The Most Underrated Programming Languages You Should Learn in 2025 (Because Python Is Too Mainstream)
Alright, Alright, Alright…No, I’m not your favorite Matthew McConaughey, rather your boy REAPER! Anyway you damn nerds, listen up! You ever want to learn a programming language, but every tech bro and their grandmas out there keep shouting “Learn Python! Learn JavaScript!” like some remote cult?
I’m gonna stop y’all right there. And I’m gonna rope your asses to be the rascal coder(it won’t bring Mai San in front of you though), the glitch in the matrix, the absolute bastard who refuses to conform to the norm, who would win the battle of the bastards. Why? Because you don’t wanna be just another yes man getting your asses pulled by the Chatgpt-Python-overlords into coding mediocrity, do you? Hell no! You wanna be the kind of person who walks into a tech interview, says, “Yeah, I code in Zig,” and watches the recruiter’s brain rot like the steak you forgot to cook last night.
So, let’s talk about the most underrated programming languages of 2025 that’ll make you stand out (like Ryan Gosling’s purple face while he was staring at the giant hologram of Ana de Armas) in a room full of Java developers.
Catch a support chair or something, for this Reaper is going to change tones and sing you poetry.
Zig – The “I Bet You’ve Never Heard of It” Language
You know C? You know Rust? Well, Zig is the perfect bastard of those two after a night’s mistake at a hacker convention. Well, I won’t call it a mistake when it’s fast, safe, and got manual memory management for those who like to live life on the edge (aka, the developers who don’t fear segmentation faults, reminds me of Jon Snow). It’s like drinking black coffee while standing on the edge of a skyscraper(P.S. I drink coffee even when I’m going to sleep).
Zig doesn’t hold your hand. It doesn’t coddle you with condom collections or whisper sweet nothings of abstraction in your ear. No, Zig throws you into the Mariana Trench and tells you to swim or segfault. If C is your strict dad and Rust is your paranoid uncle, Zig is the chill but highly competent elder sibling who just gets shit done without drama.
If you wanna flex on C and Rust developers, if you enjoy knowing where every byte of memory is at 3 AM when your code decides to have a depressive episode, or if you just want to say, “I code in Zig” and watch people pretend to know what you’re talking about—this is your language.
Elixir – The Language That Refuses to Die
You ever hear of Erlang? No? That’s okay, neither have 90% of developers. But Elixir is Erlang’s cooler, hipster cousin who actually showers and doesn’t exclusively code on a ThinkPad from 2006.
This bad boy was built for concurrency. Like, next-level, “run a million processes at once without breaking a sweat” kind of concurrency. WhatsApp, Discord, and a bunch of financial systems run on it because it just won’t die. Seriously, if your Elixir app crashes, it probably means the entire universe is collapsing.
The syntax? Oh, it’s smooth as butter. Functional programming without the emotional trauma of Haskell. It’s got all the power without making you feel like you need a PhD in mathematics to use it. If you want to build a system that laughs in the face of downtime, Elixir is your best friend. Just don’t expect your JavaScript-obsessed friends to understand what the hell you’re talking about.
Crystal – The “Looks Like Ruby, Runs Like C” Miracle
Ruby is beautiful. It’s elegant. It reads like poetry. But it runs like a toddler learning to crawl—cute, but too slow. Crystal fixes that.
Imagine writing code that looks like Ruby but runs at the speed of C. Yeah. That’s Crystal. It compiles to native code, meaning none of that wimpy interpreted nonsense, and it actually respects your time. You won’t be waiting 10 seconds just to print “Hello, World.”
Strong static typing? Check. Elegant syntax? Check. Ability to flex on both Ruby and Python developers simultaneously? Big check. If you’ve ever wanted to make a programming language your entire personality, Crystal is an excellent choice.
Nim – The “Low-Key Genius” Language
Nim is that quiet kid in class who doesn’t say much, but then they get up and solve a triple integral in their head like it’s nothing. It’s fast, it’s expressive, and it somehow manages to be readable while still being compiled.
Here’s the crazy part: Nim can compile to C, C++, AND JavaScript. That’s right. You write your code once, and Nim just casually morphs into whatever language it needs to be, like some kind of programming shapeshifter(Hi, Supernatural fans!). It’s memory safe, garbage-collected, and actually enjoyable to write, which is more than I can say for half the languages out there.
If you’re sick of debugging C++ and want something that won’t make you question your life choices, Nim might just be your new best friend. And hey, telling people you code in Nim is a great way to spark a conversation—or at least make someone Google it in real-time.
F# – Functional Programming for People Who Have Social Lives
Functional programming is sexy in theory. In practice, it’s often painful. F# is the exception because it actually cares about your mental health while still being powerful AF.
Type inference? Works like a charm. No more screaming at the compiler like it just insulted your Pokemon collection. Works with .NET, meaning it actually has real-world applications instead of being some academic fever dream. And best of all? You can write both functional and imperative code, because F# believes in freedom.
If you like functional programming but don’t want to spend your days writing a 20-line recursive function just to add two numbers, F# is the move. And let’s be honest, telling people you use F# sounds badass. It’s like saying you drive a F1 car, but in the programming world.
Final Thoughts (Or, Why You’re Now a Tech Hipster)
If you made it this far, congratulations, you’re officially on the programming hipster watchlist. You now have the knowledge to walk into a coding interview, drop a Zig/Elixir/Crystal/Nim/F# flex, and watch the hiring manager question their entire existence.
Look, Python and JavaScript are cool or whatever, but why be basic when you can be legendary?
Go forth, learn these underrated languages, and may your debugging sessions be short and your commit messages less chaotic. Or, you know, do the opposite—because let’s be real, half of programming is just crying in the shower anyway.
Happy coding, GE-ERDS!
Discover more from Ge-erdy Verse
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
