Software technology is evolving quickly. Platforms, programming languages, and frameworks are created at a pace faster than ever before. New techniques, processes, and standards are also emerging that can impact your organization, especially if you’re not prepared. There are times, though, that these same technologies also fade fast. Catching up with and staying abreast of new technologies is as important as knowing which technologies will yield long term results. How can your organization's technology strategy keep up with all the changes? Join us for a light-hearted yet informative look at the “Battle of the Programming Languages” and our take on how to keep up with emerging technologies and techniques, and how you can align your organization's technology goals with the ever moving software industry.

1. Presented by:
Vasu Srinivasan, Senior Developer and
SharePoint Architect
Eric Kelm, Senior Software Developer
Texas.gov
Technology Today Series
Presented by Texas.gov
Hosted by the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR)

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 Small, informal, interactive
discussions
 Deeper dive into topic
 Hosted twice a year
 Coming up – a follow up to this
webinar on Tuesday, May 13,
11:30am – 1:00pm (light lunch
provided)
• Look for RSVP instructions in follow up
email
• Space is limited
Texas.gov Partner Roundtable

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 Learning a new programming language in
under an hour
 Comparing current popular programming
languages or frameworks
 Declaring which programming language is
best
What This Talk is NOT About

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 A light-hearted look at industry trends
 A review of emerging technologies
 Keeping up with emerging technologies
 And something along those lines…
So What is This Talk About…

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 C/C++
 Pascal, Delphi, PowerBuilder
 COBOL
 VB
 SQL Server, Oracle, DB2
 Word, Excel, Access
(T – 20).years()

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 OOAD, OOP
 Java, EJB, JDBC, JNDI and JSP
 .Net/C# and ASP
 MoM, Web Services
 JavaScript, JScript, VBScript
 XML, DHTML, XHTML, XSL, XSLT, CSS
 SQL Server/Oracle
 UML
(T – 10).years()

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• Java, EJB, JSF, Spring, Groovy, Grails, JBoss Seam, Struts, Swing, JavaFX, Objective C
• Ruby, PHP, Python, Scala, Clojure, Haskell
• .Net 2.0-4.5, C#, ASP.Net MVC2, MVC3, MVC4, SharePoint, RazorView
• SOA, WebServices, JAX-RPC, JAXB, Soap, REST, WCF, Camel, RabbitMQ
• SVN, GitHub, TFS, Jira, Jenkins, Maven, Ivy, Gradle
• JavaScript, HTML5, CSS3, jQuery, jQuery Mobile, Backbone, Ember, Knockout, AngularJS, Node.js,
extJS
• XML, YAML, XSL, XSLT, JSON
• UML, EIP, EAP
• SQL Server, Oracle, MongoDB, Redis, Cassandra, Neo4J
• BigData, Hadoop, Pig, Hive
• Android, OSX , Windows Phone 7/8/8.1/RT
• JUnit, NUnit, MSTest, Selenium, Spock, Geb
• OOAD, OOP, Functional, Parallel and Distributed Programming
• Agile, Waterfall, Scrum, XP, Kanban
• TDD, BDD, ADD and OCD
(T - 1).days()

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 Obviously, technology has become complex over the
years
 Almost obviously, selecting a technology also has
become complex
 Not so obviously, the conviction that a selected
technology is suitable has also become complex
The Truth About Technology

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What we mean by technology in this presentation
 Programming Languages
 Application Frameworks
 Databases
 Tools
#Technology

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Hardware Servers Databases Platforms
Language
s
Framewor
ks
XaaS
Choices 2 4 8 16 32 128 256
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
Numberofchoices
Technology vs Choices
Technology Approx
# of
Choices
Examples
Hardware 2 Mac, PC
Servers 4 AIX, Solaris, Linux, Windows
Databases 8 Oracle, SQL Server,
PostgreSql, MySql, MongoDB,
Cassandra, MS Access
Platforms 16 JVM, .Net, Android, OSX,
Windows Phone/RT,
WebServices, Node.js, Vertex
Languages 32 C, C++, Java, C#, Groovy, PHP,
Python, Ruby, JavaScript,
XML, XSL, HTML
Framework
s
128 Spring, Grails, Wicket, Zend,
Django, Rails, AngularJS,
EmberJS, ExtJS, jQuery,
Sencha, PhoneGap
XaaS/Tools 256 IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, Cloud and
other services
Technology Choices

