The 100-year language
» Posted on 13 Feb 2010We know that Java must be pretty good, because it is the cool, new programming language. Or is it? If you look at the world of programming languages from a distance, it looks like Java is the latest thing. (From far enough away, all you can see is the large, flashing billboard paid for by Sun.) But if you look at this world up close, you find that there are degrees of coolness. Within the hacker subculture, there is another language called Perl that is considered a lot cooler than Java. Slashdot, for example, is generated by Perl. I don’t think you would find those guys using Java Server Pages. But there is another, newer language, called Python, whose users tend to look down on Perl, and another called Ruby that some see as the heir apparent of Python.
– Paul Graham, Hackers and Painters, p. 183
He’s right.