“DDJ: Which language has moved to the top of the heap, so to
speak, in terms of popularity, and why do you think this is the
case?“PJ: If we take a look at the top 10 programming languages, not
much has happened the last five years. Only Python entered the top
10, replacing COBOL. This comes as a surprise because the IT world
is moving so fast that in most areas, the market is usually
completely changed in five years time. Python managed to reach the
top 10 because it is the truly object-oriented successor of Perl.
Other winners of the last couple of years are Visual Basic, Ruby,
JavaScript, C#, and D (a successor of C++). I expect in five years
time there will be two main languages: Java and C#, closely
followed by good-old Visual Basic. There is no new paradigm
foreseen…”