10 ms·

Programming Languages to watch in 2011

53 points by mcgin 16y ago

timrobinson 16y ago
The article compares languages based on numbers of job postings. Quality of jobs != quantity of jobs.
- Groxx 16y ago
  Agreed, though ActionScript's lines are pretty interesting. Up up up.... and flat for two years.
  - sigzero 16y ago
    "Bear in mind that all job postings that reference Flex or AIR would assume knowledge of Actionscript, without necessarily mentioning it."
    - Groxx 16y ago
      Ah, thanks, I missed that part. Why didn't they just include Flex / AIR in the AS results? There's clearly a strong enough connection to do so.
- raganwald 16y ago
  Agreed! One possible explanation for the number of job postings for Actionscript is that the culture around doing Flash animations is one where there is high turnover. Thus there are lots of open jobs at any one time. Another possible explanation is that there is a culture of paying people very little for full time jobs but overpaying agencies (who also pay little). As a result, companies are constantly hoping to hire someone at a bargain but rarely finding anyone willing to work long hours for low wages, and they are forced to go to agencies for their needs. I don't know if either explanation is true, of course, but I do know that I'd look into a lot more than a single cherry-picked statistic before deciding I wanted to learn a new programming language.
  - timrobinson 16y ago
    I wonder if a more useful comparison would be salary (or rate of change of salary over time). I started learning functional programming over Christmas 2008 for two reasons: - Mainly because it looked fun, and very different from what I'd done before - Although I had no idea whether F# or Haskell jobs would come up, I knew that if they did come up, they'd be just right for me
    - thomas11 16y ago
      So, did any jobs come up? Looking at your blog, you seem to be have been pretty involved in F# until May.
      - timrobinson 16y ago
        An F# job did come up, and I'm quite happy with it :) I'd like to be more involved in the functional programming community; it's easy to dip in and out of Twitter and forum discussions, but blogging is one thing that's dropped off since the summer.
      - Periodic 16y ago
        I've been getting more and more invested in functional programming to the tune of Haskell and Erlang over the last two years. Unfortunately, the jobs seem to be all Java and Ruby on Rails, because that's what my resume says I have experience with. Me: "I'm really interested in functional programming and scaling distributed computing." HR: "Well, I see here you've worked on Java in the payment industry. We're always looking for more people to work on our reporting team. Let's put you over there. I think they have a J2EE web-app from eight years ago that needs a few more features." So I find myself settling and maintaining my sanity with pet projects. I am taking steps to rectify this.
thomas11 16y ago
Scheme is second in jobs on indeed.com, and the author doesn't realize that his search is off? Erlang could become "the next Python"? What a shoddy article. Edit: I realize that Scheme is second only among the nine niche languages. It's still bogus, as a simple search for scheme on indeed.com shows.
- tocomment 16y ago
  What did he do wrong?
  - Tichy 16y ago
    Erlang will never have the same appeal to the masses as Python, not will it be as efficient at everyday scripting tasks.
  - thomas11 16y ago
    Search for the string "scheme", as his trends link shows. That's a pretty common term, while "scala", "lua" etc. have no meaning other than the language, at least as far as a job site is concerned. www.indeed.com redirects to www.indeed.ch here, but there I get nine hits for "scala" and 153 for "scheme". The scheme hits are all "Creates validation scheme with manufacturing site" etc.
  - burgerbrain 16y ago
    Scheme is a niche language, and it's niche is education. It's almost never used in industry because it lacks a single popular standard library adds enough functionality to make it practical to use in the real world. In general, you don't write a practical scheme application, you write a practical [insert implementation]-scheme application.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
- ced 16y ago
  It's only second among the (up-and-coming) languages he chose. Scheme takes only 0.05% of the overall job market. Witness: http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=java%2C+C%2C+Python%2C+scheme&l= http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=java%2C+C%2C+Python%2C+sch...
hendler 16y ago
Why no javascript? Seems like an obvious language to watch in terms of popularity, job market, and interesting progress.
- Periodic 16y ago
  JavaScript isn't really up-and-coming. It's been in mainstream use in browsers for a long (in internet years) time now. There may be a lot of emerging enthusiasm around JavaScript for non-browser programming such as with node.js, but it's going to be swamped by the demand for JavaScript developers in general.
nightlifelover 16y ago
Agree with R, but certainly not with Go (not even google is dedicated to make this the next big language, they call it an "experiment") ActionScript is Flash, right?! I would say JavaScript.. And Scala and Scheme? Maybe some academics use that, but I don't know a business which relies on it.
- pashields 16y ago
  A number of web startups are using scala for their apps, most notably foursquare. I wouldn't dismiss it as academic when the big push I am seeing for it is for use with lift (scala webapp framework).
  - GeneralMaximus 16y ago
    Last time I tried it, getting started with Lift was a convoluted process. Scala is a nice language but, IMO, it needs to rid itself of dependencies on Java tools like Maven and Eclipse if it wants to get anywhere. sbaz is nice. More sbaz everywhere would be nicer. It's one of the best language-specific package managers I've used.
khill 16y ago
Why would I choose any language which runs on the JVM now that Oracle is flexing its muscles? As much as I like Clojure, Scala and Groovy, I'm starting to steer clear of anything related to Oracle's intellectual properties.
- brlewis 16y ago
  I'm not concerned. IBM has an independent implementation, so copyright is not an issue. Oracle is not about to start a patent war with IBM, so patents are actually less of an issue than they usually are with software. The trademark issue is trivial. I'm not concerned about Oracle's IP.
  - ovi256 16y ago
    "I'm not concerned about Oracle's IP." - famous last words.
    - brlewis 16y ago
      :-) highly context-dependent
    - junkbit 16y ago
      Oracle owns the trademark to JavaScript now too. We are going to have to call it ECMAScript to be safe.
- va_coder 16y ago
  AFAIK server-side JVM solutions are ok, but if you have dreams of shipping an appliance like solution to customers you may well have problems with Oracle. Although, steering clear of Oracle-anything is a top priority of mine as well.
Kilimanjaro 16y ago
According to that graph actionscript got stopped on its tracks the day Steve Jobs started the war against flash.
lallysingh 16y ago
Whew! Haskell's not on the list.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
tjarratt 16y ago
This is a really odd way to approach programming languages, I feel. According to the article, none of these are very mainstream languages (although certainly scheme and clojure have their adherents, and LUA is used extensively in the game industry), but they should be watched because of hiring trends? I'd much rather pick up a language because it has some interesting features, or because it solves a problem I have with one of the languages I already know. Seems they're missing the forest for the trees, somehow.

