Dynamic languages have the reputation of being great for quick prototyping of an application, or for quick “duct tape” fixes to link systems together.  When it is time to go to full scale production, most people assume that traditional languages, such as Java or C/C#, will be running under the hood.  This isn’t necessarily the case. You might be surprised at how many large scale applications rely on dynamic languages.
For example, you may have seen in our news release last week that we recently signed on customers using dynamic languages in business-critical applications or OEM/distributed products, including BNP Paribas, Cardinal Health, Daiichi Sankyo USA, Health Now, Juniper Networks, McAfee, Northrop Grumman, Research Affiliates, Standard Chartered Bank China, Tesco Bank, Vodafone, CAE, Diebold, Funnelback, L-3 Communications and 2 major mobile manufacturers.
From an applications point of view, here are ten examples that we have seen, or heard about through our customers:

  1. YouTube is almost entirely written in Python
  2. Amazon uses a lot of Perl to run Amazon.com
  3. Slashdot was built in Perl
  4. Tcl runs the 24×7 NBC broadcast center
  5. Tcl is used in routers by a leading manufacturer to provide scripting options for advanced systems/network administrators
  6. Movable Type blogging software is written in Perl
  7. Python and Perl are used to enable developers using a mobile SDK to create mobile apps
  8. Perl was used to build OTRS, a ticket management system. Perl has also been used to build a similar help desk and customer support management system.
  9. Tcl is widely used in Electronics Design Applications (EDA)
  10. Perl is used in flight simulator systems to train commercial and military pilots

We could go on. Our point is that dynamic languages play in the real world and they are evolving at the speed of the Internet. Perl, Python, and Tcl can power solutions that are as reliable as they need to be, without giving up any of the ease of use which makes them great prototyping tools. How are you using, or thinking about using dynamic languages? Talk to us and let us help you with our tools, language distributions, and expertise.