4 ms·

Can you name the 25 most popular programming languages?

20 points by SandB0x 17y ago

hga 17y ago
Cool. Also check out the related Hello, World! test http://www.sporcle.com/games/psychofish25/hello_world_syntax http://www.sporcle.com/games/psychofish25/hello_world_syntax (where you really want to see if what language you type in matches the slot you think it should be in). Brought back some old memories.
Auzy 17y ago
How is D is on the list? And how is Objective C less popular than Lisp? I'd be curious to see where this list comes from...
- keefe 17y ago
  lisp users generate more popularity units per capita than objective c users, because they are true believers rather than seeking dollars...
- SandB0x 17y ago
  Yeah I doubt it's in any way accurate. You can get a very rough guide (albeit skewed towards .net) from http://stackoverflow.com/tags http://stackoverflow.com/tags.
  - davidw 17y ago
    It apparently uses my stats at http://LangPop.com http://LangPop.com . While the numbers are rough, and there are some (stated) biases, I think they do a pretty good job of reflecting reality, and in any case, you get everything broken down with a normalized chart, so you can play around with the weights of different things. As to why anything is on that list: because I put it there. In some cases, after being asked to. (BTW, I know the IRC numbers for the most recent version are a bit off - I'm currently working on that).
    - SandB0x 17y ago
      Ah, fair enough. I didn't spot the source. If you were omnipotent and could get at all the information directly, what would you consider to be a true measure of popularity? (Eg, number of people who know each language, total time spent writing in each language over the last week)
      - davidw 17y ago
        That's a good question! I think that even in that case, the best answer would be to break things out so that people could see the different categories. The amount of code in production (this is something where langpop.com likely falls short: I can't think of any way of getting data on all the COBOL out there without paying through the nose for it) certainly counts for something in terms of popularity, but so does the language most people know some of. So does what's hot these days and being used for new systems being written. I think, though, that ultimately it doesn't really matter once you get past a certain threshold and see that people are writing libraries for the language.
- nostrademons 17y ago
  D was easy though - I went to type "Delphi" and "D" popped up. Cool, got one for free.
keefe 17y ago
lol I missed... delphi, coldfusion, scheme,tcl, cobol
steadicat 17y ago
Since when is SQL a programming language?
- davidw 17y ago
  I put that on the list just to piss pedants off. If you're not careful, I'll put HTML on there to see you really squirm:-) Kidding aside, it's there because I think it's interesting to see where it stacks up against other things. (By the way, the list I am referring to, is of course the original site at http://LangPop.com http://LangPop.com - I had nothing else to do with this quiz)
  - drunkpotato 17y ago
    Turing completeness should be the minimal standard to be considered a programming language. SQL is a pseudo-relational query & update language. HTML is a markup language. Both are useful. Neither are programming languages. There are SQL extensions to make it Turing complete, because Turing completeness is pretty darn useful.
    - davidw 17y ago
      Absolutely correct, but I don't really give a shit :-) I'm curious to see how it fares against other languages. I'd rather have more data than less. You can always use a magic marker to cover it up on your computer screen if it offends you. There's a reason behind things like that too. It's a good check on the results to see how well SQL does in, say, job listings, where one listing might be a hit for both Java and SQL, as opposed to Ohloh, where, yes, SQL is going to be present in many projects, but not a majority of the code. And that makes sense, because pretty much anyone out there is going to know and use some SQL, so as a job skill, it's extremely popular.
- gizmo 17y ago
  T-SQL and Postgres SQL are turing complete. I think at that point you can call it a programming language.
riobard 17y ago
I guessed 21/25 in the time limit. Missed ones are Shell, ActionScript, Tcl, and Cobol.
- nostrademons 17y ago
  24/25. Missed ColdFusion. Why the heck do they put SQL as a language but not HTML, CSS, or Makefiles? I kept trying variants of those, because once I got SQL anything goes...
oscardelben 17y ago
This is nice as well http://www.sporcle.com/games/psychofish25/hello_world_syntax http://www.sporcle.com/games/psychofish25/hello_world_syntax
- Sephr 17y ago
  Wouldn't JavaScript be print('Hello, World!') instead of document.write('Hello, World!')? The DOM isn't part of JavaScript; it's just a common environment. I would assume that the official JavaScript shell's environment would be assumed instead.
  - wolfgke 17y ago
    Or rather: alert('Hello, World!')
uggedal 17y ago
21/25 with SQL, Assembly, Actionscript, and Delphi missing. What happened to Smalltalk?
Jeema3000 17y ago
I'm always kind of suspect of these 'programming language popularity' measurements because they usually rely on search engine result volume. I think a more meaningful metric would be, say, job openings by programming language.

