What is Ballerina
Ballerina Programming Language
Ballerina is a cross-platform programming language that made its first public appearance in 2017. Ballerina incorporates many modern aspects that make it ideal for fields of programming such as cloud migration and application development. These modern aspects such as open-source development and cloud integration make ballerina a versatile and widely applicable programming language. Ballerina is an open-sourced language, making it open to the public to adopt it or learn it from others. This means that the software for the language itself may be developed in a collaborative or public virtual environment.
The benefit of open-source programming languages is that there is more brainpower working on and with the language. As a result, it can be developed or evolve in ways to better suit the needs of the public. Along with the users of said open-sourced programming language, in this case, the language being ballerina.
History of Ballerina
Ballerina was developed by the company WSO2 which is a software programming interfaces and applications development company. WSO2 developed Ballerina in order to increase the efficiency of application developers who use cloud-native systems. Ballerina was first publicly available in 2017 with version 1.0 being released in September 2019 making it a new and modern era programming language. Ballerina was intended to be an open-sourced, cloud-native, and cloud-integrated or pre-integrated programming language. Primarily targeted towards large teams of developers working on complex projects that would be heavily reliant on the cloud. Ballerina is also an adaptable programming language, meaning it would change, adapt and grow alongside its consumer base. Ballerina gets its edge over other programming languages through the cloud integration that comes with using the programming language. This cloud integration, adaptability, and open-source base would set ballerina up to be a very successful product for WSO2.
What is WSO2?
To understand why ballerina was launched and how it is being operated we need to understand the company WSO2. WSO2 had been making application software for around twelve years but they never made a programming language for their products. This led to the development of ballerina which would serve a purpose WSO2 knew was, and would be in high demand. This purpose was pre-integration, the company recognized that a programming language optimized for integration could see large usage. Therefore it was decided that ballerina would serve as a cloud-integrated and cloud-native language primarily for developers. WSO2 also made the ballerina open-sourced because it would foster growth and ease of use for the language. Although it is still in its infancy, the ballerina has been a successful programming language in terms of growth and usage. This is due to its cloud integration, open-source, and the platforms utilized.
Platform
Ballerina is based on the popular programming language known as java, which itself is based on the language C++. The reason behind building off java is so there is a base language that the cloud-native aspect of Ballerina is built upon. The Ballerina programming language features its primary platform for cloud-native programming and application programming interfaces individually. Ballerina is built upon the mentioned base languages and adds more aspects to them for the ease and efficiency of developers. This means that when a programmer uses ballerina to create or code a system such as cloud-dependent software. Ballerina will be able to assist the programmer with features such as code-to-cloud conversions, cloud network structure, and API. As for API, this is an additional platform ballerina serves. Also known as application programming interface, in which a software network works to develop a common project through interconnected networks.
A Cloud-Native Language
Ballerina programming is a language that falls under the growing and fairly new category of a cloud-native programming language. This cloud-native nature entails that ballerina will keep the process of editing cloud-intensive programs simple and efficient. Cloud-native languages in general have seen an increase in demand and usage due to how common complex cloud-dependent projects have become. There are many other programming languages that specialize in cloud-native programming, some of which include Pulumi and the meta particle library. Ballerina benefits from being cloud-native in nature but also has many other benefits of use for programmers and developers.
Benefits of Ballerina
The benefits of Ballerina as a programming language come from different factors of how the language is used and applied. One of these benefits is that Ballerina is cloud-integrated or cloud-native by nature. This means that on complex projects the programming is pre-integrated into the cloud. Pre-integration makes collaboration and advanced editing easier and it also keeps programmers on the same page. Another advantage that Ballerina provides is that it is a possible solution to many of the integration issues large-scale programming projects face. Integration is typically an entire process with other languages, all while the process is seamless through ballerina. A third advantage that ballerina brings comes from the fact that it is open-sourced. Because ballerina is open-sourced there is more brainpower working on and with the language. This means that ballerina can be developed or adapt efficiently to suit the needs of users.
