There is much talk about Lisp, Scheme, Smalltalk, Forth, and other boutique languages on this board. Are these languages still valid commercial development tools in a 21st Century C/C++/Java world? [Note 1]

Who collects metrics on the use of these languages in commercial environments and ongoing commercial products?

''The closest to that is probably the TiobeIndex.''

Who publishes professionally supported development environments, libraries, and tools, along with distributable end user runtime environments, for these languages?

''Examples:''
* LISP: Franz Inc. http://www.franz.com/
* Smalltalk: ObjectArts http://www.object-arts.com/
* Forth: ForthInc http://www.forth.com
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'''Desktop and Distributed Applications'''

What is being used to create Windows and Linux applications? Like it or not, these things have taken over the entire world, so we can't ignore the desktop space.

''Linux: C/C++/C#/Java/Python/Perl/Haskell/Scheme/<you-name-it>''

''Windows: C/C++/C#/Java/Python/Delphi/VisualBasic''
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'''System Facilities and Tools'''

What is being used to create Big Iron facilities and enterprise solutions?

''According to IBM, from http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/zos/basics/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.zos.zappldev/zappldev_23.htm:''
* Assembler
* COBOL
* PL/I
* C/C++
* Java
* CLIST
* REXX™
* shell script 
* PERL (sic)
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'''Web Applications'''

How is Perl doing now that PHP has pretty much taken over the server-side scripting market? Is ASP getting new share? How are Ruby and Python doing in server application space?
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'''Embedded Systems'''

There used to be some Forth implementations for various microcontrollers such as MCS-51 family, X86 family, Z80 family, 68XX family, etc. Are any of these still alive? Is anybody still using this stuff to build modern products?

''In the UK, I occasionally hear mention of current embedded Forth development.  See http://www.forth.com/embedded/index.html''
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'''Notes:'''

1. A "valid commercial development tool" is a professionally-supported software development kit with compiler, debugger, libraries, runtime support for commercial hardware platforms, and other facilities needed to create a product that can be then sold as a complete unit to end users -- even if those end users are developers of applications.
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CategoryProgrammingLanguage

JuneEleven