Languages We Plan to Cover
A comprehensive list of programming languages featured on CodeArchaeology, from mainstream to obscure.
This page shows all programming languages we plan to cover on CodeArchaeology. From cutting-edge modern languages to historical classics, all of these are still runnable on modern systems - that’s the whole point of this site!
Jump to: Modern Languages | Established Mainstream | Classic & Historical | Esoteric Languages | What These Tables Show
Modern Languages
Languages that emerged or gained major adoption from 2009 onwards, sorted newest first. These represent the current state of the art in language design.
| Language | First Released | Use Cases & Ecosystem (2025) | Windows | macOS | Linux |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mojo | 2023 | Python superset for AI/ML. MLIR-based, aims for C++ performance with Python syntax. Modular Inc. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Carbon | 2022 | Experimental successor to C++. Google-backed. Designed for gradual C++ migration. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Hare | 2022 | Simple systems programming. Aims to be a “boring” C replacement. 100% from-scratch design. | No | No | Yes |
| Roc | 2020 | Functional language focused on app development. Fast compilation, no runtime exceptions. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Vale | 2020 | Memory-safe without GC using “generational references”. Research language with novel memory model. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Gleam | 2019 | Type-safe language for Erlang VM. Functional, concurrent, friendly syntax. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| V (Vlang) | 2019 | Simple, fast compiled language. Aims for simplicity of Go with performance of C. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Zig | 2016 | Systems programming, C interop, safety. Used in Bun runtime. Aims to replace C in critical systems. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Raku | 2015 | Formerly Perl 6. Powerful grammars, gradual typing, built-in concurrency. Elegant text processing. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Odin | 2016 | Systems programming alternative to C. Used in game development, data-oriented design. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Swift | 2014 | iOS/macOS/watchOS/tvOS development. Apple’s modern replacement for Objective-C. Server-side Swift growing. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Crystal | 2014 | Ruby-like syntax with C-like performance. Statically typed, compiled. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| TypeScript | 2012 | Web development, Node.js backends. Microsoft’s typed JavaScript superset. Angular, modern React/Vue projects. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Elixir | 2012 | Concurrent/distributed systems, web apps. Runs on Erlang VM. Phoenix framework. WhatsApp-scale reliability. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Julia | 2012 | Scientific computing, data science, HPC. Aims to be as fast as C with Python’s ease. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Kotlin | 2011 | Android development (official), server-side JVM. Full Java interop. JetBrains backed. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Dart | 2011 | Mobile (Flutter), web apps. Google-backed. Cross-platform UI from single codebase. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Rust | 2010 | Systems programming, WebAssembly, CLI tools. Memory safety without GC. Used by Mozilla, Microsoft, AWS, Linux kernel. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Go | 2009 | Cloud infrastructure, microservices, DevOps tools. Created by Google. Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform written in Go. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Nim | 2008 | Systems programming with Python-like syntax. Compiles to C/C++/JS. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Established Mainstream Languages
Languages that are well-established and widely used, sorted by year. Often taught as first languages or used in enterprise environments.
| Language | First Released | Use Cases & Ecosystem (2025) | Windows | macOS | Linux |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C | 1972 | Operating systems, embedded, drivers, performance-critical code. Still the lingua franca of systems. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| C++ | 1985 | Games, systems, browsers, performance apps. Modern C++ (C++20/23) is vastly improved. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MATLAB | 1984 | Engineering, scientific computing, signal processing. Simulink for modeling. Commercial. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Python | 1991 | Data science, ML/AI, scripting, web (Django/Flask), automation. Most popular language for beginners. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| R | 1993 | Statistical computing, data visualization, bioinformatics. RStudio ecosystem. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| JavaScript | 1995 | Web frontend (React, Vue, Angular), Node.js backends, Electron apps. Universal web language. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Java | 1995 | Enterprise apps, Android (legacy), Spring ecosystem. Massive ecosystem, LTS releases (Java 21+). | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PHP | 1995 | Web development, WordPress, Laravel. Powers ~77% of websites with server-side code. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| C# | 2000 | Windows apps, Unity games, .NET ecosystem, Azure. Cross-platform via .NET Core/5+. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Groovy | 2003 | JVM scripting, Gradle build tool, Jenkins pipelines, Grails framework. Full Java interop with dynamic features. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Scala | 2004 | Big data (Spark), JVM functional programming. Scala 3 modernized the language. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| F# | 2005 | .NET functional programming, data science, domain modeling. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Clojure | 2007 | JVM Lisp, data processing, immutable-first. Popular in fintech. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Classic & Historical Languages
Languages with historical significance that shaped programming as we know it, sorted oldest first. Many still power critical systems today.
