A Language a Day
A Language a Day
A brief introduction to 21 programming languages: C++, Clojure, Crystal, D, Dart, Elixir, Factor, Go, Hack, Hy, Io, Julia, Kotlin, Lua, Mercury, Nim, OCaml, Raku, Rust, Scala, and TypeScript
About the Book
This book provides a concise overview of 21 different programming languages. Each language is introduced using the same approach: solving several programming problems to showcase its features and capabilities. Languages covered in the book: C++, Clojure, Crystal, D, Dart, Elixir, Factor, Go, Hack, Hy, Io, Julia, Kotlin, Lua, Mercury, Nim, OCaml, Raku, Rust, Scala, and TypeScript.
Each chapter covers the essentials of a different programming language. To make the content more consistent and comparable, I use the same structure for each language, focusing on the following mini projects:
1. Creating a ‘Hello, World!’ program.
2. Implementing a Factorial function using recursion or a functional-style approach.
3. Creating a polymorphic array of objects (a ‘zoo’ of cats and dogs) and calling methods on them.
4. Implementing the Sleep Sort algorithm—while impractical for real-word use, it’s a playful demonstration of language’s concurrency capabilities.
Each language description follows—where applicable—this pattern:
1. Installing a command-line compiler and running a program.
2. Creating and using variables.
3. Defining and using functions.
4. Exploring object-oriented features.
5. Handling exception.
6. Introducing basic concurrency and parallelism.
You can find all the code examples in this book on GitHub: github.com/ash/a-language-a-day.
About the Author
Table of Contents
C++
- Facts about the language
- Installing and running C++
- Hello, World!
- Variables
- Functions
- Lambdas
- Containers
- Classes
- A Polymorphic example
- Concurrency and threads
- Sleep Sort
- Thread-safety
- Get more!
Clojure
- Facts about the language
- Installing and running Clojure
- Hello, World!
- Variables
- Lists and vectors
- Functions
- Lambdas
- Factorial, solution 1
- Factorial, solution 2
- Multimethods
- A polymorphic example
- Concurrent computing
- Sleep Sort
- Get more!
Crystal
- Facts about the language
- Installing and running Crystal
- Hello, World!
- Variables
- Functions
- A Factorial example
- Proc
- Classes
- Getters and setters
- Class variables
- Inheritance
- A Polymorphic example
- Concurrent computation
- Sleep Sort
- Get more!
D
- Facts about the language
- Installing and running D
- Hello, World!
- Variables
- Functions
- A Factorial example
- A word on functional programming
- Unicode support
- Classes
- A Polymorphic example
- Concurrency
- Messages
- Sleep Sort
- Get more!
Dart
- Facts about the language
- Installing and running Dart
- Compiling
- Hello, World!
- Variables
- Functions
- A Factorial example
- Optional parameters
- Named parameters
- Lambdas
- Classes
- Cascade notation
- Factory constructors
- A Polymorphic example
- Asynchronous programming
- The Sleep Sort example
- Get more!
Elixir
- Facts about the language
- Installing and running Elixir
- Hello, World!
- Variables
- Lists
- Functions
- Named functions
- Multiple bodies
- A Factorial example
- A Polymorphic example
- Concurrency
- Sleep Sort
- Get more!
Factor
- Facts about the language
- Installing and running Factor
- Hello, World!
- Output
- Stack
- Variables
- Defining words
- A Factorial example
- Object-oriented programming
- Inheritance
- Sleep Sort
- Get more!
Go
- Facts about the language
- Installing and running Go
- Hello, World!
- The standard formatter
- Variables
- Constants
- Functions
- Function return options
- A Factorial example
- Closures
- Structs and methods
- A Polymorphic example
- Concurrency
- Sleep Sort
- Get more!
Hack
- Facts about the language
- Installing and running Hack
- Static checker
- Hello, World!
- Variables
- Functions
- A Factorial example
- Lambdas
- Classes
- Static members
- Inheritance
- A Polymorphic example
- Asynchronous programming
- The Sleep Sort example
- Get More!
Hy
- Facts about the language
- Installing and running Hy
- Hello, World!
- Looking at the Python code
- Variables
- Functions
- Calling a method
- A Factorial example
- Classes
- A Polymorphic example
- Using modules
- Sleep Sort
- Get more!
Io
- Facts about the language
- Installing and running Io
- Hello, World!
- Variables
- Functions
- A Factorial example
- Objects
- Inheritance
- A Polymorphic example
- Concurrency
- Sleep Sort
- Get more!
Julia
- Facts about the language
- Installing and running Julia
- Hello, World!
- Variables
- Identifiers
- String interpolation
- A note about numbers
- Functions
- Type annotation
- Lambdas
- Multiple dispatch
- A Factorial example
- Functions modifying their arguments
- Composite types
- A Polymorphic example
- Concurrency and parallelism
- Channels
- Sleep Sort
- Get more!
Kotlin
- Facts about the language
- Installing and running Kotlin
- Hello, World!
- Variables
- Functions
- A Factorial example
- Lambdas
- Classes
- Objects
- Getters and setters
- Inheritance
- An example of inheritance and polymorphism
- Coroutines
- Sleep Sort using coroutines
- Get more!
Lua
- Facts about the language
- Installing and running Lua
- Hello, World!
- Comments in Lua
- Variables
- Tables
- Functions
- A Factorial example
- Multiple results and variadic parameters
- Lambdas
- Object-oriented facilities
- Metatables
- Classes
- A Polymorphic example
- Coroutines
- Sleep Sort
- Get more!
Mercury
- Facts about the language
- Installing and running Mercury
- Hello, World!
- What all those :- and . are about
- Variables
- Functions and predicates
- A Factorial example 1
- A Factorial example 2
- What unification is
- Creating and using your own types
- A Polymorphic example
- Get more!
Nim
- Facts about the language
- Installing and running Nim
- Hello, World!
- Variables
- Identifier names
- Indentation
- Procedures
- Overloading
- Factorial
- Mutable function arguments
- Object-oriented programming
- A Polymorphic example
- Concurrency
- Sleep Sort
- Get more!
OCaml
- Facts about the language
- Installing and running OCaml
- Hello, World!
- Variables
- ;; vs ; vs in
- Functions
- A Factorial example
- Anonymous functions
- Lists
- Object-oriented programming
- Objects
- Classes
- A Polymorphic example
- Concurrency
- Sleep Sort
- Get more!
Raku
- Facts about the language
- Installing and running Raku
- Hello, World!
- Variables
- Aggregate types
- Functions
- Default and optional parameters
- Type constraints
- A Factorial example
- Lambdas
- Classes
- Class-level data members
- Hierarchy
- A Polymorphic example
- Concurrent computing
- Sleep Sort
- Grammars
- Get more!
Rust
- Facts about the language
- Installing and Running Rust
- Hello, World!
- Variables
- Types
- Functions
- A Factorial example
- Macros
- Object-oriented features
- A polymorphic example
- Error handling
- Concurrency
- Sleep Sort
- Get more!
Scala
- Facts about the language
- Installing and running Scala
- Hello, World!
- Variables
- Functions
- A Factorial example
- Classes
- Class methods
- Singleton objects
- A polymorphic example
- Concurrency
- Sleep Sort
- Get more!
TypeScript
- Facts about the language
- Installing and running TypeScript
- Hello, World!
- Variables
- Functions
- Optional and defaults parameters
- A Factorial example
- Lambdas
- Classes
- Inheritance and polymorphism
- Interfaces
- Error handling
- Asynchronous computing
- Sleep Sort
- Get more!
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