Lager'd Statistics on language migration

[Carlos Ribeiro]

On Mon, 6 Sep 2004 09:24:03 +0200, Alex Martelli <aleaxit at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Still OK, I guess.  So, my working hypothesis would be: people tend to
> post about preferring a newer / less widespread language over an older /
> more widespread one, more frequently than they post about the reverse
> preference.  Why people compare Python with either Ruby or Perl MUCH
> more often than Perl and Ruby with each other, I dunno...

I think that Perl --> Python is a natural path, in historic terms --
both languages having a similar age and maturity. Perl is older - 1.0
was announced in 1987. At this time, Guido was already working on
Python, but the 0.9 was only released in 1991... But now, being 17 x
13 is not a huge different (in language lifetimes, anyway).

As for Ruby, it's a different matter. I think that Ruby is a little
farther away from Perl in the language spectrum than Python, but I
have no hard data to back my claim. It's just how I feel about it, and
it may be more related to the timeline (Perl --> Python --> Ruby, so
Ruby got to learn from both and to position itself as an alternative
to Python). Everyone wants to be the new kid on the block, in this
case.

p.s. I must be with too many time in my hands lately to be answering
this sort of question :-) Time to find real work to do.

-- 
Carlos Ribeiro
Consultoria em Projetos
blog: http://rascunhosrotos.blogspot.com
blog: http://pythonnotes.blogspot.com
mail: carribeiro at gmail.com
mail: carribeiro at yahoo.com