Thread

Hi everyone,

I’m studying on web programming languages and would like to know EE community’s opinion.

How do you see the future of current programming languages?
Which one is going to be more popular among the programmers in lets say next 5 years and why?
And if you were about to code a brand new web application which language would you select?

Java
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

(Boo, Cobra, Groovy, …)

Or even .net

Thank you.

WebObjects
Javascript
Haskell
Lisp

Personally I’d stick with PHP for web…

Depends on the type of web application you were thinking of building.  If one already has a system in place using Java, like many companies do, and you are creating an online presence for it, Java would probably be the way to go.  If one is building a web hosting application and need some fast processing on the server side, I could see Perl coming in extremely handy, especially if you have an experienced server administrator giving you the tools to use it well and fast. 

Obviously, EllisLab is very PHP focused and all our current software offerings are based off of it.  It is very widespread, easy to learn, and there are plenty of useful resources out there for learning.  Of course, the developers of the PHP language have been making a few missteps in the past few years, in my opinion, and it will be interesting to see what happens.  On some level, I am kind of hoping for a fork of PHP to happen.  Also, if Yahoo (much PHP in them) does get taken over by Microsoft, it could spell the end of their usage of PHP or it might mean that PHP will work even better on Windows server.  I am hoping for the latter.

Python is a pretty darn swank language, and if it could gain more usage I think it could be a serious contender to PHP in the web application world as it picks up steam.  Wish mod_python was more readily available on web hosts.

Ruby.  Hm.  I have never really spent much time with Ruby as so many people are using Rails to develop in Ruby and I never really liked using Rails, even though it does seem like it would speed up application development rather nicely.

You know, with many desktop applications moving onto the web, I keep on wondering if we are going to see a resurgence in lower level language like C.  Also, you might be interested at looking at Adobe Air.

Just as a side note… PHP optimised for Windows Server 2008

Just as a side note… PHP optimised for Windows Server 2008

Shall I dare to hope…?

On some level, I am kind of hoping for a fork of PHP to happen.  Also, if Yahoo (much PHP in them) does get taken over by Microsoft, it could spell the end of their usage of PHP or it might mean that PHP will work even better on Windows server.

BTW, doesn’t the fact that now SUN (Java) owns Mysql mean more pressure on PHP in the near future?

BTW, doesn’t the fact that now SUN (Java) owns Mysql mean more pressure on PHP in the near future?

Technically that is not true.  Sun Microsystems owns MySQL AB, a company who does MySQL consulting, training, and services.  Yes, they were the major force behind MySQL development, but Sun does not own MySQL any more than Zend own PHP.  It is open source.

And, as for that affecting PHP.  PHP and MySQL have been tied in most mindsets because of how well they have worked together in the past and I do not see that really changing.  Since PHP works many other kinds of databases (and PHP 5 has that lovely abstracted database layer), there is no real reason to suppose that any pressure will or could be applied.  Further, it is not like other programming languages do not work well with MySQL either.

Paul, nice thoughts on that, thank you for sharing them with us.  That was almost like another blog post!  Was that break authorized? 

I hope they all remain as competitive as they are now.  My barometer for the success of these languages is that we cannot say there is an obvious choice right now.

Developers benefit from things that happen in the ecosystem of other languages.  We also need all these different approaches because people have different personalities.  DHH decided that Ruby fit him better than PHP and eventually he created Rails.  That framework then became huge and inspired the creation of frameworks in PHP.

So here are my thoughts…

1.  As a business decision, building the application is extremely important, picking a language is not so much.  Any of those languages you listed are viable choices.  Just get on with the building.

2.  For the sake of getting started on the application, use what you are familiar with.  If you are good with PHP but feel that building the application in Ruby might be more interesting, forget Ruby and go PHP.  Deciding on a language is just an excuse for procrastination and you will never get started.

3.  When building an application, today is important, not five years from now.

Thank you very much for the detailed response Paul. I appreciate your help.

If programming languages were cars…

😉