Java Still The #1 Programming Language - Barely

According to the October 2011 TIOBE Programming Community Index - Java is still the #1 programming language out there - even though it slipped 1% from September. Hot on its heels is the old standby C.

Java has been the top language for over 10 years (except a few months were C took over). This makes total sense. The thing that really surprised me was the fact that Objective-C (the language used by Apple and iOS) came in at... #6. #6! For a language that is really only useful for building native Apple OS (OS X and iOS) applications.

That means that Objective-C beats out (in order): Visual Basic, Python, Pearl, JavaScript and Ruby.

Whoa.

Talk about marketplace "disruption."

Now, Android is based on Java - but so are a LOT of other internal and external applications - so it's sort of hard to extract the mobile developers from that total.

However, since Objective-C is really only widely used in Apple products - it's pretty significant. I wonder if it's because other than Java and PHP (#4), the other top languages are C-derivatives: C (#2), C++ (#3), and C# (#5).

So if you're a developer - or you're in school studying Computer Science - brush up on your C pointers and memory management - because it looks like that's where the money will be for the immediate future:

SOURCE

Mini-Blog: How To Learn Basic JavaScript - CodeAcademy.com

I just came across a new site today - it's called CodeAcademy.com and it's a really cool little concept. It walks you though some very basic exercises that teach you how to write your own JavaScript.

Oh, and it's 100% FREE.

The thing that makes this site different than others that just describe how JavaScript works (and there are some excellent ones like my favorite: w3schools.com), is that this entire site is based on having you actually type JavaScript commands into a window and check your results.

It starts out gentle with teaching you how to get the length of a string by typing: "bob".length into a single-line console-like window - to which it returns 3.

As you move through the exercises - you "graduate" to a multi-line editor that you can code in (very similar to the Eclipse JavaScript editor - including code coloring).

Now, if you already know a bunch of JavaScript - this site won't really help you a lot, but if you've never written a line of JavaScript and you're script-curious - this is definitely a great place to start!

Adobe Caves To HTML5 - Creates New "Edge" Tool

Adobe announced this week that it's released a new (pre beta) tool called "Edge" that is designed to replace... er... "compliment" Flash. This still-in-the-oven tool will allow users to create fluid animations of objects on new (or existing) web pages with a graphical user interface using nothing more than HTML5, JavaScript and CSS3.

Steve Jobs must be laughing his ass off right now.

Let's face it - Flash is soooooo 1996. That's when a product called "FutureSplash Animator" was released. Never heard of it? Well, after the creators tried to sell the product to Adobe (in 1996) and Adobe passed - another heavy hitter (back in the day) - Macromedia heard about it and acquired the small company and their development team.

Macromedia (itself acquired by Adobe in 2005 for $3.4 billion!)  changed the name "SuperSplash Animator" to "Flash" - a combination of "Future" + "Splash" - and thanks to companies like Disney and MSN - Flash took off (MSN actually delayed their initial launch until Flash 1.0 was finished)

So, why did Flash succeed? Basically because plain HTML sucked. At the time, doing a plug-in to the browser was the only way to do these advanced animations and graphics. And, oh yeah, once Adobe got their hands on it - they convinced OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturers) to bundle Flash with their operating systems/browsers - so no one had to really "install" it.

Designers loved it because it allows them to create beautiful artwork in, say, Photoshop and then turn it over to the animators/designers to work their coding magic on the finished piece.

Animators/designers loved it - because... well... there simply was nothing else (well, besides Macromedia Director - which became Adobe Director).

So - that's how we got to where we are. Now - where are we headed? Answer: HTML5.

Why? Because Google and Steve Jobs say so. Period.

Nowadays everyone except Adobe hates flash.

Apple hates Flash.
Google hates Apple - but it really hates Flash as well.
Microsoft hates Flash so much they created a Flash rip-off called Silverlight (which they now also hate as well).

The fact that (finally) HTML is major getting a face lift (and tummy tuck, liposuction, and boob job) finally means that browser plug-ins that provide core functions will no longer be necessary. He said hopefully...

HTML should have been updated 10 years ago. But, 10 years ago, everyone was still going nuts on this whole "Internet thing" - and focusing more on business models and valuations than on the underlying technology to make it all work.

To make matters worse, HTML is open-source and free - which means the old view of "... I'm not spending my developer's time to enhance something for everyone - it doesn't provide value for our company" - or, as I like to call it, selfish greed - caused us to be where we are.

It was just easier and cheaper to write stuff in Flash - and because it was already installed on 90% of all computers out-of-the-box, it became a standard. It took someone with a strong personality (Steve Jobs) to draw a line in the sand (like he also did with software distribution and music distribution and iTunes, etc) to say enough is enough.

Besides Steve Jobs' temper tantrum, we also have a renaissance in the browser industry - spurred on first by Firefox and then by Google. Both of these "new" browsers decided to go with HTML5 at their core (or at least to adopt Apple's open-source WebKit HTML rendering engine). Even Microsoft - the king of "me too" - decided to "embrace" HTML5 in Internet Exploder Explorer 9 (or they would have lost the browser wars over time).

