Google Dev: the Next Big programming Language

I am SOOOOOOO bummed I missed LIFT this year… but the Stormhoek “Big Love” road trip was my number one priority… and it’s going fantastically well. Really sorry to miss you and Maryam, too…

Laurent is one of my favorite people in the ‘sphere. A splendid chap, all round…

C++ is a hideous language, but Objective C is too Mac-oriented for my tastes.

Whatever ends up being the next big thing needs a couple conditions attached…

1) Needs to be free software (free as in freedom)
2) No corporate sponsorship (needs to be neutral)

Java, for example, is too corporate, and is one of the reasons a lot of people hate it. Until Sun completely releases it under the GPL, I know a lot of people who won’t even touch it. Java’s not that great of a language anyway.

Languages come and go in popularity, and unfortunately, with a given languages popularity comes the need by a lot of hackers to get onboard. I remember this happening with Java. It became so popular that every programmer who knew what a function was authored a book on Java. Stupidly enough, IT leaders, having nothing to go on but Java’s popularity, insisted their hackers write their company’s stuff in Java, even though it wasn’t the best language to do it in.

I always love watching a new language come out and seeing everyone rush to it like it’s the new panacea. Invariably, the work they do is no better, no faster, and they wonder why they even bothered.

Anyway, what needs to happen is we need to ensure the next big language is free software and not tied down with evil licenses. Everyone benefits from free software. Only corporations benefit from proprietary stuff. It’s not about profit, it’s about enabling programmers with the least amount of drag to entry.

Why do you think Sun is GPLing Java… they realize a decade too late that Java would have been the biggest language on the planet had they done so initially. Their little spats with IBM and all that aside, Sun is realizing that even Solaris is doomed to fail against Linux in the server space. What a lot of people don’t understand is that Linux isn’t yet that much of a threat to Apple and MS desktop users, but it is a huge threat to the server space. By the end of this decade, the vast majority of servers will be running some variant of Linux. Look at Apache Web server… more of those than any other Web server. Not only is it free software, but it’s much higher in quality than anything out there.

“What a lot of people don’t understand is that Linux isn’t yet that much of a threat to Apple and MS desktop users, but it is a huge threat to the server space. ”
I think it is very important for LINUX to grow in the server space, since, if you look at MSFT’s quarterlies, that’s where a big chunk of their cash comes from.

Of course, part of the trouble is corporations who are too clueless to dump Outlook for GMail. I can tell you, from the USER side, GMail is far superior in features.

@3

The problem with GMail is it’s proprietary. The goal is for corporations to SAVE money by switching to Linux AND associated FREE software. Corporations exist to make a profit. The less you spend on licenses and useage fees, the better of you are in the long run.

A talented Linux/Unix admin can set up a free software mail system in less than a day and migrate everyone over within a few weeks. I’ve seen it done and it’s less painful than people believe.

GMail is pretty to look at and has nice features, but you’re locked in to the whims of Google’s license, the evil ads, and a host of other problems.

It’s always in the best interest of people to stick with free software so they can control what happens with every aspect of their infrastructure.

For example, I was hired recently by an employer who is interested in moving away from MS to Linux in a number of areas. I have expertise in this area, and I’m hoping that once I show them how much better Linux is in a couple of areas, they’ll seee the light and allow me to move other areas over to Linux as well. They’ll save money by not paying evil licensing fees, we’ll not have vendor lock-in, and the systems are easy to train people on with a minimum of downtime. I’ve had great success with this in the past, and I know my employer will be far happier with Linux since they can focus their money on bigger and better things than licenses. They’ll also not have to keep up with installed licenses and buying new ones.

Linux just makes sense for businesses since it saves them lots of money io the end. Sure, you have to have someone who knows Linux, but I can train my coworkers in little time. No real worry over spyware, viruses, etc.

Free email MTA/MUAs, free VPN, SSH, better Web browsers, OpenOffice, no license fees. It’s getting better all the time.

FOr example, SquirrelMail is simple and elegant and just gets the job done. We don’t do calandering, so we don’t need Evolution or anything like that. We keep it simple and easy.

I guess the language would be based upon PHP and Delphi (Delphi may be proprietary but its father pascal is not).

Well, another possibility would be an acquisition of 37signals by Google and an NBL would emerge on top of Ruby on Rails. They may not need to acquire 37signals but acquisition has become Google’s expected behavior anyway.

Well, after reading Stevey’s article, I believe that NBL would be something based upon Delphi/Pascal.

Wait, GMail has superior user features to Outlook?

Okay, you’ve gotten it backwards again:

1) Post comment

2) Smoke an assload of crack

That order is SO important.

The Next Big Language.. umm.. whatever it turns out to be, can we name it “Goo” or “G++”?

