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digitalmars.D - Language Popularity

reply Todd VanderVeen <TDVanderVeen gmail.com> writes:
I am moving this answer to a new post, as my intent was not to hijack the
lexer thread.

Tiobe and others have tried to determine language popularity by various means.
They are drawing inferences where no definitive data set exists. There is no
reason to treat these numbers as scientific results. That said, various
sources lead to similar results with the differences being reasonably
understandable in light of the user bases supporting the various languages and
the methodology being used, e.g.

http://langpop.com/
http://lang-index.sourceforge.net/
http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/comp.lang-statistics/

That Fortran and Ada do not rate relatively well on a search engine index
rating is not surprising to me.

My post wasn't intended to defend Tiobe or others. It was suggested that Java
was "rapidly becoming a legacy language". What is the basis for this claim and
where is the evidence supporting it? Assuming legacy was used to mean
"becoming obsolete", these ratings and my experience don’t corroborate it. I
am interested in what others see here.

The biggest risk to Java at the moment would seem to be political, i.e. Oracle
alienating the community. From a language standpoint, I don't see any imminent
challenges to the role it fills. Given its inertia, cross platform nature, and
library support, I don't see competitors offering a fundamental challenge any
time soon. I also see two areas where Java has untapped potential, the desktop
space and mobile code.

With regard to D, there seems to significant potential market/mind share to be
had. There is the obvious space held by C and C++, but also in other areas
where the specialized features of the other languages are not required. I also
find the surge in interest in Objective-C to bode well for D. Being less
familiar with OSX development, I am curious if this is a reflection of
increased usage there, or is there an itch that C++ isn't scratching?

Cheers,
Todd
Oct 28 2010
next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
Todd VanderVeen wrote:

 With regard to D, there seems to significant potential market/mind share to be
 had. There is the obvious space held by C and C++, but also in other areas
 where the specialized features of the other languages are not required. I also
 find the surge in interest in Objective-C to bode well for D. Being less
 familiar with OSX development, I am curious if this is a reflection of
 increased usage there, or is there an itch that C++ isn't scratching?



I'm pretty sure the surge in interest in Objective-C is a direct result of 
Apple's meteoric rise, as Apple has long centered their operating system code 
around it.
Oct 28 2010
parent Peter Alexander <peter.alexander.au gmail.com> writes:
On 28/10/10 8:06 PM, Walter Bright wrote:

 Todd VanderVeen wrote:

 With regard to D, there seems to significant potential market/mind
 share to be
 had. There is the obvious space held by C and C++, but also in other
 areas
 where the specialized features of the other languages are not
 required. I also
 find the surge in interest in Objective-C to bode well for D. Being less
 familiar with OSX development, I am curious if this is a reflection of
 increased usage there, or is there an itch that C++ isn't scratching?



 I'm pretty sure the surge in interest in Objective-C is a direct result
 of Apple's meteoric rise, as Apple has long centered their operating
 system code around it.


Especially with the iPhone App Store gold rush. iPhone development is 
also centered around Obj-C, and people flocked to it when the stories of 
App Store millionaires started to surface.
Oct 28 2010
prev sibling parent reply =?UTF-8?B?IkrDqXLDtG1lIE0uIEJlcmdlciI=?= <jeberger free.fr> writes:
Todd VanderVeen wrote:

 http://langpop.com/


	Interesting that D comes first on Reddit with a reasonably
comfortable margin ;)

		Jerome
--=20
mailto:jeberger free.fr
http://jeberger.free.fr
Jabber: jeberger jabber.fr
Oct 28 2010
parent reply Jeff Nowakowski <jeff dilacero.org> writes:
On 10/28/2010 04:45 PM, "Jérôme M. Berger" wrote:

 Todd VanderVeen wrote:

 http://langpop.com/


 	Interesting that D comes first on Reddit with a reasonably
 comfortable margin ;)


It's how they performed the search. These stats are pure crap, because 
"D" matches tons of miscellaneous stuff. There's no way D is more 
popular than Python on reddit.

I remember years back when the D community was so obsessed over it's 
Tiobe number, watching every little movement, and those stats were 
complete crap too.
Oct 29 2010
parent Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> writes:
On Friday 29 October 2010 03:49:32 Jeff Nowakowski wrote:

 On 10/28/2010 04:45 PM, "J=C3=A9r=C3=B4me M. Berger" wrote:

 Todd VanderVeen wrote:

 http://langpop.com/
=20


 	Interesting that D comes first on Reddit with a reasonably
=20
 comfortable margin ;)


=20
 It's how they performed the search. These stats are pure crap, because
 "D" matches tons of miscellaneous stuff. There's no way D is more
 popular than Python on reddit.
=20
 I remember years back when the D community was so obsessed over it's
 Tiobe number, watching every little movement, and those stats were
 complete crap too.


It's the sort of thing which is indicative of how much a language is discus=
sed=20
or used but which isn't accurate to base much off of. The fact that Java is=
 near=20
the top of most such lists whereas D is near the bottom definitely means=20
something - Java is definitely used more than D. However, whether D is used=
 more=20
than Haskell or Erlang or any other language that might be near it on such =
lists=20
means a lot less. And, of course, as you point out, D is a terrible name fo=
r a=20
language from the standpoint of keyword searches, which doesn't help at all.

So, I wouldn't say that such lists are worth nothing, but you have to take =
them=20
with a large grain of salt.

=2D Jonathan M Davis
Oct 29 2010