Group: Software/research/ProgrammingLanguages

Introduction

The goal of this page is to understand the status of various programming languages and toolchains. It can help people deciding on a programming language to choose or to learn, or enable people to understand where distributions need contributions to support well a language.

It could also contain information on what language works where or if we can target specific operating systems with free software or not.

Toolchain status

Compilers features and languages

Language	Autoconf	Automake	Libtool^[1]	GCC 12 support^[2]	Shared libraries^[3]	Microcontrollers^[4]	Strict specifications^[5]
Ada				Yes			?
C	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	defaults to shared libraries	GCC, SDCC	Drafts are available gratis, probably not under free licenses.^[6]
C++	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	defaults to shared libraries	GCC, other?	?
D				Yes			?
Erlang	Yes			No			?
Fortran	Fortran 77, Fortran 90, Fortran 95	Fortran 77, Fortran 9x	Fortran, Fortran 77	Yes			?
Go	basic support for gccgo	No	Yes	Yes			?
Java		with CGJ	with CGJ	No			?
Objective-C	Yes	Yes		Yes			?
Objective-C++	Yes	Yes		Yes			?
Rust	No	No	No	Work in progress			No^[7]
Unified Parallel C.		partial		No			?
Vala		partial		valac uses GCC		depends on glib	?

Compilers bootstraping

Compiler	Languages	Dependencies
gcc-ada	Ada	Depends on gcc-ada
valac	vala	valac depends on itself but translated C files are provided by upstream

Interpreters features and languages

Language	Interpreter	Dependencies	Microcontrollers^[4]	Strict specifications^[5]
Python	CPython	C, some C libraries	No	?
Python	MicroPython	C, some C libraries	Yes	?

Build system status

Build system	Cross compilation	Easy to support in distributions
Autotools	Yes	Yes
setup.py	?	Yes

Didstributions status

Guix status

Guix is the most strict FSDG compliant distribution with regard to languages support: it requires the bootstrap process to be reproducible.

While there are still binary compilers being used in the bootstrap process for some languages, other languages are completely bootstrapped from source.

Language	Toolchain	GNU/Hurd i586	GNU/Linux armv7h	GNU/Linux aarch64	GNU/Linux i686	GNU/Linux mips64el	GNU/Linux powerpc	GNU/Linux powerpc64le	GNU/Linux riscv64	GNU/Linux x86_64	Mingw i686	Mingw x86_64
Ada	No
C	gcc-toolchain	Yes	Yes	Yes	Reduced Binary Seed of about 145MiB^[8]	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Reduced Binary Seed of about 145MiB^[8]	Yes	Yes
C#	No
Haskell	ghc	No	No	No	Bootstrapped from ghc-4 binaries	No	No	No	No	Bootstrapped from ghc-4 binaries	No	No
Java	openjdk	?	?	?	bootstraped from source^[9]	?	?	?	?	bootstraped from source^[9]	?	?
Rust	rustc	No^[10]	No^[10]	Bootstrapped from source with mrustc^[10]	No^[10]	No^[10]	No^[10]	No^[10]	Bootstrapped from source with mrustc^[10]	Bootstrapped from source with mrustc^[10]	No^[10]	No^[10]

Parabola status

Parabola has a policy which requires all the packages to be built from source. But it doesn't have a policy to reduce the size of the bootstrap binaries, so there can be circular dependencies.

Language	Toolchain	GNU/Linux armv7h	GNU/Linux i686	GNU/Linux x86_64
Ada	gcc-ada	No	Yes	Yes
C	gcc-toolchain	Yes	Yes	Yes
C#	mono	Yes	Yes	Yes
Haskell	ghc	No	Yes	Yes
Java	openjdk	Yes	Yes	Yes
Rust	rustc	Yes	Yes	Yes
Vala	valac	Yes	Yes	Yes

References

↑ libtool is part of the autotools and it abstracts linking to make it work on a lot of operating systems. The status of the programming languages other than C and C++ can be found here: https://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual/libtool.html#Tags
↑ Compared with other compilers like LLVM and rustc, GCC supports many CPU architectures and it's quite well integrated with various other software (gdb, gprof, build systems, etc). It also has long term support in mind as it continues to support other programming language standards. It also has good documentation that explain how it handles C code for instance. In addition it's a GNU project, so it has users freedom in mind. In addition Guix has made GCC bootstrapable from a binary that is less than 1KB, and it doesn't require huge resources to build or bootstrap.
↑ Shared libraries systems enable way better performances on older computers as it uses way less RAM.
↑ ^4.0^4.1 Can we compile and/or run code for/on microcontrollers, if so which compilers/interpreters are used / necessary for that.
↑ ^5.0^5.1 Having a standard or something similar to refer to enables people to write code that can still be used without requiring too much maintenance to adapt to newer compiler versions.
↑ Ideally the specifications should be available under free licenses.
↑ See one of the two talks on rust in GNU cauldron 2022.
↑ ^8.0^8.1 https://guix.gnu.org/en/manual/devel/en/guix.html#Bootstrapping
↑ ^9.0^9.1 In gnu/packages/java.scm icedtea-7 depends on jamvm which depends on jamvm-1-bootstrap which is built from source. The source bootstrap is not architecture specific.
↑ ^10.00^10.01^10.02^10.03^10.04^10.05^10.06^10.07^10.08^10.09^10.10 See supported-systems in the rust 1.54 package definition

[libtool-1] tool is part of the autotools and it abstracts linking to make it work on a lot of operating systems. The status of the programming languages other than C and C++ can be found here: https://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual/libtool.html#Tags

[2] Compared with other compilers like LLVM and rustc, GCC supports many CPU architectures and it's quite well integrated with various other software (gdb, gprof, build systems, etc). It also has long term support in mind as it continues to support other programming language standards. It also has good documentation that explain how it handles C code for instance. In addition it's a GNU project, so it has users freedom in mind. In addition Guix has made GCC bootstrapable from a binary that is less than 1KB, and it doesn't require huge resources to build or bootstrap.

[shared-libraries-3] Shared libraries systems enable way better performances on older computers as it uses way less RAM.

[microcontrollers-4] 4.0^4.1 Can we compile and/or run code for/on microcontrollers, if so which compilers/interpreters are used / necessary for that.

[strict-specifications-5] 5.0^5.1 Having a standard or something similar to refer to enables people to write code that can still be used without requiring too much maintenance to adapt to newer compiler versions.

[6] Ideally the specifications should be available under free licenses.

[7] See one of the two talks on rust in GNU cauldron 2022.

[reduced-binary-seed-manual-section-8] 8.0^8.1 https://guix.gnu.org/en/manual/devel/en/guix.html#Bootstrapping

[opejdk-bootstrap-9] 9.0^9.1 In gnu/packages/java.scm icedtea-7 depends on jamvm which depends on jamvm-1-bootstrap which is built from source. The source bootstrap is not architecture specific.

[rust-1.54-bootstrap-10] 10.00^10.01^10.02^10.03^10.04^10.05^10.06^10.07^10.08^10.09^10.10 See supported-systems in the rust 1.54 package definition

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