I don't see my favorite language has here, Let me introduce a great programing language that most people do not know about, The D programming language. First I'll give the buzzword filled blurb that most languages do: D is a safe static typed multi paradigm systems language with a C-like syntax.
Why do I think this language is a good fit here, its a very productive language especially for a single developer. One undervalued aspect is that its not a "big agenda" language where it's focused on one design aspect at the price of all others and instead focuses on being generally productive. Having come from C++, the super fast compile times and saner design are such a breath of fresh air, D is to C++ what Go is to C.
But Simply describing D as nicer C++ is not doing it justice, it has aspects that make it stand on it's own.
D has the best Template system, Compile time introspection, function execution and code generation I have experienced in any language. It’s trivial to take an input and to generate d code at compile time, there is no need for complicated build scripts that generate source files as separate steps or any nasty text preprocessors.
Using a library called pyd you can get nice Python & D interop, this is one of the reasons why I think D is a good fit for robowaifu.
Another awesome feature is the GC, I know C&C++ people will roll there eyes, but I’d argue it’s actually really good for being productive. Unlike a lot of languages with a GC, its not forced using it is optional, C&C++ style manual memory management is a valid approach. D provides the @nogc attribute to ensure at compile time a function will never trigger the GC, Anyone writing high performance code should already be profiling and if your inside a hot spot as long as you don’t allocate GC memory you will have the same performance as C or C++. Finally there is the safety aspect, I am not going to argue that D is equal to Rust in this aspect, it’s not. But D does gives good tools to help ensure memory safety. D naturally has less foot guns then C&C++ and the @safe D subset is nice. I won't go into more detail, here is a link
https://dlang.org/blog/2022/06/21/dip1000-memory-safety-in-a-modern-system-programming-language-pt-1
I will not pretend that D is perfect, it has its problems. It’s not a popular language, It’s community is small. Phobos (the std lib) is not perfect for @nogc code. Etc.. I can elaborate if anyone wants.
I try to approach programing language discussions by talking about positives and not attacking other languages, but I will just say that, I bring up D as a counter to C, GO, C++ & Rust. I have used C++ for a long time, I have used Java & node. I have tried out GO and Rust.
Go gets a lot right, I love it's fast compile times, it’s not a bad language, but it’s made for a corporate/large environment with a large code base and an army of expendable employees. Keeping it simple is very useful, it ensures the code base is maintainable over time even as people come and go. But for a small group of developers or an individual its restrictiveness is not helpful. One graybeard template wizard can be more productive than 10 Java monkeys.
Then there is the Rust meme, the language has good ideas, and has had a good impact on language design, it has gotten more programmers thinking about memory safety. But it’s not the only important factor. What ultimately killed rust for me was how slow working in it is & I am not talking about borrow checker errors. I’m talking the slow compile times and the rigidness that builds up as your project grows, it’s often very hard to refactor a Rust (and C++) project.
In my experience D while not perfect is actually really good at making projects enjoyable to work on. I don't think anyone here is getting paid so developer enjoyment becomes important for motivation.