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The world’s least popular programming language

A software engineer looking to learn something new will typically first check how many available jobs there are related to the subject at hand, simply to make sure he or she is valuable for future employers - And we all know that the most popular programming languages includes JavaScript, Java, C#, Python and TypeScript. However, what is the least popular programming language, still in actual use, and why should you even care?

Ignoring the funny prototype OOP parts of JavaScript, all of the above programming languages are more or less copies of each other, without much difference semantically. Sure, there are a few noteworthy exceptions, such as SQL and F#, but almost all programming languages at the top of the popularity index are more or less rip offs, copying and pasting features from each other. This creates a problem for you individually, and also for the world at large, which I refer to as local evolutionary optimums. The problem is best explained as follows ...

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Hyperlambda, living tree structures

This is the continuation of my previous article where I walked you through how to create database HTTP CRUD REST endpoints. This article though goes into the depths of Hyperlambda as a programming language, and in such a regard explains how the computer can generate the code it is generating.

Fundamentally Hyperlambda from Magic is just a text representation of a tree structure, the same way XML, YAML and JSON is. Hyperlambda's syntax though is both simpler, more humanly readable, and more easily parsed than any of the alternatives - Including YAML. To illustrate this let us look at some example Hyperlambda.

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Introducing MapNeat, a JVM JSON Transformation Library

MapNeat is a JVM library written in Kotlin, that provides an easy to use DSL (Domain Specific Language) for manipulating and transforming existing JSONs, XMLs, or POJOs into new JSONs. The trick is that no intermediary model classes are needed, and all the changes are done using a mostly descriptive approach.

The library can be particularly useful when integrating various systems that need to exchange messages in different formats, creating DTOs, etc.

Given Kotlin's high interoperability with most of the JVM languages, MapNeat is easy to use in any Java project without any particular hassle.

How it Works

A typical transformation starts with the source input (JSON, XML, or any Java Object), and then it contains a series of Operations applied in order:

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Kotlin Wiremock

WireMock is a popular library for stubbing web services. It runs an HTTP server that acts as an actual web service. We just set up expectations and run the server.

In this tutorial, we will present the kotlin-wiremock library that provides a nice domain-specific language for stubbing WireMock expectations.

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ANTLR: An Informal Introduction

In this article, I am going to introduce you to ANTLR's powerful framework. Equipped with this framework, we will also write a relatively simple language that coordinates the process of shearing a metal sheet (or any other sheet). The first steps in the language are going to be relatively simple, but in the next articles, more and more details will emerge. In the end, we will have something fully-fledged and effectively functioning. So, without further ado, let's take a closer look at how ANTLR works. 

What Is ANTLR? And How Can You Use It?

ANTLR (ANother Tool for Language Recognition), according to Terence Parr, "is a powerful parser generator for reading, processing, executing, or translating structured text or binary files. It’s widely used to build languages, tools, and frameworks. From grammar, ANTLR generates a parser that can build and walk parse trees."