Comment Re:Alternate JVM languages will carry the JVM. (Score 1) 558
Even Java took a long time to have decent IDE support. Most of these other languages are relatively new, and are still definitely in the "early adopter" phase of the usage curve. I do think Scala in particular has a good chance of adoption, as it's fairly easy to start working with it as if it were Java with type inferences and first-class functions. Also, the next release will have features that specifically make it easier for IDE integrations to be written.
I don't think there necessarily needs to be a big corporate backer- look at Ruby for example; it has a number of small corporate backers, and a wealth of open source developer support. Scala is beginning to get more high-profile usage, Twitter being the biggest name. It has a well written, well defined specification, and a pretty active community around it, with mailing lists, IRC channels, conferences, etc. Being a JVM language, I think it will be easier to sneak into the back door of a lot of corporate projects.
Agreed on F#; it does seem that it would flounder without significant support from MS, but I generally don't hear about companies using it as I live in a JVM world, and don't get much exposure to