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"Hottest" is a term which is as much open to interpretation for computer languages as it is for, say, popular music. Ask someone which is the "hottest type of music" and they will usually answer in line with their own tastes and assessments of rewards, celebrity and visibility. The same goes for computer languages. It is important to recognise that such a pronouncement necessarily embodies a world-view: X is hottest amongst group Y as far as Z is concerned. If Z is a member of Y, the statement "X is the hottest amongst group Y" can become "X is the hottest".

Currently, the most visible manifestation of computer programming is the medium you are using now, the internet. In particular, the use of a Web Browser. So what's the "hottest" computer programming language for Web Browsers? Unfortunately, there isn't a single answer; it really depends what you want to do with the Web Browser:

- You want to write a Web Browser (or, at the very least, contribute to the development of existing Web Browsers). The "hottest" (and only) language is C/C++ (I group these together).

- You want to create and add-on for a Web Browser (an ActiveX Control or similar). Again, C/C++. Although, for Microsoft products, C# maybe good.

- You want to write client-side code for "cool" website effects. Javascript (a.k.a. JScript, ECMA-Script) is the only reasonable alternative here (unless the site is entirely "in-house" and you can guarantee 100% Microsoft Internet Explorer usage, then VBScript is usable).

- You want to write client-side applications with lots of controls and flashy graphics. Only Java does this at the moment.

- You want to write server-side code. Now things split up a lot more. This will depend on the server. If the server's Microsoft's IIS, then you'll be looking at C/C++ (if the server element is an ISAPI extension) or VBScript/JScript for script based applications. Other server environments may require Java, PHP or other languages. And, if you're serious about this, and want to use any reasonable database system, you'll have to learn SQL as well. Oh, and you'll need a reasonable understanding of HTML and CSS. And, probably, XML.

And that's just for programming things associated with Web Browsers. If you moved into other application areas you would find that other languages are the "hottest". There are hundreds of active computer languages and many more "dead" ones (but the code they produced may still be running somewhere).

Some of the reasons for languages being "hot" are historical

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