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Comment by kaba0 | Hacker News Reader

What I genuinely don’t understand is why do we focus so much on the low-level/system front? It is (or very much should be) a small niche, and most business applications are better served by managed languages that won’t get a huge list of vulnerabilities from memory corruption alone.

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Low-level and system programming are the areas most hurting for better languages.

High level has several modern scripting languages (Python, Ruby, Javascript), and typed languages (Java, C#, Kotlin). Low-level programming has had C and C++ for 30+ years, and both have major problems that need fixing. Plus, there's lots of interest in having programs run much much faster, especially as people realize that every line of Python they write could be 10x faster in a lower level language, with minimal extra work. This is why Rust, and now Odin, get so much attention.

Of course, there's also a renaissance brewing for mid-level languages, including Go, nim, and crystal.

Systems-level programming is a frontier for language design precisely because higher-level domains are already so well-served by established platforms. If your problem can be solved in Python or JavaScript, you're potentially creating a lot of work for yourself by using a language that's sort of like either of these, but not actually compatible with their libraries. The internet is littered with upstart languages that were made this way and withered on the vine. On the other hand, if you're working in a problem space with tighter performance constraints, and you already can't touch these languages, and you can't even count on libraries written in C or C++, then you suddenly, paradoxically, have a lot more options.

Personally, I would use Rust even if it was managed/not as low level. Advanced ML type system + best-in-class developer UX/tooling is the biggest selling point for me.

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