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

Smalltalk, the language that introduced object-oriented programming decades ago, still shapes modern software development. In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore how Smalltalk's ideas—like objects, messages, and the image-based development model—live on in languages like Ruby, Swift, and even JavaScript. They discuss the history of Smalltalk at Xerox PARC, its influence on the Agile movement, and...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore why TypeScript has become the default choice for modern web development, even as JavaScript evolves and new contenders like Python's PyScript and Go's WASM support emerge. Centered on the massive 2026 npm registry milestone of 3 billion weekly downloads, they break down TypeScript's structural typing, its role in large-scale refactors at companies like Airbn...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore why Kotlin has become the go-to language for server-side development in 2026, moving beyond its Android fame. They start with a surprising stat: Kotlin now powers over 30 percent of new backend services at major tech firms. Lucas breaks down how Kotlin's concise syntax, null safety, and seamless Java interop let teams cut boilerplate by half while keeping JV...

Lua is everywhere, hiding inside games, embedded systems, and even Adobe products, yet most developers barely notice it. In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore why Lua, a 30-year-old language, is still the go-to choice for embedding scripting into larger applications. They trace its origins at a Brazilian university, explain its tiny footprint and C-API design, and highlight its modern revival th...

In this milestone 150th episode, Lucas and Luna explore why Elixir, a language born from the Erlang ecosystem, is quietly becoming the go-to choice for fault-tolerant backend systems in 2026. They trace its origins to Ericsson's 1980s telecom switches, where the requirement for 99.9999999 percent uptime shaped a programming philosophy that now powers modern chat apps, payment gateways, and real-ti...

In this episode of The Programming Languages Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore Crystal, the compiled language with Ruby-like syntax and C-like performance. They break down its unique compiled approach, its built-in concurrency model, and why it's gaining traction for building fast command-line tools and web backends in 2026. With a quick look at how Crystal's type inference and macro system deliver...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore Zig, the systems programming language that's quietly becoming a favorite for performance-critical projects in 2026. They trace its rise from a niche language to a serious contender alongside C and Rust, focusing on its zero-dependency philosophy, compile-time code execution, and explicit memory handling. The conversation centers on Zig's unique approach to b...

Lucas and Luna dig into GraalVM, the high-performance runtime that's quietly changing how enterprises run polyglot code. In 2026, as microservices and serverless become the default, GraalVM's native images and Truffle framework are delivering startup times measured in milliseconds and memory footprints cut by half. The episode centers on a real-world case: a major European bank that migrated its J...

In this episode of The Programming Languages Podcast, Lucas and Luna dive into WebAssembly's rise as the universal compiler target in 2026. They trace its journey from a browser-only novelty to a cornerstone of edge computing, serverless platforms, and even blockchain smart contracts. With major cloud providers now supporting WebAssembly runtimes, and frameworks like wasmtime and Wasmer maturing,...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore Jai, a new programming language designed by Jonathan Blow, creator of Braid and The Witness. They discuss Jai's focus on simplicity, performance, and control for game engine development, and how it contrasts with C++ and Rust. The conversation covers Jai's unique approach to compile-time metaprogramming, its status in 2026, and what it means for the future o...

Actor-model concurrency, no garbage collection pauses, and a type system that makes data-race freedom a compile-time guarantee. In this episode, Lucas and Luna break down why the Pony programming language is becoming the go-to choice for high-frequency trading desks and real-time payment rails in 2026. They walk through a concrete example: a matching engine built in Pony that processes 10 million...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore how Julia, the dynamic language designed for high-performance numerical computing, is gaining serious traction in scientific and financial environments in 2026. They unpack the 'two-language problem'—the old workflow of prototyping in Python and then rewriting in C++ or Fortran—and how Julia collapses that into one language. With concrete examples from quant...

SQLite runs on billions of devices and underpins everything from your phone's apps to aircraft flight software. In this episode, Lucas and Luna look at how a single C library became the most deployed database engine on Earth, what makes it so reliable, and why in 2026 it's still the default choice for edge computing and local-first apps. They break down the specific design decisions — like its sin...

