Which programming language do you think will be used the most in the near future? You define the timescale and the reason. Personally, I think it is Java or C++, but I could be completely wrong about this. I'm learning Java right now so I hope it's Java!

C++ isn't going away at all, but it isn't really growing. I highly doubt Java is gonna make a big comeback either..
my money is on lolcode being the next big thing

LOL, no.


I don't think there will be a "new" language hitting the industry, but I see some growing and adapting, like the .NET stuff.

The language that the developer knows best.

C++ 0x is the next standard for C++

KYA, why do you think that there will be no significant "new" language in the future?

Ran accross this
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/pap...tpci/index.html

Because I work in the J2EE field, my view is probably a bit colored by my experience. However, in my opinion Java is becoming a bit heavy. Whether you believe generics to be a good or bad addition, there's no doubt that it added significant complexity to the language, which makes it a little less easy to learn for beginners. If closures get added to the language in 1.7, it going to become ever more heavy and complex. Basically, what I'm driving at is that I think the most popular languages in the near future are going to be the more agile byte code languages like Groovy and Scala, and byte code ports like Jython and JRuby as well. Personally, I think Groovy will emerge as the most popular byte-code language - especially for Java programmers because of its syntactic similarity to Java and its ability to be compiled at the same time as (along with) Java classes. It also has a JSR, so it's kind of a shoe in to be the "official" JRE scripting language. But I think most of the reasons it will gain in popularity are it's features, ease of use, and RAD model. Check it out.

Java will probably remain the heavy hitter for a while though.

In my opinion .NET is the way of the future (for me anyway). I believe this because:

a) Microsoft is leading the market share in operating systems.
b ) To most companies (from what I've seen) cross-platform doesn't matter that much.
c) Most companies want their applications developed fast.
d) C# closely resembles JAVA thus making transition between languages easy.
e) Implementations have been made to go cross-platform, like the Mono project.
f) It is needed for ASP.NET... for some strange reason.
g) It is constantly being updated. MORE LEGO BLOCKS FOR ALL >:).

I actually believe LOLCODE may well be the driving force of application development as well, because a ) the syntax is humorous and b ) developers would be more determined to fix bugs as their code would be making those funny images of the bugs in the bytecode.

However I could be very wrong and the language won't be adopted by a huge company and be developed upon. I never found a good LOLCODE interpreter.

.NET is certainly one of the language sets that will continue to grow it's share, although it (referring to the .NET mainstays like C# and VB.NET) will likely never be the most used languages. they should settle in about position 4 or5 (maybe 3, but that would be a stretch).

C# does closely resemble Java - as the MS equivalent, it was designed to try and take the good from Java, including the OO syntax.

As for the overall question, it will always depend on what the goal is. different languages are often used for different purposes, and I don;t see that changing anytime soon.

If this turned out to be true, I would be very surprised. Imagine if you walked into a cafe and found Bigfoot, Jimmy Hoffa, and Amelia Earhart sitting there having breakfast. That's how surprised I'd be.

This post has been edited by Programmist: 6 May, 2008 - 10:49 AM

I think that we're going to see the rise of interpreted languages.

C++, Java, and the ASP.Net languages(C#, VB.Net, etc.) are all well and good - but the world is shifting towards a more internet-focused society - and what are most web developers working with? They're working with things like Ruby, PHP, Perl, Python - all interpreted.

Interpreted languages are perceived as nicer, because it's fast to develop in them - people who are tired of the bulk of compiled languages or having to wait for a compiler don't have to with an interpreted language. Also, there's generally not as much of a worry about cross-platform - last I checked, Perl and PHP both run on virtually anything(although I don't know about Ruby or Python).

In the applications world? We'll see. I think that there's still a place for C++, and as videogames get bigger and bigger, we'll see more of a draw towards that - but again, Python + pygame is on the rise as well.

It's a toss-up, I suppose.