What's the best language/platform for SOA on Linux in a post-Java world?

Question

I need to choose a language/platform for the new development of a series of services in a SOA. I'm looking into Scala and Clojure but don't think the community and products are mature enough for a real-world enterprise product yet.

Update/Clarifications:

1. Of course we can use many languages/platforms for SOA but some language/platforms are easier and more suited for an SOA. IMO the best ones for SOA should allow interface programming (to ease definition of contracts), should have options for hosting the services (like Felix for Java or WCF in .NET) and scale well (see Twitter issues with RoR).
2. Java has always been the favourite in the enterprise market. However, many developers are looking into dynamic languages as well as talking about stagnation of Java after v6. As a result many new post Java languages have arrived: Scala, Clojure and Groovy to name a few that still run on JVM but are not Java.

I hope these clarify the question.

Answer 1

Depends what you mean by "mature enough for a real-world enterprise product", and your relative level of tolerance for living on the cutting edge.

For example, I'm currently building a "real-world enterprise product" in Clojure (I'd have been equally happy with Scala, it was only that Clojure fitted my needs slightly better from the concurrency and meta-programming perspective).

I'm very happy with my decision.

Some quick perspectives if you are considering this "post-Java" path:

• The communities are great and supportive, but you'll still have to solve problems yourself, if only because nobody else has run into the same problem yet. None of these are likely to be insurmountable, but it does present a bit of extra risk to delivery schedules.

• Both Scala and Clojure can be very productive (in terms of value delivered to customers per hour coding), but you can equally well write bad and unmaintainable code in any langauge. Java pretty much forces you to write things in a standardised, somewhat verbose but syntactically simple and understandable way. With Scala and Clojure you get a whole new arsenal of crazy ways to hit your target or shoot yourself in the foot. Is your team going to be able to make the best use of Scala/Clojure advantages?

• It's harder (though by no means impossible) to bring skilled people on board with existing Clojure/Scala skills. On the flipside, the people who do have these skills (or are keen to acquire them) are likely to be among the more talented / motivated developers so the search may still be productive.

• Be prepared to make tough decisions regarding whether to target language/library features that are "just round the corner". For example, do you wait for the enhanced primitive support coming in Clojure 1.3? Or make do with the perfectly adequate but slower boxed primitive functions in Clojure 1.2?

• A great benefit of being on the JVM is that you can still take full advantage of the Java ecosystem without being tied to Java as a language. Don't underestimate how useful this is: for example, I use a number of extremely well tested, mature Java libraries (e.g. Netty) pretty much transparently in my Clojure application. This significantly reduces your risk and the amount of new development that you need to do.