
All mainstream languages marketed as functional are losing market - nudpiedo
https://www.benfrederickson.com/ranking-programming-languages-by-github-users/
======
pcwalton
This title (for posterity: "All mainstream languages marketed as functional
are losing market") is extremely editorialized and is even contradictory to
the text of the article. Please don't do this.

~~~
nudpiedo
Unfortunately I could not link to the section which actually shows this data.
I though the topic of FP and market share is relevant for the HN community
where FP is often a big topic... the rest of the article is programming
languages without any especial surprise.

P.S. can some admin edit the title and add “(see the last section)” so the
topic of less users of functional languages can be spoken and explored in the
community?

~~~
soneca
I think you tried to steer the discussion too much instead of justing let
people read the text and reach their own conclusions. Which might be nothing
like yours.

Now, as a result, the post is flagged and there is no discussion at all.

------
ics
The title of this post (on HN, not the original article title) leaves out the
rest of author's sentiment on the data.

"Given the relatively small numbers here, there is more noise in the rankings.
I'm also not convinced that the apparent decline of things like Clojure and
Haskell is anything more than a result of GitHub growing more mainstream over
time."

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not_kurt_godel
I guess the accuracy of this characterization rests on what exactly is meant
by "mainstream languages marketed as functional" \- specifically, the
"marketed" bit - but I would argue that the mainstream trend is to embrace
functional programming. Python, Kotlin, and Golang all support functional
programming in non-trivial ways. Java streams, lambdas, and immutables each
represent huge shifts towards functional programming style. C++11 and C# 3.0
have added similar constructs (according to Wikipedia, at least - I am less
familiar with these languages). So while the relative interest in
'academically pure' functional languages may be declining, it seems to me that
stylistically functional programming is becoming more popular than ever.

~~~
pcwalton
I'd agree with you regarding Python and Kotlin, but Go is pretty clearly anti-
functional. It does include closures but little else, and Rob Pike is pretty
clear as to the preference for imperative (e.g. for loops) over functional
(e.g. map/reduce/etc.) style.

~~~
not_kurt_godel
Fair enough, I don't use Go. I'll admit I just googled "Golang functional",
skimmed some stuff, and assumed it fell into the same bucket as Python &
Kotlin.

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tjallingt
The graphs for major programming languages shows a decline in the number of
monthly active users using JavaScript, interestingly this decline seemingly
coincides with the incline of TypeScript users. I'd love to see whether people
who stopped using JavaScript started using TypeScript instead.

~~~
alangpierce
It's also a bit strange in that Flow and TypeScript are competing JS language
extensions with nearly the same goals and scope, yet TypeScript is seen as its
own language and Flow isn't. And, of course, JSX isn't valid JavaScript, but
React programmers view themselves as writing code in JS. IMO, it would be
better to put TypeScript projects in the JavaScript category and optionally
have more detailed stats on the different JavaScript variants.

When I introduced TypeScript to my team at work, one of the things that I had
to emphasize was that TypeScript isn't a new language; it looks and behaves
just like JS, it just has some new syntax to declare types.

I suppose the practical matter here is that GitHub language stats can
distinguish TypeScript because it uses the .ts extension, while other JS
variants just stick with .js (and JSX sometimes is .jsx, but not always).

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patkai
This is data, not even a model, and interpretation is hard. You may see the
decline - of e.g. PHP - as an opportunity or a threat. Anecdote: in Finland
there is one person providing APL training. Guess how much insurance companies
pay him ;)

------
cosarara
Why was the title changed?

~~~
soneca
Original title -- _" Ranking Programming Languages by GitHub Users"_ \-- is
much less clickbaity that the current one, which seems to have an agenda
behind it (at this moment is _" All mainstream languages marketed as
functional are losing market"_)

~~~
nudpiedo
I didn’t write that with an agenda, I wanted to point out this data analysis
which is a common topic for the HN community; unfortunately I could only link
to the top the page and not just to the section.

Actually I use FP languages in my free time.

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teilo
So, "All mainstream languages marketed as functional" would include Elixir,
and yet Elixir "barely missed out on the top 25"?

~~~
nudpiedo
Elixir does not market itself just as a functional langauge but as a niche
language for distributed systems which happens to be functional for very good
reasons. As opposite clojure markets itself as functional in spite of having
many elements of imperative languages and sitting on top of the JVM.

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mirekrusin
...on github.

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ryanj20021
Wish he said more about why Elixir worth keeping an eye on.

