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by moonchrome 1702 days ago
> If anything, I strongly prefer languages that have more than one implementation.

What popular languages fall into this category ? I can only think of C/C++ and JavaScript - both seem like terrible examples of languages that took forever to evolve (people still compile down JS to ES5). I'm not sure what the Java story is but I would argue it has been terrible at evolving the language as well.

I much prefer languages that have one implementation as a de facto standard, worked on by core team (eg. C#, Rust, TypeScript). Sure they might be a few random implementations - but the language is basically what the main compiler supports. Standards and specifications add so much overhead and I really don't see the value.
1 comments
yjftsjthsd-h 1701 days ago
> What popular languages fall into this category ?

Not all, but many. Going down the list of most popular languages from https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/ -

Python - CPython, PyPy, MicroPython

C - numerous (gcc, clang, msvc, tcc, etc.)

Java - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Java_virtual_machines

C++ - gcc, clang, msvc, etc.

C# - Microsoft's version and mono

Visual Basic - probably only one implementation

JavaScript - https://notes.eatonphil.com/javascript-implementations.html

SQL - assorted dialects, not sure that counts

PHP - probably only one implementation

ASM - assorted dialects, not sure that counts

Classic Visual Basic - probably only one implementation

Go - only one version that matters, AFAIK

MATLAB - probably only one implementation

R - probably only one implementation

Groovy - probably only one implementation

Ruby - https://opensourcelibs.com/lib/ruby-implementations (Why are there so many in Go?)

Swift - probably only one implementation

Fortran - https://fortran-lang.org/compilers/

Perl - probably only one implementation

Delphi/Object Pascal - there are a decent number of Pascals historically, and FPC and Delphi are the big modern options

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