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As the level of abstraction increases,
so do the number of choices.
The Kelm-Srinivasan Law of Choices

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 Use scientific techniques such as
• “It’s the only tool I know”
• “I think I know this programming language”
• “Everyone talks about this new framework”
 Conclusion
• Go with what you think is best
• Or what others think is best
• You can always blame the technology, anyway
How to Select a Technology?

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But what if…
we are actually overlooking something very fundamental?
if (what) { … }

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Well, technologies have a pattern for that…
the problem is not
about selecting the
techologies for your
business
but how to select
YOU, has been the
problem for
technologies
you are not struggling
to select the
technology
but the technologies
are struggling to select
YOU
if (what) { … }

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 INVERSION OF CONTROL OF DEVELOPERS
SUBJECT ORIENTED PATTERN

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is how the architectures, platforms, languages and
frameworks are trying to attract, entice…
The Real Problem of for Technologies

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The Battle
and how they are
battling to use …
YOU

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But why do we think that the technologies are battling
amongst themselves?
Think about how many programming languages have been
invented to say “Hello, World!”…
And calculate the Fibonacci Series or a Factorial.
That’s because they do not trust each other’s bits.
“My bits are better than your bits”
Battle, Why?

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Messaging
JVM .Net
JavaScript
Databases
Middleware
CMS
Others
HTML/CSS Web Frameworks
Integration
WHERE YOU ARE THE CATCH
the battlefield of technologies

23. JVM Brigade
Java
Groovy
Scala
Clojure
Jython
JRuby
Kotlin
Ceylon
Fantom
Gosu
http://tinyurl.com/odkwxcj
23

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Android
iOS
Windows
Phone
Sencha
PhoneGap
Titanium
SOAP
REST
ActiveMQ
Fusion
Middleware
RabbitMQ
Activiti
Apache Camel
DropWizard
WCF
XML, JSON, GS
ON
JPA, Hibernate
jQuery
jQuery Mobile
extJS
emberJS
angularJS
backbone.js
node.js
knockout
prototype
dojo
mootools
sass/scss
less
Oracle
SQL Server
MySQL Server
PostgreSql
MongoDB
Cassandra
Redis
Hadoop
BigData
More Regiments

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Galaxy of Programming Languages

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 Essence over Ceremony
 Functional Programming Support
 Domain Specific Languages
Features of Modern Programming Languages

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 Get to the essence of what your code is trying to
accomplish, and get rid of all of the unnecessary legacy
ceremony
 For example, the iterator pattern becomes much
simpler, because instead of the developer controlling the
iteration (for loop), the object itself is responsible for the
control of iteration (object.each)
 So the question “how to iterate” becomes irrelvant, and
you essentially are telling the object “Go iterate yourself”
Feature: Essence Over Ceremony

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First-class and higher-order functions
functions as arguments
functions as return types
Pure functions
immutable objects
no state
Feature: Functional Programming Support

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 Create languages targeted at a specific problem
domain in which you are working (mini-languages)
 Allows business users to write “code” in a language
that they can understand, and that same language
can also be understood by the system
Feature: Domain Specific Languages

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package com.asoftwareguy.email.java;
public class JavaEmailSender {
public static void main(String[] args){
JavaEmail javaEmail = new JavaEmail();
javaEmail.setTo("ekelm@egov.com");
javaEmail.setFrom("test@texas.gov");
javaEmail.setSubject(“Test Email");
javaEmail.setMessage("Hello! This is a test email message!");
javaEmail.send();
}
}
Show and Tell: Java

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send email to 'ekelm@egov.com' from
'test@texas.gov' with a subject 'Test
Email' and the message 'Hello! This is a
test email message!'
Show and Tell: DSL

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The DSL illustrated “Essence over Ceremony”
allowed expression of a domain expertise directly in
a general purpose programming language
Many other technologies are doing the same thing –
simplifying solutions for complex business problems
And there are so many flavors of these technologies…
What Does the DSL Prove?

