WSO2 waited for the recent WSO2Con USA celebration to surprise the world with the Ballerina programming language; a tool that has everything in its favour to break new ground. The company, which develops open source applications, has put integration in the spotlight. This enables Ballerina to connect with surprising ease to different applications, data and services.
In spite of the reluctance programmers tend to exhibit when switching languages, especially those using DSL, Ballerina is attractive enough to achieve this.
Ballerina Tools: All the tools you need to start programming with Ballerina
What you should know about Ballerina
Below we list the 4 most important things you should know about this groundbreaking programming language:
1- It is a language designed for everyone
Complex programming languages that could only be employed by certain specialists who knew them in-depth is a thing of the past. Ballerina is designed to be used by anyone with minimal knowledge. It can be used by anyone from beginners with little experience to professionals with a long track record. As well as marketing directors and, of course, programmers themselves. Ballerina uses eye-catching visual diagrams that can be understood at first sight, which makes it the most accessible programming language you can imagine nowadays.
2- Integration is key
Too many times we have experienced first-hand the gap that exists between those in charge of programming and persons in charge of architecture. The former care more about code, while the latter prefer to communicate by using diagrams. Ballerina tends to both sides with an integrated programming language that will help prevent the loss of time and money.
3- Ballerina is the most flexible language
It is a language that will let you write simple code both in Ballerina and in Swagger, but in addition, it allows for integrations using sequence diagrams as a basis. You can use plug-ins coded in Ballerina in Vim, IntelliJ IDEA and others. The fact that the community of users who add to its code base is expanding every day is proof of its growth, which is compounded by the fact that its API lets it take advantage of the functionality of other programs.
4- Eye-catching
Why does a programming language need to be obscure and unsightly? They have wondered this at WSO2, and the answer is that is does not need to; or at least it will not from now on. The purpose of Ballerina is to be easily understood, and it is for this reason that it is also easy to use. Its syntax could not be simpler. Sequence diagrams offer the additional advantage of creating, in parallel, integration code. On the other hand, they make it much simpler to explain the language to a group of people without the need for them to be excessively familiarised with the product. Adding elements is as simple as dragging & dropping them inside the image.
