What Makes a Programming Language Successful?

danielstoner writes "The article '13 reasons why Ruby, Python and the gang will push Java to die... of old age' makes an interesting analysis of the programming languages battling for a place in programmers' minds. What really makes a language popular? What really makes a language 'good'? What is success for a programming language? Can we say COBOL is a successful language? What about Ruby, Python, etc?"

Comments

... Evolution...

[Manip]

Either evolve or die.

Java hasn't changed all that much in the last few years and younger languages are pushing programming further.

Although oddly enough the languages for which I speak are things like C# and not "I wish it would die but it likely won't" languages like Python.

Re:... Evolution...

[Mongoose Disciple]

Have you seen the new 3.0 libraries?? MS Application blocks look a lot like J2EE when it first came out + the best of Jakarta that we have all been using for almost a decade. Don't get me wrong C# does a lot of "good" stuff... but a lot of its most "innovative" stuff is just finally bringing it up to snuff with the way we have all been using J2EE since the dot com bust.

I grant you, the first years of C# were (depending on your perspective) either a blatant rip-off of Java, or the kind of language you get when someone who's used Java for a few years and mostly thinks it's good, but is pissed off about a couple things and decides to fix them creates a new language.

That being said, most of that application block stuff is 5 or more years old and isn't what anyone remotely current on .NET would hold up as examples of C# innovation.

As someone who's spent years developing with both Java and C#, at this point, C# is now ahead of Java, and Java is mimicking it to try to catch up. (We're talking core language here -- obviously there are libraries/tools that came out of the Java community that C# is still catching up to.) I hope the practice of stealing the best ideas from the other and competition continues to make both better for it.

All Programming Languages Suck

[Anonymous Coward]

No exception. If any of them were any good, there wouldn't be so many. They suck primarily because the computer itself is fundamentally flawed [blogspot.com]. Computer science has shot itself in the foot and now that parallel programming is all the rage, the computer industry is paying the consequences. It's time for all of you old computer geeks to retire. You messed up big time. There is a better way to design and program computers. Now is the time for the industry to wake up and stop listening to failed ideas.

Troll

[bledri]

Will someone please tag this article as a troll?

Re:Aging Engineers

[phoenix.bam!]

Do you have an example of something you can do with STL that you can't do in java?

Re:Ruby and Python are ex-parrots, not Java

[Anonymous Coward]

ajv wrote:
"Ruby and Python, although interesting langauges, has zero commercial penetration, even for worthless brochureware or community apps.

What they do have is an extremely loud fan base. These languages will not kill COBOL or Java any time in the next forty years or so as the fan base is fickle and will move on to the next big thing when it comes along."

You really don't have a clue do you? Python is used by Google, Nasa, and many other big names. It is the scripting language for many applications including Open Source, Government, and Commercial. The problem with you and most people posting is that they think that there is a single best programming language when the TRUTH is that it depends on what you are doing, what system you are working on, and the way you solve problems mentally. There is no ONE great programming language. There may be ONE great programming language for John, but a different one for Jannet. Learn the language(s) you use to its strengths and let others do the same with their perfered language without griping about it.