[rossedwards]

The problem is that there really isnt any definition of languages within the java landscape right now. Meaning theres a bunch of languages but noen really stand out for any specifc uses with the expection of people that know them well and are using them well. So its very confusing to know which to use.

For example Grails and groovy were supposed to be big on the java framework but due to seveeral reasons they seem to be really more niche. PArtly because it seems the people behind both of them just arent dealing wiht the problems such as bugs quickly enough.

Scala is an interesting language but again there doesnt seem to be a heavy push for it. Expect for peopel that are using it and know what its strengths are.

All of which leads to alot of confusion about which technology to use.

Then theres the issue of frameworks. Theres a million of them but none of them really stand out. ANd personally i dont think it helps that oracle is no running things.

On the other hand ruby is known by many people as being pretty powerful and used by alot of startups. Same thing with php. How many startups do you know that use java? I know foursqaure uses liftweb but thats about it.

[DanielRibeiro]

Just because you are not aware of what is being used, does not mean that it is not used. Scala startups: KaChing (follow http://twitter.com/eishay for more info, he talks a lot about the Lean startup practises on Kaching as well) and Etherpad (wave-like product, bought by google last year). Eishay also gave a great hint for startups looking for scalable technologies: http://twitter.com/eishay/statuses/20478841811

Flightcaster, which is funded by YCombinator, uses clojure and Ruby on heroku (more on their infoq profile: http://www.infoq.com/articles/flightcaster-clojure-rails).

Most startups are not actually vocal about what they use. Most of them actually are not heard, so they could be as vocal as they wanted and still noone would hear them.