Julia is a rather new programming language; it started out in 2009 and is being developed by bunch of scientific programmers at the MIT. The syntax looks a little like Matlab, and the authors really seem to have mathematical and statistical applications in mind. But in my view, Julia has the potential to become really popular in a few short years down the road. Julia's syntax is almost as pleasant to me as Python's, nothing looks too arcane and mind-bending, and yet at its core, it is a much more modern language.