Potential Downside
As we know every programming language has its downsides as well as its advantages, and Ballerina is certainly no exception to this. A downside ballerina faces come from it being open-sourced and growth-focused as opposed to a stable language. Ballerina is constantly changing which could be a good thing as it means that there is always more you can do with the language. Unfortunately, this can also be a disadvantage because as a programmer there is now a learning curve associated with your program. If you are a programmer working with ballerina you need to keep up with what is changing as you program which only serves to complicate a project. This additional complexity and educational demand may potentially discourage larger corporations from using the language as it costs time and money to educate programmers.
Examples of Code
Ballerina is used for many different programs both complex and basic. An example of an if, or conditional statement in the ballerina programming language would look something like this.;
In this example, the output of this code in a Ballerina compiler would be the values of each variable. With respect to the number listed in the code of the program. Another example of code from the ballerina programming would be a program utilizing a loop statement, which in ballerina would be:
Where the output would be all numbers until 100. As we can see from both examples the ballerina code opens with the same line. Being “import ballerina / io;” tells the program to perform the import to ballerina and is a crucial part of the code. Another feature of Ballerina that stands out is the print statement. In Ballerina the print statement is written differently than in most other languages. In ballerina a print statement would use io:print(“ ‘’); as opposed to another language such as python. Where the print statement would look like “print(‘Hello, world.’)”.The reason ballerina uses this shown print method is so communications between the computer and program are made easier. This is to the advantage of a programmer using the ballerina, as their communications with the program are more efficient.
Use of Ballerina
Ballerina has many uses for many purposes within the fields of computer science, automation, and technology. Some of these fields are already highly lucrative and well developed with large workforces and consumer markets. These fields include programming, automation, cloud web development, application development, integration, and research. Ballerina may also see use in developing or growing fields that have the potential to be a big part of the economy. These growing and potentially large purposes or fields include artificial intelligence, data use, and the collection as well as cloud structuring. Because of how widely applicable the ballerina programming language is, it is expected that ballerina will grow as these fields continue to progress. Ballerina also has the potential to be used in educational situations for programmers wanting to learn a more complex language. This is due to the open-sourced nature which is good for learning experiences and the ever-changing structure of ballerina.
The Future of Ballerina
Ballerina has been the flagship programming language for the Sri Lankan company called WSO2. WSO2 is a company that specializes in open source technologies such as application development and cloud-native software. Because WSO2 specializes in open source software which is what the programming language ballerina is. We can assume that the company will hold ballerina for the long run and develop it. As opposed to selling the programming language to another company or releasing it. Because of this long-term strategy, WSO2 has adopted ballerina into the company’s ideals and will continue to develop it. This development would be geared towards open source usage as it is WSO2’s specialty. Ballerina may, as a result, see massive growth upside due to the increasing popularity of open-source cloud-native development. The reason cloud-native development is becoming more popular is developers need to stay interconnected to work on complex projects.
A Growth Based Language
Ballerina has been following an upwards trend in terms of active users and anticipated users since it was first announced in 2017. This is due to the growth of cloud-native and API programming that ballerina was initially built for. Ballerina makes cloud to native programming easier for companies, individual developers, startups, and even for large teams of developers. These users will find that using the ballerina programming language makes cloud-native development more simple and efficient. As a result, we can expect continued growth from the ballerina programming language as its user base grows. The reason why we can fairly expect large growth is because ballerina is an open-source programming language. The more users it has, the more research and data is collected or improved on the language. Therefore it can improve and grow as a language becoming even more efficient, and making its growth exponential in trajectory.
Takeaway
Ballerina may well be the future of API and cloud-native programming languages. This is because of its versatility in fields such as application development, research, and even automation. Ballerina much like the rest of the programming world is open-sourced, developing, and constantly evolving. Meaning that as time goes on, the language becomes easier to grow. Ballerina advances alongside growing fields of programming through cloud integration and by being open-sourced.
Ballerina seems keen on evolving to meet the needs of its users and remaining versatile. Because of this versatility, it’s fair to assume that ballerina has adequate room to expand as a programming language. We may see ballerina used more frequently in a wide variety of computer science and technology fields. These fields include robotics, software, applications, and automation. As you may realize these fields are all high growth, which further establishes the potential growth ballerina has as a programming language.
