Preface

Ah, it's truly a relentless race, isn't it? Just when you think you've mastered the latest framework, another one emerges, touted as the new industry standard. And don't even get me started on programming languages! Every time I look up, there's a new language promising to revolutionize how we code.

Take JavaScript frameworks as an example. In 2013, Backbone.js was everywhere. Teams rushed to adopt it, only to pivot to AngularJS a year later, then to React when Facebook open-sourced it, and now many are eyeing Svelte or Solid. The cycle repeats so fast that codebases often age faster than the developers who wrote them.

The pace at which technology evolves - especially programming languages and frameworks - can be infuriating. It seems designed to keep us perpetually on our toes. This rapid evolution stems from the constant drive for improvement: better performance, easier use, stronger integration capabilities. Companies and developers continually push boundaries, solving new problems or making existing solutions more efficient.

Then there's the business angle. New technologies create new markets and opportunities. When a company establishes its technology as a market standard, it reaps significant financial benefits. The evidence is clear: firms that set standards often capture disproportionate profits by locking in customers, reducing competition, and scaling faster. An ISO study found that standards contributed between 0.15% and 5% of annual gross profit to companies through efficiency gains and expanded market access. Similarly, research highlighted by IEEE shows that standards shorten development cycles and lower costs.

Take the example of Java. Sun Microsystems' launch of Java in the mid-1990s turned a language into an ecosystem. Marketed as "write once, run anywhere," Java became the backbone of enterprise software, embedded systems, and later Android. Its dominance brought Sun licensing revenue, service contracts, and long-term market power - proof that a programming language can be both a standard and a profit engine. Over time, Java was challenged by newer languages that often existed as much for corporate strategy as for technical innovation. Google created Go to support its own infrastructure needs and to build mindshare around a simpler alternative for cloud-scale services. Apple launched Swift not because Objective-C couldn't do the job, but because controlling a modern, Apple-branded language strengthened its ecosystem and developer loyalty. In both cases, the new languages reinforced the company's market power and served strategic business goals as well as technical ones.