Interestingly, the very first programming language with an actual implementation was interpreted: Short Code in 1950.
And just like modern scripting languages, it reduced execution speed by about 50x.
Programming languages without a decent dominating package system by 
Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16One theoretical motivation for its existence is that it has the fundamental property that we are immediately certain it will terminate, unlike while loops with arbitrary conditions.
Primitive recursive functions are the complexity class that divides those two.
Largest programs ever written:
The more heavily a project relies on it, the more you start to regret it.
It is interesting to note how late C appeared: 1972, compared e.g. to Fortran which is from 1957. This is basically because C was a "systems programming language", i.e. with focus on pointer manipulation, and because early computers were so weak, there was no operating system or many software layers in the early days. Fortran however was a numerical language, and it ran directly on bare metal, an application that existed before systems programming.
Examples under c.
Quick overview at stackoverflow.com/questions/1780599/what-is-the-meaning-of-posix/31865755#31865755
Exmples under c/posix:
- c/posix/signal_return.c: stackoverflow.com/questions/37063212/where-does-signal-handler-return-back-to
- c/posix/inet/pton.c:
inet_ptondemo. Adapted fromman inet_ptonon Ubuntu 23.04. Usage:Output:./pton.out 192.187.1.42So we see that the strings was converted to an integer, e.g.:0xc0bb012aSee also: stackoverflow.com/questions/1680622/ip-address-to-integer-c/76520978#76520978- 0xc0 = 192
- 0xbb = 187
- 0x01 = 1
- 0x2a = 42
- c/posix/inet/ntop.c:
inet_ntopdemo. Adapted fromman inet_ptonon Ubuntu 23.04. Usage:Output:./ntop.out 0x01021AA0./ntop.out 0x01021AA0
The CLI tools don't appear to be packaged for Ubuntu 23.10? Annoying... There is a package
libapache-jena-java but it doesn't contain any binaries, only Java library files.To run the CLI tools easily we can download the prebuilt:and we can confirm it works with:which outputs:
sudo apt install openjdk-22-jre
wget https://dlcdn.apache.org/jena/binaries/apache-jena-4.10.0.zip
unzip apache-jena-4.10.0.zip
cd apache-jena-4.10.0
export JENA_HOME="$(pwd)"
export PATH="$PATH:$(pwd)/bin"sparql -versionApache Jena version 4.10.0If your Java is too old then then running
sparql with the prebuilts fails with:Error: A JNI error has occurred, please check your installation and try again
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: arq/sparql has been compiled by a more recent version of the Java Runtime (class file version 55.0), this version of the Java Runtime only recognizes class file versions up to 52.0
at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:756)
at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:142)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:473)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$100(URLClassLoader.java:74)
at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:369)
at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:363)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:362)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:418)
at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:352)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:351)
at sun.launcher.LauncherHelper.checkAndLoadMain(LauncherHelper.java:621)Build from source is likely something like:TODO test it.
sudo apt install maven openjdk-22-jdk
git clone https://github.com/apache/jena --branch jena-4.10.0 --depth 1
cd jena
mvn clean installIf you make the mistake of trying to run the source tree without build:it fails with:as per: users.jena.apache.narkive.com/T5TaEszT/sparql-tutorial-querying-datasets-error-unrecognized-option-graph
git clone https://github.com/apache/jena --branch jena-4.10.0 --depth 1
cd jena
export JENA_HOME="$(pwd)"
export PATH="$PATH:$(pwd)/apache-jena/bin"Error: Could not find or load main class arq.sparqlLikely a good replacement for Python. If the ecosystem gets there, Ciro Santilli would gladly use it more.
Java is good.
Its boilerplate requirement is a pain, but the design is otherwise very clean.
But its ecosystem sucks.
The development process is rather closed, the issue tracker obscure.
And above all, Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc. killed everybody's trust in it once and for all. Thanks Oracle.
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