53 points by mcgin 16y ago

timrobinson 16y ago

The article compares languages based on numbers of job postings. Quality of jobs != quantity of jobs.

Groxx 16y ago
Agreed, though ActionScript's lines are pretty interesting. Up up up.... and flat for two years.
- sigzero 16y ago
  "Bear in mind that all job postings that reference Flex or AIR would assume knowledge of Actionscript, without necessarily mentioning it."
  - Groxx 16y ago
    Ah, thanks, I missed that part. Why didn't they just include Flex / AIR in the AS results? There's clearly a strong enough connection to do so.
raganwald 16y ago
Agreed! One possible explanation for the number of job postings for Actionscript is that the culture around doing Flash animations is one where there is high turnover. Thus there are lots of open jobs at any one time. Another possible explanation is that there is a culture of paying people very little for full time jobs but overpaying agencies (who also pay little). As a result, companies are constantly hoping to hire someone at a bargain but rarely finding anyone willing to work long hours for low wages, and they are forced to go to agencies for their needs. I don't know if either explanation is true, of course, but I do know that I'd look into a lot more than a single cherry-picked statistic before deciding I wanted to learn a new programming language.
- timrobinson 16y ago
  I wonder if a more useful comparison would be salary (or rate of change of salary over time). I started learning functional programming over Christmas 2008 for two reasons: - Mainly because it looked fun, and very different from what I'd done before - Although I had no idea whether F# or Haskell jobs would come up, I knew that if they did come up, they'd be just right for me
  - thomas11 16y ago
    So, did any jobs come up? Looking at your blog, you seem to be have been pretty involved in F# until May.
    - timrobinson 16y ago
      An F# job did come up, and I'm quite happy with it :) I'd like to be more involved in the functional programming community; it's easy to dip in and out of Twitter and forum discussions, but blogging is one thing that's dropped off since the summer.
    - Periodic 16y ago
      I've been getting more and more invested in functional programming to the tune of Haskell and Erlang over the last two years. Unfortunately, the jobs seem to be all Java and Ruby on Rails, because that's what my resume says I have experience with. Me: "I'm really interested in functional programming and scaling distributed computing." HR: "Well, I see here you've worked on Java in the payment industry. We're always looking for more people to work on our reporting team. Let's put you over there. I think they have a J2EE web-app from eight years ago that needs a few more features." So I find myself settling and maintaining my sanity with pet projects. I am taking steps to rectify this.

