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Everyone seems to have covered the "dumbed down language" perspective. And there's definitely truth to that. Enterprises hire tons of developers, but Enterprise

Everyone seems to have covered the "dumbed down language" perspective. And there's definitely truth to that. Enterprises hire tons of developers, but Enterprises are terrible at determining which candidates are good developers. So there are a lot of mediocre ones. However, there is another side of the coin that must be acknowledged. When Java came out, there was no Python or Ruby. Java let you be enormously more productive than C++ for apps for which garbage collection was fine. The VM offered features which weren't common, like reflection. Of course, Java came with a huge library. Java was a great option for a JFDI (Just Fucking Do It) language, and there weren't a lot of other options back then. This doesn't solve the whole mystery. Why didn't SmallTalk or some other options that were available at the time do better? I don't really know. Java just took off like a rocket, in the same way that pet rocks and hula hoops did. There were some good reasons, but those reasons can't explain the whole phenomenon. And now, after that adoption tsunami is complete, Java is the safe, established (but boring, mediocre) answer that Enterprises like.

icebraining 12y ago
When Java came out, there was no Python or Ruby. Python is four years older than Java. When the latter was released, Python was already at 1.0.
- zorked 12y ago
  Traction, of course. Perl and TCL were far more popular when Java was exploding.
spullara 12y ago
Both Python (1991) and Ruby (1995) existed at the same time Java (1995) was coming to the market.
- coldtea 12y ago
  And both could as well not exist at all as far as adoption was concerned. Nobody used Python before around '97, and nobody used Ruby before 2000. Well, some did, but very small amounts of "some".
no_future 12y ago
Lies. Python and Ruby are older/as old as Java.
- ryandvm 12y ago
  Really?? That's how you interact with people? Couldn't you have just assumed he made a mistake?
chromatic 12y ago
Why didn't SmallTalk or some other options that were available at the time do better? Smalltalk was expensive (VisualAge, VisualWorks, for example) and wanted to own the world (image-based). With the web suddenly solving all deployment problems everywhere (at least, that was the rhetoric), paying thousands of dollars per developer for tools seemed silly.
charlieflowers 12y ago
Sigh. I thought it would be obvious to people that I was speaking of traction. Ruby and Python were not viable Enterprise options back then. And even if someone claims they were, they did not have that perception. Yes, I could've been more precise in my wording. But a lot of people could be less pedantic too. I already interact with a compiler all day long. Didn't think I was talking to a bunch of compilers here too.

icebraining 12y ago

When Java came out, there was no Python or Ruby. Python is four years older than Java. When the latter was released, Python was already at 1.0.

zorked 12y ago
Traction, of course. Perl and TCL were far more popular when Java was exploding.

spullara 12y ago

Both Python (1991) and Ruby (1995) existed at the same time Java (1995) was coming to the market.

coldtea 12y ago
And both could as well not exist at all as far as adoption was concerned. Nobody used Python before around '97, and nobody used Ruby before 2000. Well, some did, but very small amounts of "some".

no_future 12y ago

Lies. Python and Ruby are older/as old as Java.

ryandvm 12y ago
Really?? That's how you interact with people? Couldn't you have just assumed he made a mistake?

chromatic 12y ago

Why didn't SmallTalk or some other options that were available at the time do better? Smalltalk was expensive (VisualAge, VisualWorks, for example) and wanted to own the world (image-based). With the web suddenly solving all deployment problems everywhere (at least, that was the rhetoric), paying thousands of dollars per developer for tools seemed silly.

charlieflowers 12y ago

Sigh. I thought it would be obvious to people that I was speaking of traction. Ruby and Python were not viable Enterprise options back then. And even if someone claims they were, they did not have that perception. Yes, I could've been more precise in my wording. But a lot of people could be less pedantic too. I already interact with a compiler all day long. Didn't think I was talking to a bunch of compilers here too.