Go, the language born at Google in 2009, has become the backbone of cloud-native infrastructure. In 2026, Go's adoption for building microservices, CLI tools, and Kubernetes controllers is at an all-time high. Lucas and Luna explore why Go's simplicity, goroutines, and powerful standard library make it a top choice for backend developers, even as Rust gains traction for performance-critical system...

In this episode of The Programming Languages Podcast, Lucas and Luna dive into COBOL — the old-school language that still processes trillions of dollars in transactions daily. They explore why COBOL remains crucial in banking, insurance, and government systems, and examine the 2026 modernization trend where new tools like AWS Mainframe Modernization and IBM's Watsonx are bridging old and new code....

Swift has long been seen as Apple's language for iOS and macOS apps, but in 2026 it's breaking out of that bubble. According to the 2026 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, Swift server-side usage jumped 40% year over year, and the TIOBE index placed it in the top ten for the first time. In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore how open-source efforts, frameworks like Vapor, and initiatives like Swift...

In this episode of The Programming Languages Podcast, Lucas and Luna dive into why Dart and Flutter have become a dominant force in cross-platform development by mid-2026. They start with a surprising stat from the latest Stack Overflow survey: Flutter has overtaken React Native in developer satisfaction and is now used by over 15 million developers worldwide. Lucas explores how Google's investmen...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna dive into Mojo, the new programming language from Modular that promises to combine Python's ease of use with C-like performance for AI workloads. They discuss a benchmark showing a 3000x speedup over pure Python on matrix multiplication, the auto-tuning compiler that optimizes kernels for specific hardware, and the challenges of ecosystem maturity. Featuring insight...

In March 2026, the White House Office of the National Cyber Director released a report urging the shift to memory-safe languages for critical infrastructure. Rust, with its borrow checker and zero-cost abstractions, is leading the charge. This episode explores how Rust is being adopted in the Linux kernel, by major tech companies like Google and Microsoft, and by the Department of Defense. We disc...

In this episode of The Programming Languages Podcast with Fexingo, Lucas and Luna explore the rise of polyglot programming—where developers use multiple languages in a single project or career. Anchoring on the 2026 Stack Overflow survey showing 62% of professional developers now use more than one language, they discuss the drivers behind this shift: the need for performance and productivity trade...

Lucas and Luna explore why Bash remains the go-to scripting language for DevOps engineers in 2026, despite modern alternatives. They discuss its ubiquity in cloud-native environments, the elegance of Unix pipes, modern Bash features like associative arrays, and when to stick with Bash versus reach for Python. Featuring concrete examples from container orchestration and CI/CD pipelines. #Bash #DevO...

In 2026, R has climbed back into the TIOBE top 10 and its package repository CRAN now hosts over 23,000 packages. Lucas and Luna explore why this 30-year-old language is still essential for data science, from the tidyverse and Shiny dashboards to its dominance in biostatistics and academic research. They discuss the role of Posit (formerly RStudio) in building a reproducible ecosystem, and how R's...

Python 3.13’s free-threading experiment has become production-ready in 2026, and early adopters like Dropbox and Reddit are reporting 3x–4x throughput gains on server-side workloads. This episode breaks down how the Global Interpreter Lock was finally made optional, what it means for existing single-threaded code, and why the biggest impact isn’t on AI models but on everyday web services. We also...

TypeScript has long been the dominant language for frontend development, but as of mid-2026, it's rapidly becoming the default choice for backend services as well. In this episode, Lucas and Luna break down why TypeScript's type system, tooling, and ecosystem are driving enterprise adoption—from NestJS and Prisma to the new Deno runtime. They discuss a specific case: how a major fintech firm migra...

Lucas and Luna explore how Lua, a small and fast scripting language, has become the backbone of game development in 2026. They break down why game engines like Roblox, World of Warcraft, and even AAA titles rely on Lua for modding, rapid iteration, and runtime flexibility. Lucas walks through Lua's design philosophy—minimalist, embeddable, and blazingly fast—while Luna questions whether its lack o...