Java and SQL Server persist: How tech moves fast, yet enterprise IT moves so slow

3 years ago 326

Commentary: What developers emotion contiguous is simply a bully indicator of what enterprises volition beryllium utilizing tomorrow...and the adjacent day...and the next.

Perhaps the astir breathtaking happening successful the astir recent RedMonk Programming Language Rankings is conscionable however unexciting it is. "Java is retaining–through a operation of adaptability connected its portion and inertia connected the enterprise's–a ample stock of the endeavor applications market," wrote RedMonk expert Stephen O'Grady. Ho hum.

Not that things are immoderate antithetic implicit successful database land. Stack Overflow polled much than 70,000 developers to observe that...they inactive emotion PostgreSQL, MongoDB and Redis. You know, conscionable similar they did erstwhile asked back successful 2017. But oh, by the way, though these well-loved databases proceed to marque inroads against incumbents similar Oracle and Microsoft, those incumbents stay heavy used, arsenic measured by DB-Engines.

What's the takeaway? Change comes dilatory successful the enterprise.

SEE: Rust: What it is, wherefore you should larn it, and however you tin maestro it (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

Beyond set-top boxes

People person been penning disconnected Java for eons. It's slow! It's excessively tolerant of bugs! Etc. There are a scope of alternatives, with a batch of caller love for Rust, for example. Still Java persists, refusing to cede its ascendant spot successful endeavor computing. O'Grady noted a fewer reasons wherefore this is so:

The connection erstwhile created to tally cablegram acceptable apical boxes continues to beryllium a workhorse, and importantly 1 that has consistently been capable to find caller enactment to do. Java's show connected these rankings continues to impress, each these years later, and...it [has] shown a singular quality to accommodate to a rapidly changing landscape.

This isn't due to the fact that developers adore Java. If you look astatine Stack Overflow's survey data, developer sentiment splits astir 50/50 connected loving and loathing Java (47.15% vs. 52.85%). You privation a programming connection that radical adore? Try Rust (86.98% of those surveyed accidental they emotion it). Or a connection developers dread? That's COBOL, with 84.21% of respondents lining up to propulsion rocks astatine the venerable language. But Java? It's close determination successful the middle, the milquetoast of developer preferences.

And yet it's an endeavor default, close up determination with different apical 10 stalwarts successful the RedMonk rankings:

1. JavaScript

2. Python

2. Java

4. PHP

5. CSS

5. C++

5. C#

8. TypeScript

9. Ruby

10. C

Of the programming languages connected that list, lone TypeScript was created wrong the past decennary (2012). Everything other has been astir for ages. As overmuch arsenic we similar to unreal that exertion moves fast, erstwhile it hits the enterprise, things dilatory down. Considerably.

Data astatine endeavor velocity

Over connected the information side, we cognize that enterprises are embracing real-time information processing. Confluent, the creator of Apache Kafka, went nationalist successful 2021 connected its committedness of enabling companies to watercourse information to amended lawsuit experiences. Enterprises got the message, with Confluent precocious reporting a 64% summation successful revenue, generally, and a 200% summation successful its unreality revenue. Nor is Confluent alone, with a big of information level companies (Snowflake, etc.) winning implicit enterprises with a modern, cloud-centric attack to data.

And yet if we look astatine the industry's astir wide utilized databases, it's fundamentally unchanged from a decennary ago. Even if we look astatine the databases developers astir emotion (Redis, MongoDB, PostgreSQL), arsenic the Stack Overflow survey does, these are the aforesaid 3 developers loved astir erstwhile Stack Overflow started asking backmost successful 2017. Meanwhile, Oracle and IBM DB2 header the "most dreaded" list, with Microsoft SQL Server faring a spot better, yet enterprises proceed to usage Oracle, SQL Server and MySQL according to DB-Engines.

Why? Because portion "most loved" signals wherever the marketplace is moving, "most dreaded" mostly tells america wherever the marketplace already is, with familiarity breeding contempt, arsenic it were. More positively put, these bequest databases person been astir agelong capable for endeavor IT professionals to get a good, agelong look astatine them and, increasingly, privation to determination on.

Which the endeavor will. Slowly.

That's the takeaway. We shouldn't downplay the value of developer sentiment for technologies similar Rust and Redis–they're signals of wherever developers privation to determination the enterprises that employment them. But we besides can't place conscionable however hard alteration is successful endeavor computing.

Disclosure: I enactment for AWS, but the views expressed herein are mine.