Lee Gomes writes in The Wall Street Journal today about the proliferation of programming languages [subscription required]:
But these days, a successful computer programmer, especially one who works on the Web, needs to know a lot more than just C. Perl, Python, PHP, TCL (pronounced “tickle”): The “languages” section of the average programmer’s résumé features an ever-expanding list of often-whimsical names. You may think you are tech-hip because you know about Java, the popular C++-like language from Sun Microsystems, but, in fact, you’ve hardly scratched the surface.
Gomes gets it almost right, except for that last sentence. Java is not the surface of tech-hip anymore, it’s practically a legacy language now. Way back in July of 2004, Paul Graham declared Java uncool:
I’ve read that Java has just overtaken Cobol as the most popular language. As a standard, you couldn’t wish for more. But as a medium of expression, you could do a lot better. Of all the great programmers I can think of, I know of only one who would voluntarily program in Java. And of all the great programmers I can think of who don’t work for Sun, on Java, I know of zero.
It’s like I got in a time machine, because when I left my job as a software architect in 2000, Java had the aura of cool, especially at Oracle where we were mostly stuck using PL/SQL. I hadn’t taken the time to learn it except at a very superficial level, but it seemed like it was going to conquer the world. I knew a few geeks who liked TCL and Python and a lot who liked Perl. But I didn’t foresee how these languages and their descendants would topple the established order.
The practical issue is this: I need to choose a language for a mashup I want to build. What’s a mashup? Well, follow the Wikipedia link if you want details or just know this: it’s a web page or application that combines content from multiple sources. For a non-techie introduction, check out Business Week’s article Mix, Match, and Mutate.
Most mashups I’ve read about combine geographic information with other information as when Craigslist postings are shown on a map. I’m not so interested in geographic data; I’m looking at text content from blogs. I intend to integrate multiple RSS feeds. That shouldn’t be too hard. But which language to use? I’m taking a class on ASP.NET with C# but thinking I don’t really want to continue. Microsoft is not only not Web 2.0, it’s not even Web 1.0. Microsoft represents the PC era. I’m looking at PHP and Ruby on Rails right now. PHP is the open-source standard while Ruby on Rails is getting a lot of press. I want something easy, fast, and fun to use. I think I’ll end up using PHP but I’m intrigued by Ruby. In the next week or so, I intend to research and compare these two.
3 Comments
All the web jobs I’ve applied for lately want PHP and CSS–haven’t heard anything about ASP.net though admittedly I’m staying away from most programming jobs.
Marcela, I think you’re right. Most of the job listings I look at–the ones I’m interested in anyway–ask for PHP and CSS, not ASP.NET/C#. I think I’ll likely try out PHP for my project and see how it goes. I don’t see how I can go wrong learning it. Ruby is probably too out there.
Oops, I clicked on Anne 2.0 by accident, but having arrived here …cannot…resist…posting!
Although I’ve found PHP both useful and easy to pick up, I find myself getting a bit paranoid that I’d up the odds of someone hacking my site if I rely on it too much. Granted, it’s not the fault of PHP, but of several developers’ lack of care when coding apps that face a cold, cruel world on the net. Apps I’d like to use and extend, otherwise.