7 Programming Languages on the rise

Infoworld wrote an article on 7 Programming Languages on the Rise. (It is annoying to click through the pages, click on the print link for a 1 page view)

Let me talk about each one too.

1. Python.
I blogged about this language before.
A first look: it is a lot like C with indentation instead of braces, with read-eval-print interactive mode.
I did not know it is big in the science and engineering.

2. Ruby
People are crazy about this gem... Remember Ruby itself is not big deal but Ruby + Rail is... I think its biggest charm is to generate some skeleton code for you. But why can't you generate your own and have to learn a new language? Does it simplify MVC or is it MVC with your favorite Java framework a bit too difficult? It also lets you do many magical things with few lines. It is a bit of a learning curve if you ask me. I am willing to learn (if you hire me to do Ruby) I wish I can share your enthusiasm.

3. MATLAB
For statistic people who needs to analyze large amount of data, Excel doesn't cut it. I know nothing about MATLAB

4. Javascript
Of course this one is one the rise! AJAX everywhere. Javascript is here to stay. Amazing what people are already doing with it. This is the true cross platform language.

5. R. I have seen R (and S-PLUS) in my computer science class!
ANOTHER LISP like read-eval-print thing.

6. Erlang. Not sure what this is at all.
Another functional language... eew this one looks hard

7. Cobol
You've gotta be kidding? Probably not good to invest in such poorly constructed language.

So Java and C# are not on the rise? Microsoft keeps rolling out new .NET versions. Java has programmers needing to update themselves for a decade+.

All these so-called rising language (besides Cobol) seem to belong to functional languages. Read-Eval-Print.. defining functions and expressions on the fly. People LOVE to write un-named lambda functions on the fly. Naming it doesn't hurt, ok?

Sure, each language has its unique syntax and twists, most languages try to create their own C-descended language + functional features + more....

Groovy/Grails should be on this list?

Of all the languages here, Java remains my favorite general language. I'll add Javascript for client side things for web apps.

But I am AGAINST JSTL, Custom tags. I am not super comfortable with annotations.

I am against wacky syntax invading programming language like LINQ.

All boils down to... statements, conditions, loops, calling methods from libraries.

To do MVC easier, we don't need new languages but some effective tools to generate skeleton codes.
About analyzing huge amount of data... yea, you need tools specific for that such as MATLAB.

Go ahead, pick and choose your favorite language for your work.