The Programming Languages Podcast with Fexingo: Python, Rust, JavaScript, and Modern Coding

SQLite is everywhere—in your phone, browser, and car—yet it rarely gets the spotlight. In this episode of The Programming Languages Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore why SQLite's zero-configuration, serverless design makes it the world's most deployed database engine. They dive into its unique architecture: a single-file database that uses B-tree storage and a carefully designed locking protocol to...

Lucas and Luna break down the SAFE note—the Simple Agreement for Future Equity—and why it has become the go-to instrument for early-stage startup funding in 2026. They walk through a real case: a $2.5 million seed round for a fintech startup using a SAFE with a $15 million valuation cap and no discount. Lucas explains the mechanics, the recent SEC rule changes that made SAFEs more standardized, an...

Lucas and Luna dive into WebAssembly (Wasm) as it hits a critical inflection point in mid-2026. They explore how Wasm is moving beyond the browser into server-side runtimes, edge computing, and plugin systems—with concrete examples like Figma's use of Wasm for Photoshop-level performance in the browser and Docker's integration of Wasm modules. They break down the 2025 Wasm GC spec adoption, the ri...

In this episode of The Programming Languages Podcast, Lucas and Luna dive into Kotlin Multiplatform, the emerging framework that lets developers share business logic across Android, iOS, web, and desktop from a single Kotlin codebase. They explore its 2026 landscape, comparing it to Flutter and React Native, and break down why JetBrains' approach of 'shared logic, native UI' is gaining traction in...

In this milestone 100th episode, Lucas and Luna examine Julia's surprising traction in 2026 — from the Gordon Bell Prize-winning simulation that ran on 1.3 million cores to its quiet adoption inside pharmaceutical R&D at Pfizer and AstraZeneca. They unpack why Julia's 'two-language problem' solution is finally convincing engineers who once swore by Python+Fortran, how MIT's continued stewardship h...

In this episode of The Programming Languages Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore why Lua, the lightweight scripting language, has become the go-to choice for game development and embedded systems in 2026. They dive into its simple syntax, stack-based virtual machine, and seamless C integration, using concrete examples from Roblox, World of Warcraft add-ons, and LuaJT—a just-in-time compiler that broug...

Lucas and Luna dive into Elixir, the functional language built on the Erlang VM that's quietly powering real-time, fault-tolerant systems at scale. They explore how companies like Discord and Pinterest use Elixir's actor model and OTP to handle millions of concurrent connections with minimal latency. The discussion covers key features like pattern matching, supervision trees, and the 'let it crash...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore why Mojo, a new programming language from Modular, is generating serious buzz in 2026. They break down how Mojo combines Python-like syntax with MLIR-based compilation to achieve C-level performance, especially for AI workloads. The hosts discuss Mojo's unique ownership model, its ability to run Python libraries natively, and why it might become the go-to la...

R has long been the statistician's favorite, but in 2026 it's undergoing a quiet renaissance. Lucas and Luna explore how the new R 5.0 release, the Arrow integration for out-of-memory data, and the rise of the 'R in production' movement are making it a serious competitor to Python for enterprise data pipelines. They break down the specific performance gains—like 10x faster data frame operations wi...

We look at why C, the 50-year-old language, still compiles the kernels, firmware, and interpreters that run the modern tech stack. Lucas argues that Rust's hype overshadows C's irreplaceable role in embedded systems, operating systems, and the foundational layers of cloud infrastructure. Luna pushes back, questioning whether C's safety issues should finally force a migration. Specific examples: th...

Lucas and Luna explore why Go (Golang) has become the default language for cloud-native infrastructure in 2026. They zero in on a specific case: how a mid-sized fintech, PayFlow, migrated its payment processing from Python to Go and cut latency from 120 milliseconds to 12, while handling 5x the throughput with half the servers. The episode breaks down Go's goroutines and channels, compares them to...

Lucas and Luna explore why Gleam, a statically typed language on the Erlang VM, is gaining real-world traction in 2026. They trace how Gleam's pragmatic design—borrowing Elm's type system and BEAM's concurrency—solves problems that TypeScript and Elixir leave open. With a concrete case study of a logistics startup that rewrote its core routing service in Gleam, the episode examines Gleam's tooling...