So, now that you're all hyped-up on HTML5 and as you wait for Edge to come out of the oven - there's a $30 Mac-based application called Hype that will do more than Edge does (for now) - and it'll help you get your feet wet with HTML5.

So, let's recap:

HTML5/JavaScript/CSS3 = "good".
Flash = "bad".
Adobe = "we better get on the train or we will become as irrelevant as Microsoft".

I, for one, sure hope that Flash goes the way of the floppy disk - and that "plain old" HTML continues to be actively extended as we move forward. It won't happen overnight, but fellow Internet users rejoice: a Flash-free browser experience is on the horizon!

The Death of JavaScript 2.0

JavaScript - better known by it's official name ECMAScript - was due for an overhaul (ECMAScript 4) - which was to be named JavaScript 2 - but the ECMA International Standards body decided to scrap that effort.

So, what's up with that?

It turns out that they are working to ratify a 3.1 specification that will have some "bug fixes" in it - and then are planning to take a whole new look at it in a project code named "Harmony."

Tell that to Adobe. You see, the basis of JavaScript 2 ECMAScript 4 was to be based on Adobe's ActionScript 3 (yes, the thought of that makes me shutter as well). Since they've decided that the name "JavaScript 2" is dead - so is the thought of basing it on ActionScript (thank goodness!).

So with Microsoft and Yahoo on one side and Adobe, Mozilla, Google and Opera on the other - "Harmony" is meant to split the difference and see if they can come to some common ground. All of this, of course, is after they get the 3.1 version out the door.

"First, the difference between ECMAScript 3.1 and ECMAScript 'Harmony' should be made clear. 3.1 is a 'bug fix' for the current JavaScript," said Alex Russell, co-creator of the Dojo Toolkit and a member of the Ecma technical committee working on the specification. "Harmony will pick up from 3.1 and try to introduce many of the types of features that were slated for ES4 but with different syntax and from a different approach. This is great news for everyone since it means that the standards body is going to be working toward a future [that] is deemed 'good' or 'bad' based on what's good for the language as it will exist in Web browsers. There is likely a mandate for the language outside of the browser environment, but designing the next language in a vacuum of real-world users of new syntax was going to hound the ES4 effort. That risk is now gone."

So, where does that leave us? It's sort of hard to tell. Microsoft still has 3 different implementations of JavaScript that can run in a browser: JScript (via Windows Scripting Host), JScript.NET and JScript for the DLR [Dynamic Language Runtime] (via Silverlight).

And Adobe isn't going to change or kill their ActionScript 3 either as expressed by Mike Chambers, also an Adobe engineer. He blogged that "ActionScript 3 is not going away, and we are not removing anything from it based on the recent decisions. We will continue to track the ECMAScript specifications, but as we always have, we will innovate and push the Web forward when possible (just as we have done in the past). ActionScript 3 isn't changing and we are not going to dumb down future versions of ActionScript,"

So THERE! I still believe it will be another two to three years before we can get all of those players to play nice together and to finally agree on a single implementation in a Harmonious way. Until then - we'll all still have to live with all the nuanced "versions" of JavaScript and all the various implementations and "extensions" to the language. *sigh*

Ruh Roh, Scooby - Here Comes ARAX

Ruby (with or without Rails) - looks like it's getting a Microsoft-sponsored update in Silverlight that will allow it to have AJAX-like interaction - sans the JavaScript.

Right now, if you want to have AJAX type of functionality - you can still do it within Ruby - although most developers use RJS (Ruby JavaScript) utility to write Ruby and then have RJS generate the JavaScript code for execution in the browser.

Ummmm.... right. If you're going to have a client-code dependency like Flash - it seems to me that it's probably not a good idea to be beholden to Microsoft. I mean, the whole reason people use Ruby is because it's open source and cross platform - right?

So... if people lean on Silverlight to be the client-side goo to execute these AJAX calls - what happens if Microsoft decides to only update the Windows version, and allows the Mac and Linux versions to fall behind (feature-wise)? Not that it's happened before with... ahem... Office for Mac or anything...

While I think it's a good idea to help developers of all languages bring it to the browser, I'm not sure this strategy is all that it's cracked up to be. Plus, I really don't see this group of heavily Unix (including loads of Mac developers) group relying on technology from the Evil Empire to solve their coding woes.

It would be good, though - if the major browser makers (or some astute, cross platform, named vendor - e.g. Adobe) would built-in support for such a scheme.

If they did - then we could have a whole new crop of acronyms: APhAX (PhP), ACFAX (ColdFusion), ALAX (Lasso), ANAX (.NET)...

Let's just stop the insanity here. There will always be languages that are not ECMA scripting. In fact, ALL languages except JavaScript are different. Let's face facts: JavaScript is here to stay - and even becoming 2.0 (soon according to Brendan Eich the guy that made it up back in the Netscape Navigator days).

It's really all up to the browser folks - and hopefully they'll all just agree to support the same stuff, the same way. The last thing in the world we need is a new generation of browsers that are even MORE incompatible.