How to pick the programming languages of the future? One indication is the number of books about programming languages.
One blog lists a number of freely-available books on programming languages. What's interesting is the languages listed: LISP, Ruby, Javascript, Haskell, Erlang, Python, Smalltalk, and under the heading of "miscellaneous": assembly, Perl, C, R, Prolog, Objective-C, and Scala.
Also interesting is the list of languages that are not mentioned: COBOL, FORTRAN, BASIC, Visual Basic, C#, and Java. These are the "safe" languages; projects at large companies use them because they have low risk. They have lots of support from well-established vendors, lots of existing code, and lots of programmers available for hire.
The languages listed in the "free books" list are the risky languages. For large companies (and even for small companies) these languages entail a higher risk. Support is not so plentiful. The code base is smaller. There are fewer programmers available, and when you find one it is harder to determine his skills (espacially if you don't have a programmer on your staff versed in the risky language.)
The illusion of safe is just that -- an illusion. A safe language will give you comfort, and perhaps a more predictable project. (As much as software projects can be comforting and predictable.)
But business advantage does not come from safe, conservative strategies. If it did, innovations would not occur. Computer companies would be producing large mainframe machines, and automobile manufacturers would be producing horse-drawn carriages.
The brave new world of cloud computing needs new programming languages. Just as PC applications used BASIC and later Visual Basic and C++ (and not COBOL and FORTRAN), cloud applications will use new languages like Erlang and Haskell.
In finance, follow the money. In knowledge, follow the free.
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