Lucas and Luna explore why COBOL, a language created in 1959, still powers 70 percent of global financial transactions. They break down the staggering 220 billion lines of COBOL code in production, the costly skills gap as legacy programmers retire, and how modern initiatives like COBOL transpilation to Java and IBM's z/OS modernization tools are keeping the mainframe relevant. Featuring the story...

In this episode of The Programming Languages Podcast with Fexingo, Lucas and Luna explore how Rust is becoming the go-to language for building the infrastructure that powers AI and machine learning workloads. They discuss why companies like Hugging Face, Anthropic, and startups in the AI space are adopting Rust for its performance, safety, and concurrency benefits. The hosts break down specific us...

Episode 90 of The Programming Languages Podcast with Fexingo dives into Dart, the language behind Flutter, and how it's quietly becoming a major player for multiplatform development. Lucas and Luna explore why Dart's just-in-time compilation and hot reload have made it a favorite for startups and enterprises alike, using the example of a fintech app that cut development time by 40 percent. They di...

In this episode of The Programming Languages Podcast with Fexingo, Lucas and Luna explore how TypeScript has become the de facto standard for large-scale JavaScript development. They trace its evolution from a niche superset to a language that now powers over 80% of front-end frameworks and many backend projects. The hosts discuss a specific case study: how a mid-sized fintech startup migrated a m...

Lucas and Luna explore how Swift's async/await and actor model are fundamentally changing the way iOS apps are built, moving from callback-heavy code to structured concurrency. They dive into real-world performance gains at companies like Uber and Spotify, where migrating to Swift concurrency cut crash rates and boosted responsiveness. The hosts break down the key concepts—async let, task groups,...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore Tauri, the rising framework that challenges Electron by using Rust for the backend and web technologies for the frontend. They break down how a typical Electron app using 200 MB of RAM can be replaced by a Tauri app using under 10 MB. They discuss real-world examples like the Discord desktop app's potential switch and the performance gains companies see in p...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna dive into why Python remains the undisputed leader in data engineering, even as newer languages like Rust and Go gain traction. They explore the rise of Apache Arrow, the impact of Polars as a Pandas alternative, and how Python's ecosystem around PySpark and Airflow keeps it dominant. With specific benchmarks and real-world examples from companies like Meta and Netf...

Lucas and Luna explore how SQLite has quietly become the most deployed database engine on the planet, powering everything from smartphones and web browsers to aviation and industrial IoT. They unpack its zero-config design, the surprising scale of its adoption (over one trillion databases in active use), and why it's now gaining traction in edge computing and serverless architectures. The episode...

In this episode of The Programming Languages Podcast, Lucas and Luna dive into Zig, the systems programming language that's gaining traction as a modern alternative to C. They explore how Zig's lack of hidden control flow, compile-time memory management, and seamless C interoperability make it a compelling choice for performance-critical projects. With the recent 0.14 release and growing adoption...

Lucas and Luna explore why OCaml, a decades-old functional programming language, is experiencing a quiet resurgence in 2026 — particularly in financial technology and formal verification. They break down how Jane Street Capital processes billions of dollars in trades daily using OCaml, why its type system prevents entire categories of bugs that plague C++ and Java, and how the language's unique 'e...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna dive into the battle between Solidity and Rust for smart contract development as of mid-2026. They explore how Solidity remains the dominant language on Ethereum, with over 90% of deployed contracts written in it, but how Rust is rapidly gaining ground through platforms like Solana and NEAR, where it powers faster, more secure contracts. The hosts discuss specific c...

In this episode of The Programming Languages Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore Python's enduring dominance in data science and machine learning, even as newer languages like Mojo and Julia gain traction. They dive into the Python ecosystem's key strengths: the maturity of libraries like PyTorch and scikit-learn, the vast community, and the language's role in the AI boom. They also discuss the challe...

WebAssembly, or Wasm, is no longer just a niche tool for browser gaming. In 2026, it's running server-side functions, powering edge computing, and even replacing containers in some deployments. Lucas and Luna dive into the specific numbers: over 70% of cloud providers now support Wasm runtime, and how companies like Cloudflare and Fastly are using it to reduce cold-start latency from hundreds of m...