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Choices, Choices Everywhere

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Let’s revisit the question
Now that we know technologies are also fighting a
battle to get to us…
How to Select a Technology?

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 NetFlix
• Grails, Asgard, Lipstick, Genie
 Twitter
• MySql, Cassandra, Hadoop, Lucene, Pig, Memcached, Scalding (Scala), Bootstrap
 Facebook
• Cassandra, PHP, Linux, MySQL, Memcached, Haystack, HipHop, Hive, Scribe
 Yahoo
• Hadoop, CapIt
 Google
• Big Table, Lazy Collections and a lot of stuff
 Amazon
• AWS, Linux, Oracle, Java, Perl, JBoss, Xen
 WhatsApp
• Erlang
What the Big Players are Doing

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 Did you choose or were you chosen?
 Did you select the right technology?
 How do you measure it?
• Cost
• Resources
• Support and Community
 Can you brainwash convince your
• Stakeholder
• Manager
• Team
• Yourself
Too Many Questions…

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A Technology Radar is a team exercise to experiment and
assess the emerging and sun-setting technologies in order
to provide value to your stakeholders
Pioneered by ThoughtWorks Inc.
Conducted quarterly
Assess current technologies
Publishes resulting radar
Technology Radar

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The result of the exercise is a document that captures
• your team’s view of where the industry is going
• what your team is doing to keep up with it
• how your team leverages the potential benefits and
exclude excess baggage
• your team’s trail of how it has modernized
Results of Technology Radar

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 Techniques
• Spock, Guerilla Testing, Async
programming, Functional programming, Html5
storage, Logs as data, Agile, Kanban, Scrum
 Tools
• Gradle, Pig, Maven, TFS, Eclipse, VisualStudio, Intell
iJ, Atlassian, Jira, GitServer
 Platforms
• MongoDB, Neo4j, Redis, Hadoop, Node.js, OpenSta
ck, Rias, Azure, AWS, SharePoint
 Languages and Frameworks
• AngularJS, Knockout, Groovy, Grails, Clojure, Scala,
Play, JavaScript/CSS
frameworks, DropWizard, SpringBoot
Groups (categories)

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 Adopt
• Start using in your projects
 Trial
• Understand the capabilities;
consider in a low-risk project
 Assess
• Worth exploring with the goal of
understanding how it affects your
enterprise; do a PoC
 Hold
• Proceed with caution; Reduce support
Rings

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Texas.gov Technology Radar ‘13

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 Keep current
 Eliminate excess baggage
 Trail of your decisions on technology
 Helps to remove technology biases
 Not a roadmap, but it helps you come up with a
convincing roadmap
 Must be done at enterprise level
Benefits

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 Check out where your peers are caught up and why
 Share your findings (even if you calculated the Fibonacci series again)
 Remain passionate and have fun doing what you do
Always remember, the technologies are battling for you
except for Chuck Norris
he chooses the technology to choose him
Summary

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Technology Radar http://www.thoughtworks.com/radar
Higher-order functions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher-order_function
Evolution of C++ http://knowtechstuff.blogspot.com/2012/02/evolution-of-c-
programming-language.html
History of programming
languages
http://www.georgehernandez.com/h/xComputers/Programm
ing/Languages.asp
The graph of
programming languages
http://griffsgraphs.com/2012/07/01/programming-
languages-influences/
Images Courtesy Foxtrot™, www.glasbren.com, www.wikipedia.org
and several web sites.
References

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Contact Information:
Eric Kelm
ekelm@egov.com
512-651-9399
Vasu Srinivasan
vsrinivasan@egov.com
512-651-9816
println(‘Thank YOU !’)
Questions?