David,
>> Unlike the days of old, languages today come and go. <<
I hate to bust your bubble, but things aren't that different that it used to be. Remember Algol, Prolog, PL/I, Simula, Ada, Flow-matic, RPG, Comtran, Fortran, CPL, BCPL, or B? These are just a few of the languages from the 50's and 60's that you hardly ever hear from now.
The FEW languages that are still around have either been marketed, updated, or adapted to fit new technology. Pascal is integral to the Macintosh operating system and has been promoted by Borland and Apple. C evolved into C++ and has been promoted and upgraded by Microsoft, Borland, and many others. Cobol has been adapted through the years and had a huge installed base. Basic turned into Visual Basic, is integral to the Pick operating system, and has been promoted by Microsoft.
>> Over the next ten years lots of languages will come and go, and Java may be one of them. <<
You might be right, but there's also a good possibility that it will be one of the survivers. Its popularity has grown considerably and it is being promoted by all the big names. It will become integral in NC's. This has all the positives that surviving languages from the 60's had. One thing I can say, though: If it is still around in ten years, it will be quite different than the Java that you see today.
But in any case, Borland's new products are addressing what I consider to be the three most popular languags TODAY. That's what I consider to be important.
- Michael Coley
- i1.net |
