Java is the new Ada

[pozorvlak]

There's a meme out there that Java is the new COBOL. The rationale is summarised nicely in the first couple of paragraphs of this Wiki page, before they ramble off into a rant about how Smalltalk should have taken over the world:Is Java the new Cobol? A good argument can be made that yes, it is. Considering the billions of lines of Cobol code that have been (or still are) in production; that observation should in no way be considered a slur. Java has succeeded in the marketplace (partially) because it is a language of its time; not one behind the times - or ahead of them.

Java is the new COBOL because it's becoming the new de facto standard for enterprise applications. Like COBOL, it's a good language for its time, but there are better ones. Like COBOL, it's bloated with features. Like COBOL, it's being used beyond its original view.
This comparison is appealing, but false. As I've been saying for years, Java is the new Ada.

Consider:Java Ada is a compiled, structured, statically typed, imperative, and object-oriented high-level computer programming language. It was originally designed by a small team led by James Gosling Jean Ichbiah. Java Ada emphasises "programming in the large", portability, multiprogramming using threads the rendezvous mechanism, and, in particular, the development of reliable software, which is aided by a combination of strong static typing and runtime checks inserted by the compiler. The restrictions of static typing are partially alleviated by the ability to create "generic" types and subroutines. Java Ada is particularly intended for development of software for embedded systems and hard real-time environments. The familiar C++ Pascal-like syntax aids new learners, and a large standard library provides much common functionality as standard.
It's instructive to ask why Java took off when Ada largely didn't. There's no single answer, but I think the following factors explain a lot:

• More programmers were familiar with C syntax than Pascal syntax (or associated Pascal syntax with limited Pascal environments they'd used at school).
• Java came from Sun, a company with programmer cred, and had the names of famous and respected hackers (James Gosling, Guy Steele) attached to it. Influence leaders in the hacker community took it seriously. Ada came from the DoD and Honeywell, and some guy that nobody'd ever heard of.
• Sun marketed the hell out of Java, and did so to the right people.
• Early Ada compilers were very poor, and by the time good compilers were available, the language had acquired a bad reputation.
• Mostly, though, I think it was timing. Ada was developed just before OOP went mainstream, so missed out on that bandwagon. By the time Java came along, OOP was well-established, and the masses were ready for a language in which OOP was built-in rather than bolted on. They were also familiar with the horrible complexity of C++, and were ready for something like C++ but less painful. "Reliable software" was a less effective rallying call back in 1980, unless you were developing control systems for aircraft (Ada's original niche). Ada was ahead of its time in many ways; Java, as the Wiki poster said above, was very much of its time.

There are some other suggestions here, from someone who appears to have been around at the time and is thus more reliable than me.

The new COBOL is, of course, Visual Basic.