Everywhere people need a small amount of scripting power, JavaScript finds new uses. One of the simplest ways for developers of large applications to offer users the ability to create subapplications, JavaScript continues to grow in the enterprise, one small chunk of code at a time.
Programming languages on the rise: R Statistical analysis is being increasingly done in R these days, although some purists call the language S, its original name. Tibco sells a commercial version called S-Plus.
[ For an in-depth primer on what enterprises are doing with "big data," see "The big promise of Big Data: What you need to know today." ]
There probably won't be an S++ because the language is more a version of LISP or Scheme with additional features for computing statistical functions and then displaying the results in pretty pictures. If the boss wants the computer to churn through billions of lines of log files looking for patterns, clusters, and predictive variables, R or S is a well-loved solution.
R is another Swiss Army Knife of numerical and statistical routines for hacking through the big data sets -- collections big enough that it might be better called a Swiss Army Machete. Lou Bajuk-Yorgan, senior director of product management for Tibco's Spotfire S-Plus, says its software is used by a number of clients who are studying how business or engineering projects might work or why they fail to work. Analyzing weather patterns to find the best places to build wind-powered generators is one example.
Programming languages on the rise: Erlang Does your server need to respond to many different independent messages concurrently? Do you need to parcel these requests out to different cores or servers in various parts of the world? That's practically the definition of the hardest part of enterprise computing. Erlang, an open source language first created by scientists at Ericsson Computing Laboratory, excels at these tasks.
[ For a deeper look at today's "slacker databases," see the InfoWorld Test Center review "NoSQL databases break all the old rules." ]
