With hundreds of programming languages already in existence, why invest the considerable effort in creating a new one?
For developers of three newfangled open source languages -- Coconut, Crystal, and Oden -- the answer is simply that, in programming, there are always new niches to fill and new needs to be met. Recently, however, many programmers have begun experimenting with more tailored programming languages, which are designed for more specific purposes and intended to extend these existing and well-known languages. • Crystal: Bringing existing languages’ features into focus Crystal’s main developer Ary Borenszweig not only acknowledges the wealth of programming languages already in existence, he builds on their best features. Crystal is a language that almost serves as a consolidator. It has been designed to bring together the best features of numerous other languages, thereby intending to bring the “best of the best” into a single design. Some of the features of Crystal include static type-checking, which facilitates rapid design. Automatic memory management and native compi...