| Language | Peak Era | Current Status & Modern Support (2025) | Windows | macOS | Linux |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fortran | 1950s–1980s | Actively maintained (GCC gfortran, Intel ifx, NVIDIA nvfortran, Flang/LLVM, AMD aoCC). Used in HPC and legacy scientific code. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| COBOL | 1960s–1990s | Very much alive because of billions of lines in banks/insurance/government. GnuCOBOL (open-source) + Micro Focus Visual COBOL. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ALGOL 60 | 1960s | The influential ancestor of Pascal, C, and most modern languages. GNU MARST compiles ALGOL 60 to C. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| APL | 1960s–1980s | Dyalog APL (commercial, very active), GNU APL, ngn/apl – all run natively. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PL/I | 1960s–1980s | IBM Enterprise PL/I (commercial) and open-source Iron Spring PL/I still compile on modern systems. Multics OS heritage. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SNOBOL / SPITBOL | 1960s–1970s | Modern SPITBOL implementations and Macro SPITBOL still compile and run. CSNOBOL4 actively maintained. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| RPG (Report Program Generator) | 1960s–1990s | Still used on IBM i. Modern free compiler: GNU RPG. Also Rational RDi. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pascal | 1970s–1990s | Free Pascal (FPC) and Lazarus IDE are extremely active. Delphi (commercial) still updated by Embarcadero. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ALGOL 68 | 1970s | Successor to ALGOL 60 with radical redesign. Algol68G interpreter runs on all OSes, available in Debian/Ubuntu repos. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| BLISS | 1970s–1980s | Original DEC BLISS still compiles; open-source re-implementations exist. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Forth | 1970s–1990s | Gforth, SwiftForth, VFX Forth, pForth – dozens of implementations still updated. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Common Lisp | 1970s–1990s | ANSI standardized 1994. SBCL, CCL, ECL actively maintained. Used in aerospace, AI, and travel industry. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Scheme | 1970s–1990s | Minimalist Lisp dialect. GNU Guile, Chez Scheme, Chicken, Racket actively maintained. Influenced JavaScript. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| BASIC dialects | 1970s–1990s | QB64 (fully QBASIC-compatible), FreeBASIC, BlitzBasic variants, ThinBasic, PureBasic (commercial) – all modern and active. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MUMPS / M (GT.M / YottaDB) | 1970s–1990s | Very actively maintained open-source versions (GT.M, YottaDB) used in healthcare (Epic Systems, Veterans Affairs). | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AWK | 1970s–1990s | gawk, mawk, nawk all actively maintained and shipped with every Unix-like system. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ada | 1980s–2000s | GNAT (part of GCC) is fully supported and used in defense/aerospace/rail. Ada 2022 standard. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Modula-2 | 1980s–1990s | GNU Modula-2 (gm2) part of GCC 13+. ADW Modula-2, Gardens Point Modula-2 still maintained. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Smalltalk | 1980s–1990s | Squeak, Pharo, GNU Smalltalk, VisualWorks (commercial) – all actively developed. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Prolog | 1980s–1990s | SWI-Prolog, GNU Prolog, Scryer Prolog, Trealla Prolog – very healthy ecosystem. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Icon / Unicon | 1980s–1990s | Unicon is the actively maintained successor; Icon still works. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| REXX | 1980s–2000s | Open Object Rexx, Regina Rexx – still shipped with some Linux distros and used in mainframe scripting. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ABAP | 1980s–present | SAP’s proprietary language for business applications. Still actively developed for SAP S/4HANA. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Standard ML | 1980s–1990s | SML/NJ, MLton, Poly/ML still maintained. Influenced OCaml, Haskell, Rust. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| J | 1990s | Direct successor to APL; J903/J904 actively maintained by JSoftware. