Which alternate JVM language do you prefer?

Over the last few years the JVM language landscape has evolved rapidly, with a number of very interesting new languages appearing, some of which are starting to enter mainstream usage. In order to get some numbers/data regarding preferences of Java programmers I’ve decided to run an opinion poll. Please vote below for the alternate JVM language you like the most. I’ve included all of the better known JVM languages (and even a few that aren’t so well known). The ordering of the options is randomized. [UPDATE: It seems that voters coming from Hacker News favour Clojure over Scala by a factor of 1.4, whereas those from a more Java-centric sources (dzone) favouring Scala and Groovy. This would explain the difference in results between this poll and the dzone-only poll posted in the comments section. Currently Scala and Clojure are quite closely matched in my poll.]

16 thoughts on “Which alternate JVM language do you prefer?”

no ‘other’ button?

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developer on February 19, 2012 at 4:37 pm said:

I’ve added an ‘other’ option now. Which other language did you have in mind? I was quite careful to pick all of the better known JVM languages.

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- Oleg Podsechin on February 19, 2012 at 10:59 pm said:
  
  JavaScript (Rhino)

Scala is my favorite: huge gains in productivity and maintainability. Clojure is also a great language, but I worry about its accesibility to programmers migrating from Java.

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developer on February 19, 2012 at 4:43 pm said:

I’ve also found Scala very productive. The ecosystem of new languages which has sprung up around the JVM is quite encouraging. I remember a time when multi-language was a big selliing/marketing point for the CLR. These days the JVM languages seem to be where language research is happening. Clojure does seem to have carved out a comfortable niche, but I agree about the accessibility issue. As someone with experience primarily in Java and Ruby (amongst other languages) Clojure’s syntax looks very foreign.

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I miss ABCL, a Common Lisp implementation for the JVM.

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srcerer on February 21, 2012 at 2:15 am said:

Miss? It’s still kickin’ They’ve even made some progress towards AMOP http://abcl-dev.blogspot.com/2012/01/closing-in-on-closer-mop-in-abcl-110.html which I for one am very excited about!

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Just For the record, NetREXX was one of the very first languages to be written for the JVM, when it wasn’t really fashionable to do so.. Ironic how it isn’t even mentioned here.

[ref] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetRexx

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Only Scala seems would have a market in the enterprise

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Please add Redline Smalltalk to the list!

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it would more useful if one could vote several options…

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clojure is quite a surprise, besides, I though groovy was going to be more voted…

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Nicolas on February 21, 2012 at 11:11 am said:

I agree. Surprising that clojure is so high. It’s in contradiction with Tiobe index and Devoxx black board result

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- srcerer on February 22, 2012 at 1:37 am said:
  
  Having voted for Clojure and coming from HN, there may be a Lisp bias. Though I would have guessed Groovy as well, and would say that even if you use vanilla Java that Gradle is a must try. As for Tiobe, I think that’s a trailing indicator, so it’s not going to predict something is about to explode.