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Cover image for How Programming Will Look In the Future?
Emil Valeev
Emil Valeev

Posted on

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How Programming Will Look In the Future?

Programming hasn't fundamentally changed since the 1940s. Most languages still follow the von Neumann paradigm: write sequential instructions and modify data in memory. Let's look at a simple example:

total = 0
for number in range(1, 6):
    total += number
print(total)  # Outputs: 15
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Simple and familiar, right? But there's a problem. Modern computers aren't getting faster like they used to. Instead, they're getting more cores, and our traditional programming model isn't great at handling multiple cores efficiently.

The Multi-Core Challenge

We've tried to adapt with tools for concurrent programming. Take Go's goroutines:

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "sync"
)

func main() {
    var wg sync.WaitGroup
    numbers := []int{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}

    for _, n := range numbers {
        wg.Add(1)
        go func(x int) {
            defer wg.Done()
            fmt.Printf("Processing %d\n", x)
        }(n)
    }

    wg.Wait()
    fmt.Println("All done!")
}
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These solutions help, but they introduce problems like race conditions, deadlocks, and complex state management. We're building on top of a paradigm that wasn't designed for parallel execution, and control-flow languages are inherently hard to visualize.

A Different Approach: Data Flow Programming

What if we could write programs differently? Imagine describing your program as a network of independent nodes that pass data to each other - no shared state, just data flowing through a system:

  • Everything runs in parallel by default
  • Data is immutable, preventing race conditions
  • Program structure mirrors data flow
  • Natural scaling across multiple cores

Enter Nevalang

Nevalang does exactly that. It's a modern language built around dataflow that treats programs as message-passing graphs rather than sequences of instructions:

import { fmt }

def Main(start any) (stop any) {
    for_print For{Print}
    wait Wait
    ---
    :start -> 1..5 -> for_print -> wait -> :stop
}
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Here we define a component Main that receives a start signal and sends a stop signal. It has two nodes: for_print (a For with Print inside) and wait. When started, it creates a stream of numbers 1-5, prints each through for_print, waits for completion, and sends the stop signal.

Visualized:

Image description

Nevalang represents a fundamental shift in programming, embracing a paradigm naturally suited for parallelism and visualization rather than fighting traditional programming limitations.

Try Nevalang on GitHub

The future of programming might not look like the past. As our hardware continues to evolve, our programming models need to evolve too. Nevalang shows us one exciting possibility for that future.

WARNING: Nevalang is currently in development and not yet production-ready. We're looking for contributors and early-adopters. Join!


This is an ambitious project maintained by a small group of enthusiasts. Your support by joining us will show interest and motivate us to continue.


Please give us a star ⭐️ to increase our chances of getting into GitHub trends - the more attention Nevalang gets, the higher our chances of actually making a difference.

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Top comments (10)

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denice_andrews_c2caea37d3 profile image
Denice Andrews

Exciting times ahead for programming! As technology evolves, I believe we'll see even more emphasis on automation and AI-driven coding tools, making it easier for developers to focus on higher-level tasks.
For further information if anyone want to know about how many of me visit here

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kylecodesza profile image
Kyles LifeStyle

I agree to this Denice

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jasonlotito profile image
Jason Lotito

Sounds more like functional programming, especially with something like Erlang/Elixir.

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emil_valeev profile image
Emil Valeev

Thanks. Sure there are similarities, but also differences. I'm planning to write a document comparing them

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mahmoudalaskalany profile image
Mahmoud Alaskalany

that is good to know

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ayush2390 profile image
Ayush Thakur

Quite a unique and interesting article

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fernandezbaptiste profile image
Bap

Cool piece!

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mraodragon profile image
敖律风

cool language

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brunolessa profile image
Bruno.systems.engineer

Interesting. thanks!

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rafalgolarz profile image
Rafal Golarz

interesting however the go sample and it's description is really poor and inaccurate

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