Programming Language of 2007

And the award goes to... Python!?!

Source: http://www.tiobe.com/tpci.htm

I must tell this very frankly, I am pleasantly surprised for one reason: The programming language I learned in 2007 is Python. And now it is declared as the programming language of the year. I am feeling lucky :)

When I started learning it, I hated it for one reason ---Dynamic Typing. Coming from a heavy Java background this was a hard unlearning curve for me. I debated a lot on this topic with my friends and coworkers. I debated on Python forums about this. A very strong debate that I had can be found here (you will have fun reading this, I had fun reading my own post after a very long time!): How to program safely in Python?

Not only this, Guido van Rossum once replied in my post in one of the mailing lists when I asked about Why isn't there a try-catch-finally block in Python? It's available only from Python 2.5+. After pondering, I came to the conclusion that every programming language has its own pros and cons and Python is one such beautiful and stylish language. Yes, you don't have a compiler, yes you will have a python-bite at runtime, but guess what? A compiler only tells that your program is syntactically right. The best way to ensure that your program works is by testing, testing and more testing. Like Bruce Eckel once said, "If it isn't tested, it's broken."