
Programming Language Rankings: February 2012 - keyle
http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2012/02/08/language-rankings-2-2012/
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runn1ng
It is really interesting that not only Java is amongst the most popular
languages, but the popularity is also _growing_. It's really surprising,
judging how everyone is spitting on Java.

Also, I wish Scala was more popular :)

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Zigurd
Java is on a rocket due to Android. Now that the Oracle threat has receded,
that trend could accelerate.

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cageface
This has to be the explanation.

You can also hedge your bets with Java a bit, because unlike Obj-C it's
important outside mobile apps.

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yahelc
Full-size copy of the chart:
[http://img.skitch.com/20120208-jqctdbqg7yfbj785pe9gjtjp8t.jp...](http://img.skitch.com/20120208-jqctdbqg7yfbj785pe9gjtjp8t.jpg)

~~~
SudarshanP
On the top right the scripting languages() seem to be below the diagonal and
the compiled languages above the diagonal. Maybe it is just co-incidental :).

I have suggestion for another chart someone may be interested in creating. A
time series of such images. It would be even more awesome if the traces all
the movements are depicted in a single image like a snake.

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sogrady
we're waiting until we have a couple of quarters of data, but then yes, a time
series is indeed in the works.

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igouy
afaict the "popularity" of most of those languages is being _grossly
distorted_ when you convert the "# of Tags" and "# of Projects" data to
rankings.

(You haven't provided raw data, so I'll take an example from the raw data Drew
Conway posted.)

The range in rank value for the stackoverflow tags is from 1 to 56, but the
range in "# of Tags" that rank is based upon is from 0 to 82,923 and the data
is so skewed that only 11 of 56 languages have above average "# of Tags".

Most spreadsheets will provide easy to use functions to calculate the mean,
standard deviation, and normalized scores (STANDARDIZE in LibreOffice).

 _Please plot normalized data not rankings._

\---

Similarly, the range in rank value for the github "# of Projects" is from 1 to
56, but the range in "# of Projects" is more like 0 to 104,239!

[http://www.r-chart.com/2010/08/github-stats-on-
programming-l...](http://www.r-chart.com/2010/08/github-stats-on-programming-
languages.html)

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gus_massa
I would like to see the "Repositories vs. Users" graph in a log-log scale, so
it's possible to see the distribution of the big and small languages
simultaneously.

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igouy
Better, use 2 charts -- the first to show the big difference between the
popular languages and the others, the second to show the minor differences
among the others.

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whyme
I don't see how the number of tags/projects translates into a worthy
popularity metric.

Maybe some of these _popular_ languages have more tags because they're POS
languages that cause grief and consequently many more questions/posts that are
created by even a smaller group of users.

Also there's no time element, so a supposed _popular_ language may have had
zero tags created in the last year, yet it only drops marginally relative to
the pack. And an highly active new language is ranked against all historical
data of older languages making it less popular than it really is.

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nikic
Is the scale in the first image logarithmic?

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kjhughes
No, and it is important to realize that the axes are project/tag count
_rankings_ not direct project/tag _counts_.

So, no conclusions regarding relative popularity between two languages should
be drawn from the diagram. (It's just an ordering. The distance between the
first and second most popular language, for example, is exactly 1.)

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nikic
Oh, thanks, now I understand!

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stumacd
I don't think stackoverflow is a particularly useful metric. If there is a
simple easy to use and install language with good documentation, examples and
a forum/mailing list with a small number of new users, it will be much lower
on an equally as popular language with complex syntax and no community with a
larger proportion of novice users.

Stackoverflow really fills the gap if there is no good alternative, it's a
reflection of the ecosystem around the language than its popularity.

Perhaps the number of new projects or commits in a given language would be
more indicative of a language's true popularity. (Not that it's a perfect
metric either)

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agumonkey
I love the last bunch with Ioke, Factor.

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agumonkey
Why the downvotes, I wasn't sarcastic. Those are really interesting languages.

