Programming Languages - The Map
Visual representation of the history of programming languages. It looks as if the early years were more interesting when it comes to cross breeding and mutation.
I miss some of the language extensions to Java as Groovy, Jython. Groovy is an independent language with some of the characteristics from Ruby and Python, but designed to run in the JVM (Java Virtual Machine). Jython is a Python implementation integrated with Java.
The upcoming Java 1.5 will also borrow some language features from scripting languages like PHP, like the foreach($array as $element) construct.
My point is that languages are still developing and influenced by other languages.
And where is whitespace? ;-)
update: Most popular scripting languages for Java in 2003. More on scripting languages : why?, which?, the future?.
update II: In pursuit of perfection — Can Java become the perfect technology platform? — another Hessellund link and quite relevant I think.
[via Hessellund]
5. January 2004 kl. 19:51
You forgot Brainfuck!
5. January 2004 kl. 19:53
Why do you write “HTML is allowed”, when the linking doesn’t work? Oh well, here it is for your browsing pleasure: http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/bf/
5. January 2004 kl. 20:05
I only allow correct html — you didn’t end-quote your href=”" ;-)
Heh. That’s a sweet language. But some people just don’t know when to stop or go to bed or get a life…
5. January 2004 kl. 23:47
Plzdisrgrdkthx
7. January 2004 kl. 19:44
I don’t see why anyone would _strive_ for running programs in a JVM. Good JVMs aren’t readily available on all platforms, and JVMs are surrounded with much political confusion (not only Microsofts fault), meaning that rather few non-geek people have a good, properly installed JVM on their system. That’s why I rephrase the classical Java motto to “Write once - run nowhere”. (Yes, Java is widely used in some parts of the business computing World - so the rephrased motto isn’t completely fair.)
In my opinion, C++ has a lot of promise: The C++ compilers are beginning to generally support modern C++ features, and many parts of STL are really elegant. More and more interesting C++ libraries are starting to make use of templates, namespaces, STL-principles, exceptions, etc., which results in code which is potentially very elegant, type safe and probably with less buffer overflow problems than old-style C++ code. Combine that with the large pool of existing and popular, C++ based software, and you have a language with a potential which many a Java evangelist overlooks.
C# obviously shouldn’t be overlooked, but like Java, it’s burdened by dire political questions.
Python has already been mentioned. Good for programs where performance isn’t of paramount importance. Nice, pragmatic cross-platform language.
PHP is great as frontend for databases and libraries written in other languages.
A declarative language like SQL isn’t going to die any time soon. _Hopefully_, SQL can still evolve a bit, as vendors slowly implement more and more of the standard.
At some point, we might even see a killer application which could suddenly boost the use of functional languages.
My suggestion: Have a broader view, in stead of spending ages learning the latest overdesigned-Java-framework or Java-paradigm-of-the-week.
8. January 2004 kl. 09:57
Troels - I should be the first to accuse me for being Java centric, but you beat me to it ;-) But Java has become the general purpose programming language of choice for me, and as such it seems to work just fine. As for quite a few big businesses.
But you’re right, the political-religious wars are just sooooo tiresome.
I’m afraid that I will never be one of those fortunate that master a multitude of languages. I know my little share and for now that’s enough.