There is a pervasive belief that enterprise technology evolves rapidly, and that failing to adopt the latest trends immediately will result in being left behind. A decade ago, it was cloud computing; today, it’s generative AI. While these technologies have promised to revolutionize the tech landscape, the reality is that the majority of enterprise IT spending still remains focused on on-premises solutions.
So, before succumbing to panic about falling behind in the tech race, consider how slowly enterprise preferences for programming languages and databases actually change.
The enduring popularity of Java
Over a decade ago, there was a surge of new programming languages like Go, TypeScript, CoffeeScript, F#, and Dart. However, in 2024, Java, Python, JavaScript, and C# still dominate the popularity charts, as reported by RedMonk and IEEE. When a language does manage to break through and gain traction, such as TypeScript, it is more of an exception than the norm. As highlighted by RedMonk’s Steve O’Grady, the top languages have remained relatively static, with very little movement in the rankings, indicating a resistance to change.
