It should not be surprising that Java is making the gains that it is.
Over a period of several years, Java has caught on roughly the same way other languages have -- slowly, at first, then building. This is no different from the way c++ caught on, and C before it, and other languages before those.
What IS different, however, is that there is massively more development going on today than, say, 10 years ago, which was massively more than 20 years ago. So it would seem reasonable and expected to me that there is a good deal of training and development going on with the current hot langage/environment/whatever you call it.
It was predictable that Java might become a powerful force; but one could have predicted just as easily the failure of the language, depending on what happened with Microsoft, Sun, and others. At this point, I certainly see Java as a long-term player; but I do not believe it will replace traditional languages in a broad sense. I believe developers will continue to choose Java for those applications where it works well, and continue to use traditional languages for other things.
For the software we [our companies] write, I continue to find C++ the language of choice for most development. I wouldn't hesitate to use Java, or for that matter, APL, if I had an application that it was ideal for.
My recollection is that the discussions in this forum some years ago centered around two questions: (1) Would Java replace traditional languages on a widespread basis, and (2) the rate at which such replacement would occur, if at all. At this point, I'd have to suggest that the answer to (1) is a resounding "No", and to (2) is that while some replacement HAS occurred, it is gradual, not extensive in scope, and will occur over an extended period of time. This is totally consistent with the way developers migrated from FORTRAN to C and from C to C++ (the pace of change from C to C++ was accelerated somewhat by the ability to compile and use C code in C++).
With that said, I think I have finally found a small project for which Java seems appropriate, and I'm looking forward to doing some development with it. As bandwidth becomes available, I expect I'll find more and more uses for it. |
