

Ask HN: "Ruby on Rails Vs. Django". Is Django winning? - gosuri

I was researching for a blog post and wanted your input, looking at the google trends (http://www.google.com/trends?q=ruby+on+rails%2C+django&#38;ctab=0&#38;geo=all&#38;date=all&#38;sort=0) the momentum for Rails has drastically come down while interest for Django has been skyrocketing. Can you think of any key drivers for the change?
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nhebb
The top 6 results shown on the right side when I did the trend search were:

    
    
      - Django Bustamante wins duel vs Deuel
      - Sukiyaki Western Django
      - Paris pays homage to gypsy jazz great Django
      - Bata, Django face tough competition in Japan Open
      - The Modern Jazz Quartet and John Lewis's Django
      - Bata, Django crash out of World Cup of Pool
    

There's a lot of noise in the result set. More often than not, I find it's
really hard to do accurate search comparisons using Google trends. You'd
probably get better results walking into an SV bar and doing a straw poll.

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newsisan
Some improvements:
[http://www.google.com/trends?q=ruby+on+rails|RoR|rails+-trai...](http://www.google.com/trends?q=ruby+on+rails|RoR|rails+-train,+django+-bustamante+-sukiyaki+-paris+-jazz+-music+-japan+-pool&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0)

~~~
brendano
But the main Google Trends indicator is over search query logs, not web
results. (That's another tab for web results, but it doesn't work for this
query.)

So queries like "django" count for this one. However, we don't know whether
those searchers want the web framework or the musician.

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Anon84
How about now?
[http://www.google.com/trends?q=ruby+on+rails,+django+python&...](http://www.google.com/trends?q=ruby+on+rails,+django+python&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0)

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ianbishop
If you compare the front page results from searching either 'django' or 'ruby
on rails' that are actually related to the framework, you'll see that only 60%
of django results are compared to rails' 100%.

I believe this has a lot to do with it.

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mgkimsal
people don't need to search for rails info as much, because they already know
what they need and/or go directly to the source? google trends is showing what
people are searching for, which isn't necessarily what's being used the most
(though likely there's a correlation).

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xyzzyz
Your argument is completely symmetrical -- you can just substitute "django" in
place of "rails" and it still makes sense. As such, it does not explain
anything.

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edwincheese
I think his logic is right, but the premise might not be true. I believe that
many people still googling docs and answers even though they know the exact
location they are. Google (or search) is just quicker.

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xyzzyz
That's what I meant. Reasoning that something is searched for less frequently,
because people know where to find it and do not need to search for it, is
valid -- I just do not see (and the poster I replied to did not explain) how
this applies only to Rails and not to Django. Had he referred to specific
attributes of Rails, that make people not need to search for it, it would be
plausible. Alas, he did not.

~~~
edwincheese
I think it is the poster mean - it is not sufficient to show which framework
has more user by looking at google trend, that applies to both rails and
django. Though I think Google trend and number of user is causal relationship.

