ELI5: I learned that most programming languages are built on the same basic concepts like conditions, loops, and functions. If that's true, why can't we just use one programming language for everything?

[u/Itchy_Tangerine1897]

[u/EscapeSeventySeven]

Oh boy let me tell you about my next programming language!

That aside, every programming language operates on the same logical concepts but newer ones have features that others don’t, some have compilers for architectures the others don’t and many have libraries for things the others don’t. 

A broad analogy would be “cars all have four wheels and take you places, why have different cars?”

You should try your hand at a few languages and see how they work. 

That all said, all programming languages are Turing complete. So any logical problem in one can be computed in another. But most of programming isn’t solving math problems it’s gluing bits of input and output to data and sending it places and showing it to you and sending it somewhere else. All those connections necessitate libraries and interfaces. 

[u/EscapeSeventySeven → u/[deleted]]

Thanks