@8,

Never happen. Google will never develop a language. It’s not in their best interest. And besides, it wouldn’t be free software. It would be burdened with inappropriate licensure.

Look at the most successful languages of the last thirt y years: C, Perl, Python, Lisp. All free. Java could have been far bigger and better had it been released as free software so hackers could have contributed to it and associated libraries, compilers, etc.

GCC, which is a free software compiler, is probably used by more people than any other compiler out there. It has front ends for almost any useful language written. Why pay thousands for a cheesy compiler from some company, when GCC is far better, better supported, and any help you need is just a question away over the net.

Now, having said that, what I hate is when companies use GCC to write proprietary software. There should be a clause written into the GPL that when using GCC and associated software, it must be released under the GPL. Fair is fair. If you use free software and it’s useful to you, you should contribute back to the community which enabled you.

The next big programming languages won’t be programming languages at all… they’re programming interfaces. Check out http://pipes.yahoo.com – this is the future of programming. I like to think of them as APUIs… Application Programming User Interfaces.

Are you guys coming to Barcelona for 3GSM?

Robert, really respect that you surfaced this, but honestly, you wouldn’t know a programming language if it stroked you for hours.

Anyone here checked out D by Digital Mars? There’s a nice intro article about it in the latest issue of Linux Journal (March, I think?).

Puh-leez: um, that’s not true at all. I might not be very conversant in languages but I can tell German from Japanese just as well as I can tell Visual Basic from Java. I did work at Visual Basic Programmer’s Journal for quite a few years and helped plan the Visual Studio conference where I did learn SOME things about programming.

Kosso, I’m not, sorry.

You know what I like about you. You even answer the anonymous posters as negative as they can be. But I would say on this topic, that who cares? Programming languages are sort of a thing of the past. Haven’t we moved to another plane of understanding in terms of business value, content, and context? I would think that another programming language is just another attempt to craft a proprietary locks to a web platform. I’m not really a big fan of such tactics.

Programming languages are sort of a thing of the past. Haven’t we moved to another plane of understanding in terms of business value, content, and context?

I smell a marketer.

Such things are created with technology. Computers run via computer languages, so there will *always* be a need for computer languages. They will evolve, to be sure, and probably will eventually be self-programming, but we’re a long way away from that point. Sorry, but Star Trek isn’t here yet.

from #4
> GMail is pretty to look at and has nice features, but
> you’re locked in to the whims of Google’s license,
> the evil ads, and a host of other problems.
….
> we’ll not have vendor lock-in,

This just emphasizes that it doesn’t matter who the supplier is – lock in is lock in. Just ebcause it is technically feasible to migrate your data from one OSS platform to another doesn’t mean its worth it in business terms.

> Programming languages are sort of a thing of the
> past. Haven’t we moved to another plane of
> understanding in terms of business value, content,
> and context?
See http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html

BTW, Robert, I’m cleaning up my RSS feeds – far too many to read in one day AND get some work done – and I’m dumping Dan Farber’s BTL – mainly because I have to leave reader to get anything out of them.

all programming language are not safe ,when it comes to hacking. i this case we have to be more updated, in all resources. everytime there is a new virus there is a new software. what does it mean? you know what i mean.
virus scanner creators are the ones make viruses. they distroy and cure.

The NBL should have the following

#1) excellent documentation (with samples)
#2) A neutral standards commitee
#3) compilers from major software vendors
#4) Solid editors to code

I don’t understand ‘free software’ as applied to languages. Free compilers – yes they make sense. But what’s a ‘free language’?

“NBL for those of you who need three-letter acronymns just to feel sufficiently geeky.”

A not particularly geeky but pedantic point: It’s a three letter abbreviation (or TLA). An acronymn has to be, strictly speaking, a word that can be pronounced as a word, ie NATO, SCUBA.

You were talking about languages after all…

PCMCIA = People Can’t Memorize Computer Industry Abbreviations

Wow, have fun! You sound like your making the rounds.
Sorry we missed your interview on BlogTalkRadio this week. We did find someone to fill in though.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ Drop me a line when you get back.
Talk soon!!
Safe Travels

I was going to comment on Steve’s blog but he’s locked it down to Blogger subscribers only. Anyhow, The NBL thing comes down to one of two possibilities. RPG.Net or iCOBOL. If it sounds ridiculous enough it has to be true. (Anybody who follows my site would most likely expect me to say something fantastic about Groovy here but the point is something as big as NBL would likely be a gigantic regression back to the days of old like when we all started wearing bell-bottoms again.)

You know, NBL sounds a *lot* like C# to me. If C# and .NET were developed by any other company except Microsoft, I’d bet this article would make frequent reference to it.