If algorithms can be converted into code of any language, what is the point in having multiple languages?
In: Technology
A programmer might prefer one language over another for many different reasons. They might like the syntax better, or maybe it runs more efficiently. Maybe it gives you more fine control over what’s happening on the system, or maybe it manages more stuff for you so you don’t have to think about it.
The biggest reason programmers prefer specific languages though is just plain inertia. “We’ve done it using this language before, so it’ll be easiest to use this language again.” It takes a lot of work to learn a new language, and it takes a lot of work to rewrite code in a new language, so there are some older languages which are still popular today even though they probably wouldn’t be if they were new, (cough cough Java cough cough) simply because there are so many code libraries already written for them and so many developers who already know the language. Programmers refer to this as a “mature ecosystem”.
Python, for example, is popular for data science and that’s largely because of the amazing data science libraries that are available only in Python.
Another example: Javascript is one of the most popular languages for web development and that’s because it’s the only scripting language that is understood by modern web browsers.
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