Over a third of all web-based applications in the US, and just over a fifth of those in Europe, will be written in the Java programming language by the start of the new millennium, says market research and software evaluation company, Strategic Focus. This will represent a 138% increase in the number of Java-based web applications being developed in the US at the moment, and around a 70% increase in Europe. Although Java is gaining considerable momentum three major European countries – Germany, France and the UK – Strategic Focus predicts that hypertext mark- up language (HTML) will still be the most popular programming language for European web applications in two years’ time, when it will be employed in 33.8% of applications, compared to 22.1% for Java. HTML will also continue to be popular in the US, where it will still be used in 29.4% of applications. After Java and HTML, Dynamic HTML is the third most popular programming language in both the US and Europe, being used in 17.7% and 15.6% of applications respectively.
