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What mainstream languages are you thinking about? Java is obviously the one that comes to mind when talking about market dominance, but it was created/supporte

by dudul 5y ago

What mainstream languages are you thinking about? Java is obviously the one that comes to mind when talking about market dominance, but it was created/supported by extremely wealthy corporations who invested hundreds of millions to push for its adoption. Do you have others in mind? I'm sure we can find fairly similar circumstances for most of them.

blacktriangle 5y ago
Much as people credit Sun's marketing for Java's success, I think it would have succeeded even without them. Java successfully brought garbage collection to the majority of working developers at the time who were all C and C++ developers. This was a huge step forward that solved a massive pain point. Today this is far less of a compelling argument since most languages are GC'd and C++ is far less dominant, but Java was the right language for the time.
- macintux 5y ago
  I recall a quote from an anonymous industry heavyweight when Java came out (paraphrased now because I can't remember exactly where I saw it): "Thank goodness, now I don't have to learn C++."
- pjmlp 5y ago
  There was another big factor, remember that ISO C++ initial release is from 1998 and while C was standardised in 1990, many compilers in the mid-90's were still catching up to it. Then POSIX still left too room for each UNIX flavour to decide how to actually implement certain features, e.g. signal. So Java, despite being initially interpreted felt like how portable code should be, coupled with a rich library.
- Zababa 5y ago
  > Java successfully brought garbage collection to the majority of working developers at the time who were all C and C++ developers. Isn't this what people refer as marketing? Other languages were garbage collected before Java. Common Lisp and SML both existed a decade before Java. There was also Smalltalk and Eiffel, but for them I've heard that Java being free really helped (which may be called marketing or not, but is still related to Sun money in a way).

by dudul 5y ago

blacktriangle 5y ago

Much as people credit Sun's marketing for Java's success, I think it would have succeeded even without them. Java successfully brought garbage collection to the majority of working developers at the time who were all C and C++ developers. This was a huge step forward that solved a massive pain point. Today this is far less of a compelling argument since most languages are GC'd and C++ is far less dominant, but Java was the right language for the time.

macintux 5y ago
I recall a quote from an anonymous industry heavyweight when Java came out (paraphrased now because I can't remember exactly where I saw it): "Thank goodness, now I don't have to learn C++."
pjmlp 5y ago
There was another big factor, remember that ISO C++ initial release is from 1998 and while C was standardised in 1990, many compilers in the mid-90's were still catching up to it. Then POSIX still left too room for each UNIX flavour to decide how to actually implement certain features, e.g. signal. So Java, despite being initially interpreted felt like how portable code should be, coupled with a rich library.
Zababa 5y ago
> Java successfully brought garbage collection to the majority of working developers at the time who were all C and C++ developers. Isn't this what people refer as marketing? Other languages were garbage collected before Java. Common Lisp and SML both existed a decade before Java. There was also Smalltalk and Eiffel, but for them I've heard that Java being free really helped (which may be called marketing or not, but is still related to Sun money in a way).