The API management company WSO2 announced that its open-source programming language Ballerina’s Swan Lake release is now generally available

Ballerina is designed specifically for developers interacting with the cloud. It aims to simplify the process of being able to use, combine, and create network services.  

According to WSO2, it provides “bidirectional mapping of sequence diagrams and code.” This allows developers to switch between working with traditional code and low-code as needed. It also abstracts away a lot of complexity in developing cloud-native applications by providing a way to represent network interactions and streamlining functions related to data usage, configurations, and cloud deployments. 

“The move to cloud native applications—which are inherently integrations of services, data, transactions and processes—has rendered many older programming languages obsolete,” said Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarana, founder of the Ballerina project and founder and CEO of WSO2. “With our Ballerina Swan Lake release now in GA, development teams for the first time have a modern programming language that simplifies cloud native app development and integration, facilitates collaboration, and enables developers to rapidly innovate new digital products and services.” 

The Swan Lake release of Ballerina extends its VS Code plugin to enable developers to use Ballerina to simultaneously edit applications in VS Code graphically and textually. The plugin also includes intelligent code completion. 

Other features of Ballerina include a framework for package management, a public web service for sharing modules, a documentation framework, an interactive command-line shell, and built-in tooling for OpenAPI, gRPC, and AsyncAPI.