Eclipse is an open-source programming-tool project that long supported Java and now also supports PHP. "I'm looking forward to PHP kicking butt in the marketplace," Milinkovich said.

Java would be extended to foreign programming models such as machine learning models, GPUs, SQL, and differential programming, through an OpenJDK proposal called Project Babylon.

The second best-paid programming role was full-stack developer, which pays £53,500 on average, rising to £60,300. That's up 5.6% on last year and 18.8% up on 2016.

In the most recent rankings, from June, Java and JavaScript were tied at #1. C++ is tied with Ruby at #6 (PHP, Python and C# are #3, 4 and 5).

So that begs the question, should schools and universities still teach students Java programming? And, if not, which alternatives to Java are the most viable? Who wants to teach Java? Back in my ...

In 1995 alone, there appeared Ruby, PHP, Java, and JavaScript. Java almost immediately became popular for mainstream programming due to its portability and large set of built-in libraries.

As of this writing, Vert.x supports at least eight languages that run in the JVM, including Java, JavaScript, Ruby, Groovy, Scala, Kotlin, and PHP. The most popular options are Java and Kotlin.

Eclipse is an open-source programming-tool project that long supported Java and now also supports PHP. "I'm looking forward to PHP kicking butt in the marketplace," Milinkovich said.