Earlier quoted context omitted.
The age makes a big difference for at least these reasons: - given I have a problem, how likely is it that it's a problem in the runtime nobody saw before? - given I want to do X, how likely is it that there's a library doing it already present? (and how likely that there's one established library rather than 10 trivial attempts?) - if I can't find a solution to X, how likely is it that there's a solution in the firs…
Massive library. That was Perl's big advantage. Why do more people use Python over Perl? F# isn't really cross-platform yet. Swift is 18 months old. Scala is a bit complicated for many and slow to compile. C# was a Windows only language for a long time, with Xamarin for those who really really need limited cross platform support. OCaml never gained much traction. If Microsoft had used it instead of a slightly differe…
>Why do more people use Python over Perl?
Two factors, it came packaged by default on Linux distros and OSX. That was really a king maker in itself. Then add that the language itself is that much better in most people's eyes. People don't really like obfuscated code unless it's the only game in town (ie. the 1990's and Perl).
>Watch out for Go and Swift. These statically typed languages are better for large projects.
It will be interesting. But both have pretty big flaws so any extraordinary claims will demand extraordinary evidence of success. Neither language has exceptions. Go is controversial in its conservatism and this is likely due to the fact the entire team had to agree to add features to it. So it did end up odd in some ways because of that. Swift is in a constant state of change. Both are missing a lot of libraries. I've tried to use Go and see many abandoned projects like Martini and newer projects seemingly abandoned like Revel. The Go faithful will tell you this is because frameworks are not The Go Way, and point you to the Gorilla toolkit instead. I'm not sure I buy that story unquestioned, or not. On the whole, I'm unconvinced due to their language characteristics, that Go or Swift are ideal replacements for either Python or Ruby for webapps.
>These statically typed languages are better for large projects.
Yes, but I wouldn't want to write poorly engineered, bloated and difficult to port code even with static typing. I don't write massive 500KLOC projects so it's not a problem for me, but I have a policy of modularization with my code that would stem the issue (regardless of static typing or not). When you get to 500KLOC, there is no magic fix. Static typing, modularized code, nothing is a cure and hardly even a band-aid.
As a result of all this, I'm still onboard the Python train. I honestly do not see myself hopping off with PyPy being here today and Pyjion, Nuitka, and Pyston all up and coming. I would not be discouraged if a Rubyist either.
Of particular interest is that Microsoft is working on Pyjion and if it works out, API changes will be made to so that you download a module and JIT right from CPython3.
I'm probably more interested in Rust over Go and Swift at this point. Go is an island, similar to Java that way and not C ABI compatible, this makes it a less than ideal wholesale replacement of Python or Ruby. Swift is just too young on both the server and iOS. Rust itself is the best language I will likely never need to use, but its existence unlike most languages, makes an enormous amount of sense.