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Ask HN: Which programming language(s) are big companies backing?

32 points by _448 ↗ HN
Companies use multiple languages internally. But sometimes big companies either build their own language(s) or back one of the open source language project. Some for strategic reasons, some because off-the-shelf languages do not meet their requirements, and some because their bread-and-butter relies on it. My understanding is following major companies have heavily invested in the below listed languages:

C++ (Microsoft and Facebook)

C#, F# (Microsoft)

Java (Oracle)

Rust (Amazon, Mozilla)

Go, Dart (Google)

Swift (Apple)

Any other major companies seriously backing programming language(s)?

The reason I am interested in this is because it gives some indication of whether the language will get serious traction long-term or will become an "also ran" language.

Languages that are used in the enterprise tend to survive longer. The ones that are used for consumer apps(e.g. Objective-C) or developed by companies for internal purpose tend to be expendable or get forgotten after initial hype.

28 comments

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rychco
OCaml (Jane Street) is one that comes to mind
_448
Ah, yes! Forgot about that.
t6jvcereio
You also forgot about C++, which is supported by the entire world.
detaro
it's literally the first in their list.
ta_u
TypeScript: Microsoft

Kotlin: JetBrains is the main backer and later got embraced by Google/Android

Hack (closely related to PHP): Meta/Facebook (but not used much anywhere else)

PHP: WordPress (one of the main reasons why is PHP so popular although not a major PHP backer as far as I know)

jstx1
Kotlin is developed by JetBrains but it's what Google endorse as preferred language for Android development.

> Java (Oracle)

Java is huge at Amazon and Google, and it's used at every other company on the list too. Same with C++ - it's everywhere and there is a lot of it.

_448
> Java ..., and it's used at every other company on the list too. Same with C++ - it's everywhere and there is a lot of it.

And that is what I am trying to understand, which languages(old and new) will have longer runway. C++ and Java are given because they are used at enterprise-level and by lot of other companies. But what about other languages? Just one or two companies supporting it for product development or many companies using it for tiny internal projects but not major projects makes a language vulnerable.

jstx1
It makes sense to ask this about new/niche languages, most others will be supported and around for a while. And the niche languages are a rounding error in the job market (they come up on HN disproportionately more often).

JavaScript and Python haven't come up in this thread at all so far and they're two most popular languages and will stay around for some time.

galfarragem
Clojure (Nubank)

Elm (NoRedInk)

Crystal (Manas)

They hired the Clojure and Elm language creators and extensively use the language. Crystal was created by a (small) company AFAIK[0] and still back it.

[0] https://manas.tech/projects/crystal/

michaelwww
Odin is backed by companies in the movie and video game industry

https://odin-lang.org/showcase/embergen/

K is backed by several financial institutions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_(programming_language)

Carbon is backed by Google

Google was an early supporter of TypeScript, which replaced their own JavaScript type annotation language in Angular. They did this despite having created Dart, which languished after the Blink team decided they couldn't support a Dart VM in the browser. Dart is now primarily used with Flutter to draw components with the Skia framework. It's also in the upcoming Fuschia OS. I don't think Dart is used much anymore for it's original intent to be used like JavaScript for DOM manipulation.

rychco
I was totally unaware of the progress of Odin, it looks way more interesting now than when I had first heard of it. I’m surprised it’s already been adopted (or did they start EmberGen in Odin?!) by a commercial product.
JangaFX
We started EmberGen in odin ;)
daviddever23box
Objective-C was around for a long time, and is still in use; I'd be careful not to lump that in with the also-rans.

Not mentioned: Lua, which continues to be used in a lot of places.

And did anyone mention Erlang / Elixir / BEAM?

kbelder
Lua is the most surprising to me; it seemed to languish for years, and all of a sudden explode.

Because of the Roblox factor, there's going to be a huge number of Lua-proficient programmers entering the workforce over the next several years. I think it's usage will climb, edging out Python in places where you really want a simple and easy scripting language.

pjmlp
The list of companies supporting C++ is a bit longer than that, without thinking too much about it, either by ISO contributions or compiler toolchains we have, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Google, IBM, NVidia, IBM, ARM, Intel, AMD, HP, Codeplay, Sony, Nintendo, TI, Microchip, PTC, Red-Hat, Bloomberg, Green Hills, among others that I might have forgotten.

Likewise for Java, we have Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, HP, Pivotal, Alibaba, Red-Hat, SAP, PTC, Aicas, microEJ, Ricoh, Azul, Amazon, Google, among others that I might have forgotten.

brunojppb
Kotlin and Scala are the most popular I’m seeing in my current field (finance).
halfmatthalfcat
Disney, Tesla (parts of) and Databricks are Scala shops.
krakatau1
It's hard to explain people in US but in Central Europe Java is like 70% of software jobs, the rest is Node and .Net and everything else is really niche outside of their domains.
atraac
I'd argue about central EU. It's really hard to find decent remote job in .NET in EU - I know because Im trying right now. Most well paid ones are Node and Golang from what I've seen. There's quite a chunk of Java but I never really looked into them so I can't say much.
zaphar
It's a large percentage of the jobs in the US as well. I don't know why people would find it hard to believe its the same in the EU. Your breakdown is pretty common here despite what it might look like from the outside.
herbst
Ruby: Shopify, Basecamp, Stripe, Airbnb afaik also Twitch to some degree
pestatije
wasm (Mozilla, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Fastly, Intel, Red Hat)
rg111
How did everyone, so far, missed Python?

It is backed my Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and many more.

ksec
PHP had lots of resources from Facebook, not sure if that is still the case. But PHP has enough market share where resources isn't a problem.

Python from Google, Nvidia, Microsoft and Companies with Machine Learning, AI etc.

Javascript from all major Browser Vendors.

As I have stated before the only programming language that broke the Top 10 list without a major industry or company backing was Ruby. There are lots of companies or Startup that uses Ruby, GitHub, GitLab, Basecamp, Cookpad, Stripe, Discourse etc. But the investment in Ruby or the VM itself is relatively tiny. Remember Shopify investing in Ruby is a fairly recent thing.

bot41
In the JS ecosystem..

TypeScript (Microsoft), React (Facebook)