But perhaps the cool languages of today are cool precisely because they offer real advantages. Maybe they're advantageous only in our unique historical moment. That has yet to be seen. If their popularity fades over time, that won't mean they were simply hipster fads. It could just as easily mean they met significant needs at one point in time, but the needs changed, or we developed better tools that met those same needs.
Yeah, that one perplexed me. I don't think anyone can deny Java's usefulness. I guess a lot of the hate is from people who find Java useful but still annoying. For my part, I don't think it's bad at all. When I use Java, I miss conveniences like `people.map { |p| [p.name, p.address] }`. But in exchange for typing more characters, Java gives me a huge ecosystem, good docs, effortless cross-platform coding, and pretty much the only hassle-free GUI API.
Maturity and longevity, mostly. For really serious projects, I prefer to mitigate my risk by picking something that's been mainstream for a long time and isn't likely to die off. I'm not saying Clojure, Scala, JRuby, etc. are going to die off. Just that it's too early to tell.
Also, it's not exactly the same ecosystem. Yes, you can use all the Java libraries. But the ecosystem also includes the dev environment/build system, the written material, and the peopleware associated with the language. You don't automatically import all of these from Java just because you're using the JVM.
Scala enables you to keep most of the Java ecosystem (API, docs, cross-platform, and swing is even nicer in scala), and you can do `people.map { p => (p.name, p.address) }`, granted that the IDEs have to get a plugin installed before they are as helpful, but both Eclipse and IntelliJ has awesome scala plugins.
I don't see so much hate in the current results for languages that offer few or no real advantages. It seems to me that most of the hate is directed at languages that are often mandated by external forces, whether those be bosses, target platforms or simply lack of alternatives within a niche.
