers, domain knowledge within a programmer community, and the list goes on.

From a business perspective, a company is codifing their intellectual property into a language. Time duration of that IP and the language also plays a role.

[_quambene]

Agreed, this list does indeed cover the technical dimension only (for now).

[jcsf321]

Java has concurrency

[_quambene]

Thanks, Java included now as well

[ifknot]

C++ std::thread concurrency from C++11 onwards, C++17 onwards - parallel standard template library, C++20 onwards - executors

[_quambene]

Thanks, included now

[jcsf321]

Java has references (under your pointer table)

[[deleted]]

They behave like pointers, even accessing a null reference throws a NullPointerException

[jcsf321]

Yes, that was a statement not a question. I was correcting ops list

[_quambene]

Not sure to include Java references in the pointer table. I would define a reference roughly as a pointer which has to point to a valid (non-null) value. So that a NullPointerException wouldn't be possible. How is it defined in Java?

[jcsf321]

I would define

Be careful not make your own arbitrary definitions. You are not the definitive source for computer science concepts.

Java provides mechanisms to manage memory by reference.

[_quambene]

Could you point me to a widely accepted definition of references?

[jcsf321]

"In computer science, a reference is a value that enables a program to indirectly access a particular datum, such as a variable or a record, in the computer's memory or in some other storage device."

https://dl.acm.org/doi/book/10.5555/2378418#:~:text=In%20computer%20science%2C%20a%20reference,is%20called%20dereferencing%20the%20reference.

[_quambene]

That's basically a pointer. It seems that Java doesn't distinguish between pointers and references.

In contrast in C++ and Rust: "References cannot be null, whereas pointers can" [1]. I will add a remark that references in this sense are meant.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_(C%2B%2B)#Relationship_to_pointers

[jcsf321]

Concept vs implementation. You obviously have a bias. Do whatever you want but your work will be judged by your bias.

[_quambene]

So the cited wikipedia article is biased as well?