Several weeks ago, Lynn Greiner's article on the state of the scripting universe was slashdotted. Several people raised their eyebrows at the (to them) obvious omissions, since the article only covered PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, Tcl and JavaScript. As I wrote at the time, Lynn chose those languages because hers was a follow-up to an article from three years back. Plus, most IT managers are familiar with at least one of those well-known scripting languages, even if they haven't personally written a line of code in one of them.
However, while we've covered several in depth, those five dynamic languages are not the only ones developers use. Since every programming language is a tool suited to solve a particular problem, it behooves each IT shop to use the best tool for the job. So in this article, I share a few up-and-coming scripting languages that really ought to be on your company's radar, with a few passionate arguments from developers who have adopted them.
Scala
Scala is particularly attractive to Java developers. Per its website: "Scala... is both object-oriented (think inheritance, methods, ...) and functional (think closures). It blends a number of modern language features, while maintaining close compatibility with Java."
Dean Wampler, senior consultant at Object Mentor, is currently co-writing a book on Scala for O'Reilly. "Scala is the best language I have seen that meets the 'one size fits all' goal," he says. "Scala fixes problems with Java, like verbosity and limitations in Java's support for object-oriented programming. In addition, Scala supports functional programming-an approach that has been around for a long time in academic computer science, but is now proving to be very useful for writing robust concurrent software. Concurrency is very important for scaling up software at large websites and enterprises."
For David Ritchie MacIver, a developer at Trampoline Systems, Scala's primary benefit is that he can avoid Java. "I can match [Java] in terms of library support, performance and ease of deployment," he says. Many Java tools carry over to Scala, too. MacIver says his company is adopting Scala for some of their visualization software as the software is updated, and reducing its use of Java and Ruby.
MacIver doesn't recommend Scala for everything, though. "People will push Scala for concurrency advantages. Please don't succumb to the temptation. It doesn't particularly have any. Any more than Java does, that is."
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CIO Live Podcast #79: Brent D Taylor, author of The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires Part II 05 October, 2007 06:00:00
For his new book, The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires, social researcher Brent D Taylor spent four years of intensive research investigating the psychological make-up and backgrounds of some of the world's richest men and women, including IT luminaries Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs. Taylor discovered that, despite working in different industries and coming from different upbringings, they all have one thing in common -- they are all outsiders. - +
CIO Live Podcast #78: Brent D Taylor, author of The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires 28 September, 2007 17:34:25
For his new book, The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires, social researcher Brent D Taylor spent four years of intensive research investigating the psychological make-up and backgrounds of some of the world's richest men and women, including IT luminaries Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs. Taylor discovered that, despite working in different industries and coming from different upbringings, they all have one thing in common -- they are all outsiders. - +
CIO Live Podcast #77: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part III 21 September, 2007 07:00:00
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CIO Live Podcast #76: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part II 14 September, 2007 07:00:00
Part two in our three-part special report from CIO's sister publication Network World in the US, as Paul Desmond reports from the Network World IT Roadmap Conference in Santa Clara, California. With development teams in the US and Japan, Panasonic needed a more efficient way to move very large files between the two locations. Iben Rodriguez, IT consultant for Panasonic Research and Development, explains how a storage-area network and virtual server technology helped speed up WAN performance. - +
CIO Live Podcast #75: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part I 07 September, 2007 07:00:05
Part one in our three-part special report from CIO's sister publication Network World in the US, as Paul Desmond reports from the Network World IT Roadmap Conference in Santa Clara, California. With development teams in the US and Japan, Panasonic needed a more efficient way to move very large files between the two locations. Iben Rodriguez, IT consultant for Panasonic Research and Development, explains how a storage-area network and virtual server technology helped speed up WAN performance.
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Texas uni announces the Institute for Cyber Security.The University of Texas at San Antonio Tuesday announced a technology incubator aimed at fostering IT security-based start-ups within the state. - +
Dilip Sarangan on Physical Security M&A 20 November, 2008 11:18:00
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International Challenges in PCI Security 20 November, 2008 09:15:00
In a country that's seen many regulatory compliance challenges this decade, the headaches of PCI security tend to be analyzed from a largely American perspective. - +
PCI council sharpens oversight of security auditors 19 November, 2008 10:53:00
Quality assurance plan targets security assessors and scanning vendorsThe PCI Security Standards Council Monday unveiled a plan to sharpen oversight of the hundreds of security-service providers now authorized to evaluate merchant networks under the organization's Payment Card Industry data standards.
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AARNet Brings 4K Digital Cinema to Australia: First 4K HD Video Signal delivered into Australia by AARNet 20 November, 2008 12:02:00
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Dude! You Say I Need an Application-Layer Firewall?!
Proxy firewall technologies have proven time and again to be more secure than “stateful” firewalls. They will also prove to be more secure than “deep inspection” firewalls. High-performance proxy firewalls are available today which are easily capable of handling gigabit-level traffic. Discover more by reading on.
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