
If programmers are leaving VB and aren't going to C#, where are they going? - nreece
http://visualstudiomagazine.com/columns/article.aspx?editorialsid=2979
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TomOfTTB
I think this is an example of someone trying to extrapolate data from a source
that's incapable of providing the conclusions he wants. He’s using Google
Trends to try to determine the popularity of programming languages which
doesn’t logically track.

I’ll give you one example of what I mean. He states that over the last 5 years
searches for C# have remained flat and that VB.NET searches are going down.
But in the last 5 years several very helpful .Net aggregation sites have gone
up (dotnetkicks, asp.net weblogs, stackoverflow, etc...). That aggregation
trend might cause people to search less

That’s just one of many reasons why search results aren’t an accurate measure
of language popularity.

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bdfh42
OK none of this is scientific - just observations:

A lot of old school (shall we call them) programmers are still operating but
in their "comfort zone" in VB5 and VB6 - which is why they are not searching
for new information and tools on the Net.

Lot's of occasional programmers have just given up - there is a good deal more
"bodging" of mini apps using spreadsheets within businesses that I get a
chance to observe. This is probably good for the overall quality of corporate
code but worrying - while some of those old VB apps were pretty clunky home
grown spreadsheets are just about guaranteed to be buggy and likely to lead to
management errors/

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DougBTX
Interesting line about "every other traditional language is trending
downward". I don't really consider c# a traditional language, and other non-
traditional languages such as ruby, python are also flat (as compared to not
dropping).

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ananthrk
_Perhaps developers are using Live.com instead of Google? I'd accept that if
it were just the Microsoft languages, but LAMP programmers leaving Google for
Live.com? I don't think so. Something real is happening._

insight :)

