10 programming languages that could shake up IT

“(…) as powerful and versatile as the current crop of languages may be, no single syntax is ideally suited for every purpose. What’s more, programming itself is constantly evolving. The rise of multicore CPUs, cloud computing, mobility, and distributed architectures have created new challenges for developers. Adding support for the latest features, paradigms, and patterns to existing languages — especially popular ones — can be prohibitively difficult. Sometimes the best answer is to start from scratch.

Here, then, is a look at 10 cutting-edge programming languages, each of which approaches the art of software development from a fresh perspective, tackling a specific problem or a unique shortcoming of today’s more popular languages. Some are mature projects, while others are in the early stages of development. Some are likely to remain obscure, but any one of them could become the breakthrough tool that changes programming for years to come — at least, until the next batch of new languages arrives.”

in InfoWorld

Rob Pike: Geek of the Week

“Rob Pike’s contribution to Information Technology has been profound, both through the famous books he co-authored with Brian Kernighan, and his contribution to distributed systems, window systems and concurrency in Unix. Now at Google, his creative skills are in full flow, particularly, in collaboration with Ken Thompson, in the exciting Go language, a grown-up, but radical, C with concurrency. “
in <a href=”http://www.simple-talk.com/opinion/geek-of-the-week/rob-pike-geek-of-the-week/”>simple-talk

Oct. 14, 1985: C++ Adds to Programming

“So, for me, the main satisfaction comes from interesting and challenging applications that just might not have been done without C++, or possibly been delayed for many years for lack of a language suitable for demanding real-world applications.

The Mars rovers, the human genome project’s DNA string matching, Google, Amazon, airline reservation systems (Amadeus), code analysis (Coverity), animation (Maya), cars, airplanes, Photoshop, telecommunication systems. Videogames like Doom, Warcraft, Age of Empires, Halo. Wind turbines, oil exploration. Most of Microsoft’s software and much of Apple’s. Java virtual machines. Thunderbird and Firefox, MySQL, lots of financial software, OpenOffice, etc.”

Bjarne Stroustrup in wired.

Microsoft’s top developers prefer old-school coding methods

“Panel of Microsoft distinguished engineers offers views on the state of programming”
in “Microsoft’s top developers prefer old-school coding methods“

The Go Programming Language

http://golang.org/

“Google has invented a new programming language designed to reduce the complexity of coding without compromising the performance of applications.

Called Go, the language has been tested internally at Google but is still at an experimental stage, so the company is releasing it Tuesday as open-source code in the hope that it will get help with its future development.

“We developed Go because we had become a bit frustrated with how difficult software development has become in the last 10 years or so,” said Rob Pike, principal software engineer at Google.”

in “Google creates programming language to simplify app dev“

An inteview with Brian Kernighan, co-developer of AWK and AMPL

“This time we spoke with Brian Kernighan — a figure who helped popularise C with his book, co-written with the creator Dennis Ritchie, The C Programming Language and contributed to the development of AWK and AMPL.”

in “An inteview with Brian Kernighan, co-developer of AWK and AMPL“

To Teach Computing, a New Tool Calls on The Sims

Nova versão de Alice:
“Randy Pausch loved creating virtual worlds on computers. And Mr. Pausch, the late computer-science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, wanted all of his students to learn how they could share in his fun. But typing code wasn’t exactly most students’ definition of “fun”.”
in “To Teach Computing, a New Tool Calls on The Sims“

Bjarne Stroustrup Expounds on Concepts and the Future of C++

“A year ago, everyone was all but certain that the C++0x standard was just around the corner, and that it would include concepts (see Danny Kalev’s earlier interview with Bjarne Stroustrup, the creator of C++, from August 2008). However, In July 2009 the C++ standards committee decided to remove concepts from the C++0x by an unprecedented move. Danny’s recent controversial editorial was among the first to report that decision and its possible consequences. Despite vociferous disagreements over the removal of concepts themselves, nearly everyone agrees that the committee’s decision left open many questions not only about concepts, but also about the committee’s charter, and even the future of C++ itself.

Therefore, Danny has interviewed Bjarne Stroustrup again, this time to capture his thoughts about concepts, their removal, and the impact of that decision, along with his take on other pressing questions that currently concern the entire C++ community.”
in “Bjarne Stroustrup Expounds on Concepts and the Future of C++“

Interview with Erlang creator Joe Armstrong

The A-Z of Programming Languages: Erlang

The return of Ada

“This decades-old language can solve a few of today’s most pressing problems — most notably security and reliability.“