The Hundred-Year Language

Trying to predict anything is a difficult task. In the case of programming languages is not the exception. We, as future computer professionals, have to have in mind that the same way that the species evolve, the programming languages evolve too. So, can we really imagine how the programming languages will be in hundred years? I think that it is almost impossible to predict. Indeed, trying to predict how the society will be is pretty difficult. Do we will have flying cars? Or at least computers? So, the interesting thing about this is that today we can’t predict what will happen in hundred years, but we can start to analyze which languages have more future than others. Paul Graham mentioned that Java is one of these languages that doesn’t seem to have future. We can analyze a programming language by its successors and how it is designed to be adapted. Another way that the programming languages have to survive is combining them with another newer. It is important to highlight that programming languages evolves slowly. This is because a programming language is not a technology itself. In fact, we can associate the evolution of programming languages with the evolution of mathematical notation, which we can see that it doesn’t grow as fast as technology. So, it is interesting to think about it, from now you can start to write the future language. It is unthinkable how fast the computers will be, or what will be its memory. Also, we need to think that the demand of better and more powerful software will evolved with the technology too. So we have to think, in case that in hundred years exists a computer 1000 times more powerful in all aspects, how we will take advantage of this? How can we write better software? I’m totally convinced that thinking on how to make the hundred year language could bring several advantages, and we can exploit today’s resources.