The New Programming Languages You Should Be Using Instead of Older Ones

Posted on 02-02-2022 Edited on 18-07-2026 In Opinions Disqus: Word count in article: 333 Reading time ≈ 1 mins.

So programming as a whole has existed for a long time. Fun Fact: The first computer programming language was created in 1883 by Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage. But the popular languages we see nowadays are far more recent but still very old, The programming language C first appeared in 1972, that is 50 years ago. Here I’ll be telling you about the newer counterparts to the languages we know and love.

Java

Newer Alternative: Kotlin

Unless you are working in an environment where you have to learn Java to do your job, you should use Kotlin instead. This language was created in 2011 by JetBrains. In 2019, Google declared Kotlin as the preferred language for Android development.

Now Java is not going to go away anytime soon. Java has more support and documentation available since it has existed for a longer time compared to Kotlin. But the industry is quickly switching over to Kotlin for Android development and you should also use Kotlin.

C/C++

Newer Alternative: Rust

With C++, memory safety is handled by the developer whereas Rust has persistent safety bounds that can be lifted by using the keyword unsafe. It got the top position in “The Most Loved” category of Stack Overflow’s 2016 and 2017 developer survey. It is very much similar to C++ and has an easy-to-learn syntax.

JavaScript

Newer Alternative: TypeScript

Comparing TypeScript vs JavaScript, JavaScript is a lightweight, interpreted, dynamic language for web design. It is utilized in web app development for augmenting HTML web pages. In contrast, TypeScript acts as a superset of JavaScript. This states that TypeScript is JavaScript + some other traits.

Some notable features include: Static Typing, Enhanced IDE support, Type Inference, Interoperability, Strict Null Examination

Objective-C (for iOS)

Newer Alternative: Swift

Apple states that Swift is almost 2.6 times faster than Objective-C. The speed at which one can code using Swift is significantly higher than on Objective-C. The syntax on Swift is much simpler and direct.