

The Rise and Fall of Programming Languages in 2011 - jonathansizz
http://www.drdobbs.com/mobile/232400093

======
6ren

      > LOCs of Ruby changed or added in 2011 were [...] a fifth of what they were in 2008
    

I guess he means this peak in 2008 (though it's not 1/5 by averges)
[http://www.ohloh.net/languages/compare?commit=Update&l0=...](http://www.ohloh.net/languages/compare?commit=Update&l0=ruby&l1=-1&l2=-1&l3=-1&l4=-1&measure=loc_changed&percent=true)

ruby-rant: I've been playing with ruby recently, and was amazed to find my
working toy code broken by each upgrade of ruby (even point upgrade 1.9.2 to
1.9.3). It's a different world/philosophy from java's back-compatibility. I
was so surprised I wasn't even angry, just shook my head, wow.

I wanted to try heroku, and the number of layers needing to be installed was
also amazing (e.g. heroku's apt-get record doesn't state it needs ruby...
ubuntu's repository now doesn't include ruby1.9.1... so I installed rvm (and
another round of dependencies and documentation), and found an old gem
(undocumented on heroku.com) that would install it). I hit roadblocks several
times in this; so it took several days, and several hours on each. So...
you've got upgrades/dependency management in apt-get, gems, rvm and heroku -
and breaking changes in ruby itself. I recall reading that getting started in
ruby had become complex and difficult for beginners, serving its present
professional user needs, and very different from the experience that got them
started.

Finally... it's a thrilling feeling to reduce 10 lines of Java into 1 line of
ruby; but I have a doubt about whether that one short line really is clearer.
I'm not saying that it isn't clearer, just that I'll only really know when I
come back to it in a few months time and try to understand it. They have
identical conceptual complexity; it's just syntax. Don't get me wrong - I
really _enjoyed_ making it shorter, I'm just not (yet) sure it's actually
better.

~~~
freditup
I do think the ruby (coupled with rails) toolchain can be a tad overwhelming
at first to install and get used to.

I haven't used Ruby a lot, but I do like most of the language. I have a few
issues with how some things are named, but whatever. I also miss the great
code completion you can get with a language like C#/Java.

Out of curiosity, what broke between 1.9.2 and 1.9.3 for you?

Edit: Just noticed the article is three 5 months old. Guess it doesn't really
make a difference when talking about 2011 though.

~~~
6ren
The current directory was removed from the LOAD_PATH, so you have to change
"require 'mycode'" to "require './mycode'", or use require-relative, or add
"." to LOAD_PATH yourself. It was changed for security issues apparently.
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2900370/why-does-
ruby-1-9...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2900370/why-does-
ruby-1-9-2-remove-from-load-path-and-whats-the-alternative)

------
DaNmarner
To me this seems very tea-leaf-reading-ish. Specifically, some people tried to
boil down the popularity of each programming language with a number (the tea
leaf). Then the OP simply looks at those numbers, points at some related
events and say "Aha, that is how those numbers came to be!" (the reading).
Neither the "leaves" nor the "reading" provide much value, IMO.

------
jonathansizz
Many indicators suggest that Ruby peaked in 'buzz' (which is what TIOBE
measures) around four or five years ago. Python became ultra-trendy during
2010 but has likely undergone a correction since then, although it's still
very fashionable and has even seen a limited transition to the mainstream
(where 'mainstream' means corporate and/or educational use). And there's no
doubt that Objective-C and C# have seen large recent increases in use, for
obvious reasons. So I'd conclude that, broadly speaking, the TIOBE index isn't
that far wide of the mark.

~~~
VeejayRampay
Many indicators such as? Pain in your joints and dice rolling?

~~~
jonathansizz
The usual popularity measures: sites like TIOBE that attempt to measure
popularity directly; sites like Ohloh (referenced in the article) which track
code commits; and publisher's sales figures e.g. O'Reilly all suggest that
Ruby has declined in popularity.

------
jcmhn
I often try the trendy languages and tools, just to see what the fuss is
about. It's astonishing how fast these things seem to flame out and cycle.
Like "people" magazine for technology or something.

Programming fads do occasionally provide something new for my toolkit - the
functional programming craze led me to "High Order Perl", and git wound up
making more sense to me than cvs or svn ever did.

------
eliben
Dr. Dobbs should really hire a talented designer to take their website out of
the 1990s

------
eliben
"The well-known Tiobe Index " [...]

Dang. I stopped reading at this point.

~~~
sabat
I've heard of that index before, and I'm skeptical of it. Ruby and Python
waning? Not among any of the shops or programmers I know.

Maybe if they qualified it: "Ruby and Python are declining in use for
corporate enterprise applications on the Internet." Something like that; I'd
believe it. IBM's website is probably not in Django; it's probably Java with
Struts or something.

The the DevOps movement alone, almost entirely based in Ruby and Python, is
really expanding, and the call for programmers is increasing. Waning? Hah.

~~~
icoloma
These days I trust more the index of popular languages in GitHub:
<https://github.com/languages>

I like to see it like an index of "in which languages are we innovating" or
"which projects are worth forking"

~~~
jonathansizz
I like to see GitGub as an index of "which languages have a culture of
uploading code to GitHub?"

------
plessthanpt05
I better drop Python & Ruby and go pick up (sure, will do right now)
Objective-C & C#. Well, I suppose at least they [Python & Ruby] still "...are
the most interesting" (?!) so guess I'll stick w/ 'em for a bit longer.
...she'sus.

