Python's popularity statistics

[Aaron K. Johnson]

In message <8iRJ9.1944$ce5.550 at nwrddc03.gnilink.net>, "Raymond Hettinger" wrote:
> > For all who are interested, I wrote a couple of python scripts that helped
> > extract newsgroup activity from the comp.lang.* hierarchy, and this can be
> a
> > rough guide to the popularity and usage of the big programming languages.
> 
> What I get from your stats is that Fortran users spend more time working
> than talking and that Java folks are especially chatty ;)
> 
> The stats could point to all kinds of things.
> Perhaps people talk more about newer languages.
> Maybe some popular languages have unfriendly newsgroups.

All your points are valid--but as I said elsewhere in this thread, I still
contend that the user base of a language is directly proportional, in a
non-linear fashion, to its usenet activity. I think this is an obvious
statistical
truth, and the factors you mention above are valid, but statistically speaking,
peripheral. (although I couldn't prove this--and you may be right about newer
languages--but my subjective sense is that, with the exception of C, all the
most used used languages ARE newer)

And, yes, the presence of Erik Naggum on comp.lang.lisp contibutes to 98% of
THAT groups unfriendlyness! If you want a good read, search for his
assasination of me when I was asking for a relative merit comparison of Lisp
and Python a couple of years ago.
 
> Or, maybe, it's a marketing thing and people prefer languages
> associated with cools things like coffee, pearls, snakes, and rubies.
> Accordingly, they are neutral toward languages without logos, and,
> of course, they avoid like the plague anything that sounds like a dreaded
> disease -- (the doctor isn't sure whether you have ml, mumps,
> apl simplex 2, or just caught hermes from your last date).
> 
> All that being said, the high ranking of C++ is still inexplicable ;)

C/C++ are an unfortunate industry standard. But, you have to admit, they are as
fast and usable and ubiquitous as they are 'syntactically dirty'.

I agree 100% that market presence and hype have a huge impact on language
popularity. Quality is almost secondary. IMO, Python is the first well
engineered language as you scan the list from top to bottom.

Some languages, like Lisp, and other functional ones, seem to have a
counter-cultural/academic appeal, and stay alive because of their long history
more than that they are 'better' in any measurable sense. (off--topic-I think
the 'no syntax paradigm' of Lisp/Scheme is beautiful as an idea, but when you
try to use it for anything real, in my opinion it works against you. For
instance, have you noticed how inconsistant Lisp's supposedly consistant syntax
is for looping constructs? Or how nightmarish it is to break out of a loop and
not return a value? And why should we need an editor to keep track of
paranthesis? Like Guido says "Life is better" without them) Fortran is still
around for its reputation for being efficient for scientific number crunching,
for example. Java is biggest for its web presence, and everything is web these
days. (I hope python takes over and replaces Java, because its syntax is so
much more beautiful--but I'm not holding my breath)


Cheers,
Aaron.

> > java 26953
> > c++ 19913
> > c 13874
> > perl 10486
> > python 9647
> > clipper 8960
> > javascript 8606
> > basic 7909
> > clarion 6939
> > ruby 6466
> > lisp 6132
> > tcl 5256
> > pascal 4229
> > labview 3427
> > smalltalk 2398
> > fortran 2355
> > ada 2239
> > forth 2195
> > scheme 1877
> > cobol 1845
> > functional 1647
> > objective-c 1505
> > asm 1399
> > vhdl 1143
> > prolog 1004
> > postscript 917
> > idl-pvwave 856
> > awk 694
> > verilog 609
> > vrml 493
> > rexx 412
> > eiffel 366
> > apl 350
> > ml 302
> > misc 256
> > logo 217
> > pl1 203
> > mumps 189
> > asm370 165
> > dylan 119
> > modula2 61
> > oberon 54
> > icon 48
> > pop 26
> > modula3 26
> > idl 11
> > sather 6
> > clos 5
> > beta 5
> > limbo 3
> > hermes 2
> > clu 2
> > prograph 1