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Tcl/Tk | 1990s–2000s | Still quietly used everywhere (embedded, testing, GUIs). Tcl 9.0 released 2024. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Lua | 1990s–2000s | Popular in games/embedded, but less visible in general-purpose code now. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Perl | 1990s–2010s | Perl 5 still receives regular updates (5.40+), huge CPAN library. Perl 7 in progress. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Haskell | 1990s–2010s | GHC 9.10+ very active, but rarely chosen for new non-academic projects. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| OCaml | 1990s–2010s | Actively developed, used at Jane Street, but niche outside finance and formal verification. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Erlang | 1990s–2010s | Still maintained (WhatsApp, RabbitMQ), but few new projects start in it. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Dylan | 1990s | Open Dylan actively developed; Apple’s dynamic language for Newton PDA. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Eiffel | 1990s–2000s | GNU Eiffel (SmartEiffel) and EiffelStudio (commercial) both maintained. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Oberon / Component Pascal | 1990s–2000s | Active Oberon System 3, BlackBox Component Builder, Astrobe for embedded. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Classic Visual Basic (VB6) | 1990s–early 2000s | VB6 runtime ships forever with Windows. Community tools like TwinBASIC and vbRichClient keep it alive. | Yes | No | No |
| Delphi/Object Pascal | 1995–2010s | Actively developed by Embarcadero; cross-platform FireMonkey apps. Free Pascal + Lazarus is the open-source alternative. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ruby | 2000s–2010s | Still maintained (Ruby 3.3+), YARV, MRuby, TruffleRuby. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Assembly | 1950s–present | NASM, MASM, GAS (GNU Assembler), FASM. Essential for OS kernels, drivers, performance-critical code. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Esoteric Languages
Languages designed to be unusual, challenging, or humorous rather than practical, sorted by year. Fun to explore!
| Language | First Released | Description & Status | Windows | macOS | Linux |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| INTERCAL | 1972 | Deliberately frustrating parody language. C-INTERCAL and CLC-INTERCAL still work. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Brainfuck | 1993 | Minimalist Turing-complete language with only 8 commands. Many interpreters available. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Befunge | 1993 | 2D stack-based language where code flows in multiple directions. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Malbolge | 1998 | Designed to be nearly impossible to program. Named after the 8th circle of Hell. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Shakespeare | 2001 | Programs read like Shakespeare plays. Variables are characters. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Piet | 2002 | Programs are abstract art images. Named after Piet Mondrian. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Whitespace | 2003 | Only spaces, tabs, and newlines are significant. All other characters ignored. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| LOLCODE | 2007 | Based on lolcat memes. “HAI” to start, “KTHXBYE” to end. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
What These Tables Show
- First Released / Peak Era: When the language was created or most influential
- Use Cases / Current Status: Primary domains, frameworks, and active development
- Platform Support: Whether official or community tools exist for each OS (Yes = full support, No = limited/none)
Our Criteria
We focus on languages that:
- Are still runnable - Working compilers or interpreters exist
- Have historical significance - Influenced other languages or were widely used
- Can be demonstrated - We can show working code examples
- Run in Docker - Most can be containerized for easy setup
Want to Contribute?
Know a language we’re missing? Have expertise in one of these? We welcome contributions! Check our About page for how to get involved.
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