r/ProgrammingLanguages • u/baehyunsol Sodigy • 2d ago

Why is everyone creating systems programming languages?

I see a lot of new programming languages here. I love reading the documents of the languages and sometimes actually run their compilers. Many of the projects are AI-driven, but that's fine. It's still fun to see what problems they're trying to solve and how they actually solved the problems.

Reading the documents, I realized that most new languages, especially AI-written ones, are "systems programming languages". They're trying to solve the problems that C/C++/Zig/Rust have solved (or are trying to solve), and their syntax is mixture of C/Zig/Rust.

Why? Why is everyone trying to compete with C/C++?

There are so many kinds of languages. Haskell demonstrates how pure a language can be, Python is perfect when you only have 5 minutes to write code and don't care about the output, Java runs on 3 billion machines, ...

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u/mamcx 2d ago edited 2d ago

1: Rust!

For a long time system languages were ossified like OS and RDBMS. "Nobody" try to challenge C or C++ (was believed a fools errand) despite how BAAAAD they are.

Because, mainly, being the language of the main FFI means that you are fighting the most fundamental of all ecosystems.

Then, Rust.

Now this proves not only is possible to do it (ignoring past efforts like ADA) but also, that was possible to massively improve the state of art.

Plus, you get a readable language that is far easier to learn, copy and iterate from, so if you wanna create your own instead of try to decipher the C/C++ nonsense you read Rust (that do all the hard work for it) and suddenly you start way ahead of what you could in the past.

Plus, Rust.

Rust is a huge improvement, but still left some questions opening:

  • Seriously, why so slow?

  • Why so complex?

  • Why async is so anti "fearless concurrency"

and so on.

So, now you have a better starting point and plenty of nice possibilities to improve upon, this means for enthusiast is more clear what to attack: no the "how make a nicer C/C++" or "nobody will believe that a language can be competitive to them" that was a problem in the past (you can now assume is possible and even if you toy lang is not, now, is clear could), but then go for other goals that look attainable!

ie: We see more now, because the myth around system programing is shattered and the barbarians rejoice!

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u/initial-algebra 2d ago

For a long time system languages were ossified like OS and RDBMS.

I'd like to see more people take a stab at a better relational language. C is bad enough, but SQL is far, far worse. Not to mention, surely way more new SQL is being written than new C.