Comment by zzo38computer

> Everything except C now has standard strings, not just arrays of characters. Almost all languages now have some standard way to do key/value sets. What else ought to be standard?

I think that character strings should not be restricted to (or generally expected to be) Unicode (although using Unicode and other character sets will still be possible).

I also think that key/value lists should allow any or most types as keys, including references to objects. (PostScript allows any type to be used as keys except strings (they are converted to names if you use them as keys) and nulls.)

I think that big integers (which can have a program-specified limited length in programming languages with typed variables) and arrays of fixed-length records (which C already has; JavaScript has typed arrays which is a more limited implementation of this) are also things that would be helpful to include as standard.

> Arrays of more than one dimension would be helpful for numerical work.

I agree with this too; it is a good idea.

> Standard types for 2, 3 and 4-element vectors would help in graphics work.

This is probably helpful, too, although they can be used for stuff other than graphics work as well.

> Do programs really have to be in monospaced fonts?

No, but that is due to how it is displayed and is not normally a feature of the program itself. Many people including myself do use monospace fonts, but this should not usually be required.

> There's async, there are threads, and there are "green threads", such as Go's "goroutines". Where's that going?

I had read about "green threads" and I think that it is a good idea.

> How about "big objects?" These are separately built program components which have internal state and some protection from their callers. Microsoft OLE did that, some .dll files do that, and Intel used to have rings of protection and call gates to help with that, hardware features nobody used. But languages never directly supported such objects.

I also think it is sensible to have components that can be separated from the callers, and that operating system support (and perhaps hardware support) for such thing might be helpful. I would design a programming language for such an operating system that would directly support such objects.