Platforms spur languages

We developers like to think that we make languages popular. We like to think that it is us that decide the fate of languages. I'm not so sure. It may be that we're in less control than we believe.

I posit that it is platforms, that is, hardware and operating systems, that drive the popularity of programming languages.

The first programming languages, COBOL and FORTRAN, became popular only after computers became accepted in business and, more importantly, as platforms for running applications.

When computers were special-purpose devices, programs were written for the specific computer, usually in machine code or assembly language, with the idea that the program was part of the computer. The thought of moving an application from one computer to another was alien, like toasting bread with a refridgerator.

It was only after our mindset changed that we thought of moving programs. The idea of the computer as a platform, and the successive idea of moving a program from one computer to another, led to the idea of "portability" and languages common across computers. Thus, COBOL and FORTRAN were born.

Timesharing, a platform different from batch processing, gave us BASIC. Microcomputers in the late 1970s took BASIC to a higher level, making it one of the most popular languages at the time.

In the age of the IBM PC, computer programs become commercial, and BASIC was not suitable. BASIC offered no way to obscure source code and its performance was limited. Most commercial programs were written in assembly language, a choice possible due to the uniformity of the PC.

Microsoft Windows drove C++ and Visual Basic. While it was possible to write applications for Windows in assembly language, it was tedious and maintenance was expensive. C++ and its object-oriented capabilities made programming in Windows practical. Later, Visual Basic had just enough object-oriented capabilities to make programming in Windows not only possible but also easy.

Java's rise started with the internet and the web, but was also popular because it was "not from Microsoft". In this, Java is an outlier: not driven by a technical platform, but by emotion.

MacOS and iOS raised the popularity of Objective-C, at least until Apple announced Swift as the successor language for development. After that announcement, Objective-C dropped in popularity (and Swift started its rise).

Cloud computing and large data sets ("big data") has given us new languages for data management.

Looking at these data points, it seems that different platforms are favorable to different languages, and the popularity of the platform drives the popularity of the language.

Which is not to say that a language cannot achieve popularity without a platform. Some languages have, but they are few.

Some languages have failed to gain popularity despite other, non-platform inducements. The two largest "failures" that come to mind are PL/I and Ada. PL/I was invented by IBM and enjoyed some popularity, but has faded into all-but-obscurity. Ada was mandated by the US Department of Defense as a standard for all applications, and it, too, has faded.

If IBM at its height of market control, and the US DoD through mandate cannot make languages popular, what else (besides platforms) can?

If my theory is correct, then developers and managers should consider platforms when selecting programming languages. Often, developers pick what they know (not an unreasonable choice) and managers pick what is "safe" (also not unreasonable). If using a platform conducive to the language, then the decision is sound. If switching platforms, a different language may be the better option.