thomas11 16y ago

Scheme is second in jobs on indeed.com, and the author doesn't realize that his search is off? Erlang could become "the next Python"? What a shoddy article. Edit: I realize that Scheme is second only among the nine niche languages. It's still bogus, as a simple search for scheme on indeed.com shows.

tocomment 16y ago
What did he do wrong?
- Tichy 16y ago
  Erlang will never have the same appeal to the masses as Python, not will it be as efficient at everyday scripting tasks.
- thomas11 16y ago
  Search for the string "scheme", as his trends link shows. That's a pretty common term, while "scala", "lua" etc. have no meaning other than the language, at least as far as a job site is concerned. www.indeed.com redirects to www.indeed.ch here, but there I get nine hits for "scala" and 153 for "scheme". The scheme hits are all "Creates validation scheme with manufacturing site" etc.
- burgerbrain 16y ago
  Scheme is a niche language, and it's niche is education. It's almost never used in industry because it lacks a single popular standard library adds enough functionality to make it practical to use in the real world. In general, you don't write a practical scheme application, you write a practical [insert implementation]-scheme application.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
ced 16y ago
It's only second among the (up-and-coming) languages he chose. Scheme takes only 0.05% of the overall job market. Witness: http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=java%2C+C%2C+Python%2C+scheme&l= http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=java%2C+C%2C+Python%2C+sch...

hendler 16y ago

Why no javascript? Seems like an obvious language to watch in terms of popularity, job market, and interesting progress.

Periodic 16y ago
JavaScript isn't really up-and-coming. It's been in mainstream use in browsers for a long (in internet years) time now. There may be a lot of emerging enthusiasm around JavaScript for non-browser programming such as with node.js, but it's going to be swamped by the demand for JavaScript developers in general.

nightlifelover 16y ago

Agree with R, but certainly not with Go (not even google is dedicated to make this the next big language, they call it an "experiment") ActionScript is Flash, right?! I would say JavaScript.. And Scala and Scheme? Maybe some academics use that, but I don't know a business which relies on it.

pashields 16y ago
A number of web startups are using scala for their apps, most notably foursquare. I wouldn't dismiss it as academic when the big push I am seeing for it is for use with lift (scala webapp framework).
- GeneralMaximus 16y ago
  Last time I tried it, getting started with Lift was a convoluted process. Scala is a nice language but, IMO, it needs to rid itself of dependencies on Java tools like Maven and Eclipse if it wants to get anywhere. sbaz is nice. More sbaz everywhere would be nicer. It's one of the best language-specific package managers I've used.

khill 16y ago

Why would I choose any language which runs on the JVM now that Oracle is flexing its muscles? As much as I like Clojure, Scala and Groovy, I'm starting to steer clear of anything related to Oracle's intellectual properties.

brlewis 16y ago
I'm not concerned. IBM has an independent implementation, so copyright is not an issue. Oracle is not about to start a patent war with IBM, so patents are actually less of an issue than they usually are with software. The trademark issue is trivial. I'm not concerned about Oracle's IP.
- ovi256 16y ago
  "I'm not concerned about Oracle's IP." - famous last words.
  - brlewis 16y ago
    :-) highly context-dependent
  - junkbit 16y ago
    Oracle owns the trademark to JavaScript now too. We are going to have to call it ECMAScript to be safe.
va_coder 16y ago
AFAIK server-side JVM solutions are ok, but if you have dreams of shipping an appliance like solution to customers you may well have problems with Oracle. Although, steering clear of Oracle-anything is a top priority of mine as well.

Kilimanjaro 16y ago

According to that graph actionscript got stopped on its tracks the day Steve Jobs started the war against flash.

lallysingh 16y ago

Whew! Haskell's not on the list.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

tjarratt 16y ago

This is a really odd way to approach programming languages, I feel. According to the article, none of these are very mainstream languages (although certainly scheme and clojure have their adherents, and LUA is used extensively in the game industry), but they should be watched because of hiring trends? I'd much rather pick up a language because it has some interesting features, or because it solves a problem I have with one of the languages I already know. Seems they're missing the forest for the trees, somehow.