For most of my career as a programmer, languages in the “C family” (C, C++, and Java) have dominated the industry – and that's still true even today. For this past year, the “big news” is that Java fell from #1 to #2 (and C rose from #1 to #2).
For such a dynamic industry, this is remarkable stability. Why is this so? The only reason that seems plausible to me is inertia...