

Is Programming Getting Less Popular? - irishman_irl
http://www.google.com/trends?q=ruby+on+rails%2C+scala%2C+php%2C+.net%2C+java&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

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whakojacko
Those numbers are relative. I think its more that non-programming queries have
grown faster than programming queries.

~~~
wdewind
Which is compounded by the fact that programmers are the early adopters of the
internet, google etc.

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myth_drannon
You should use Google Insight and not Google Trends, then you can choose
categories related to computers only so you don't get useless queries like
related to Java island

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ashleyw
[http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=31&q=ruby%20o...](http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=31&q=ruby%20on%20rails%2Cphp%2Cjava%2Cc%2Cdjango&cmpt=q)

Even more interesting when you click 'Growth relative to the Programming
category', which shows Rails' massive growth, but also if you hover over the
current time, it says the programming category is down 53% (since 2004 I
assume?)

~~~
myth_drannon
Well that comparison is a bit flawed. Compare Django/Ruby On Rails and you
will see Django surpassed Rails since 2009....

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j_baker
Maybe. But the only thing we can infer from that is that fewer people are
searching for specific programming technologies. _Maybe_ you can infer that
those products are becoming less popular. But I don't think that's enough to
infer that about programming in general.

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rarestblog
Here's the stats from Russian search engine Yandex of "java" query. Compare
"absolute" version
([http://wordstat.yandex.ru/?scmd=abs&cmd=months&text=...](http://wordstat.yandex.ru/?scmd=abs&cmd=months&text=java))
with "relative" one
([http://wordstat.yandex.ru/?scmd=rel&cmd=months&text=...](http://wordstat.yandex.ru/?scmd=rel&cmd=months&text=java)).

The "relative" one shows decline, whereas "absolute" stats shows steady state.
Google also shows decline (slower, but still).

This might mean that Google Trends' results are just more and more diluted as
more and more non-tech people come into the industry.

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baddox
Perhaps as more languages become popular (i.e. the "market" becomes more
diverse), any one traditionally popular language is becoming less popular. If
there's exactly 1000 programmers and each searches for a single language per
day, then the introduction of a new language will "steal" a search from
another language. There's bound to be some languages with increasing or steady
trends:

[http://www.google.com/trends?q=F%23,+clojure,+groovy,+lua...](http://www.google.com/trends?q=F%23,+clojure,+groovy,+lua&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=2)

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DotSauce
There are programs than can write programs. I don't want to compete with a
computer that's smarter than me. Haha. I'll stick with my "right brain" work
and hack some open source software when I need it.

Please forgive me, I'm currently reading "A Whole New Mind"
<http://www.danpink.com/whole-new-mind>

The author foretells that programming is becoming less important due to
abundance, automation and outsourcing to Asia. India alone produces 350,000
Engineering graduates each year.

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metamemetics
Whoah, look at the fractal in the "c++" trend:
[http://www.google.com/trends?q=c%2B%2B&ctab=0&geo=al...](http://www.google.com/trends?q=c%2B%2B&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0)

The strong yearly periodicity must mean interest is heavily associated with
students\the school year.

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edw519
_Is Programming Getting Less Popular?_

Only among the posers.

They're the ones who jump into the latest/coolest/most promising thing and
bail when they realize how much work it really is.

Those of us who were here before them and will be here long after they're gone
say "71 79 79 68 32 82 73 68 68 65 78 67 69".

[EDIT: Added the 32. tome wins]

~~~
gjm11
Did you deliberately omit the 32 to make it obvious that you did the
asciification in your head? (At least, I'm guessing you did it in your head,
because the obvious ways to do it by computer would automatically include the
space.)

~~~
edw519
I was trying to make a subtle point that callahad kinda outed.

It's a fine line between helping each other and speaking a language that
posers don't understand. So I just did ascii, thinking that any real
programmer would immediately understand. I forgot the code for "space", so I
skipped it, wondering if anyone would notice. tome did.

Just having a little fun on an otherwise mundane Tuesday.

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jderick
Here's a couple that don't look so bad:

[http://www.google.com/trends?q=cuda,+cloud+computing,+androi...](http://www.google.com/trends?q=cuda,+cloud+computing,+android+sdk,+iphone+sdk&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0)

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copperred
I find it interesting that 5 of the 6 headlines annotated on the graph are for
the wrong topic.

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irishman_irl
I read an article that the number of students enrolling in ICT / Software
courses has dropped off a cliff. Obviously this is more anecdotal than hard
fact, but thought it was interesting all the same.

~~~
blhack
I think people used to see IT as a goldmine. Get a degree in "computers" and
you were destined to be a millionaire. What they've found out is that there
are a lot of people making between $40-70k/yr, and working a lot of hours.
While $70k/yr is nothing to turn your nose at, it certainly isn't "rich".

Was it ever different than this? I don't know, I'm young, but I can guess that
wages in IT/programming have gone down as the supply of laborers has gone up.
One huge problem that comes from this flood of workers is that some of them
did it _just_ for the degree, and don't _really_ know what they're doing. It
makes it a lot harder for the people who love it and know it and are good at
it to stand out.

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vrode
Maybe people don't search for tutorials and docs, since popular languages no
longer are a huge unintuitive mess.

~~~
stcredzero
There's nothing "intuitive" about programming langs, any more than there is
about written languages in general. The only thing intuitive about them is
that they have syntax. Note that in most cases, one has to go to school to
learn how to read and write.

Intuitive as used really means, "fits what I already know."

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JoelMcCracken
I'd like to see this with all of the languages from tiobe included. I'm too
lazy to do it myself, though.

