New programming languages come up all the time and the top dogs they want to supplant are constantly evolving to beat them back. With so much going on, it's easy to miss any specific language's success story and so I want to put a particularly hot one on your radar:

* Its REPL, three-line hello-world, single-command project execution, built-in webserver, and excellent VS Code support make it easy to get started.
* Lambda expressions, one-line type declarations, top-class pattern matching, and other modern language features makes it fun to stick around.
* Whether you need fast startups, high peak performance, or ultra-low 99th percentiles, there's a configuration that achieves your goals.

So what language am I talking about? You wanna sit down for this: It's Java. 😱 Did I exaggerate a bit? Am I overenthusiastic? A paid shill? A bit, yes, but I promise, if you haven't touched Java in a while or only heard horror stories about it, you'll be surprised to see how great it really is.