20 points by SandB0x 17y ago

hga 17y ago

Cool. Also check out the related Hello, World! test http://www.sporcle.com/games/psychofish25/hello_world_syntax http://www.sporcle.com/games/psychofish25/hello_world_syntax (where you really want to see if what language you type in matches the slot you think it should be in). Brought back some old memories.

Auzy 17y ago

How is D is on the list? And how is Objective C less popular than Lisp? I'd be curious to see where this list comes from...

keefe 17y ago
lisp users generate more popularity units per capita than objective c users, because they are true believers rather than seeking dollars...
SandB0x 17y ago
Yeah I doubt it's in any way accurate. You can get a very rough guide (albeit skewed towards .net) from http://stackoverflow.com/tags http://stackoverflow.com/tags.
- davidw 17y ago
  It apparently uses my stats at http://LangPop.com http://LangPop.com . While the numbers are rough, and there are some (stated) biases, I think they do a pretty good job of reflecting reality, and in any case, you get everything broken down with a normalized chart, so you can play around with the weights of different things. As to why anything is on that list: because I put it there. In some cases, after being asked to. (BTW, I know the IRC numbers for the most recent version are a bit off - I'm currently working on that).
  - SandB0x 17y ago
    Ah, fair enough. I didn't spot the source. If you were omnipotent and could get at all the information directly, what would you consider to be a true measure of popularity? (Eg, number of people who know each language, total time spent writing in each language over the last week)
    - davidw 17y ago
      That's a good question! I think that even in that case, the best answer would be to break things out so that people could see the different categories. The amount of code in production (this is something where langpop.com likely falls short: I can't think of any way of getting data on all the COBOL out there without paying through the nose for it) certainly counts for something in terms of popularity, but so does the language most people know some of. So does what's hot these days and being used for new systems being written. I think, though, that ultimately it doesn't really matter once you get past a certain threshold and see that people are writing libraries for the language.
nostrademons 17y ago
D was easy though - I went to type "Delphi" and "D" popped up. Cool, got one for free.

keefe 17y ago

lol I missed... delphi, coldfusion, scheme,tcl, cobol

steadicat 17y ago

Since when is SQL a programming language?

davidw 17y ago
I put that on the list just to piss pedants off. If you're not careful, I'll put HTML on there to see you really squirm:-) Kidding aside, it's there because I think it's interesting to see where it stacks up against other things. (By the way, the list I am referring to, is of course the original site at http://LangPop.com http://LangPop.com - I had nothing else to do with this quiz)
- drunkpotato 17y ago
  Turing completeness should be the minimal standard to be considered a programming language. SQL is a pseudo-relational query & update language. HTML is a markup language. Both are useful. Neither are programming languages. There are SQL extensions to make it Turing complete, because Turing completeness is pretty darn useful.
  - davidw 17y ago
    Absolutely correct, but I don't really give a shit :-) I'm curious to see how it fares against other languages. I'd rather have more data than less. You can always use a magic marker to cover it up on your computer screen if it offends you. There's a reason behind things like that too. It's a good check on the results to see how well SQL does in, say, job listings, where one listing might be a hit for both Java and SQL, as opposed to Ohloh, where, yes, SQL is going to be present in many projects, but not a majority of the code. And that makes sense, because pretty much anyone out there is going to know and use some SQL, so as a job skill, it's extremely popular.
gizmo 17y ago
T-SQL and Postgres SQL are turing complete. I think at that point you can call it a programming language.

riobard 17y ago

I guessed 21/25 in the time limit. Missed ones are Shell, ActionScript, Tcl, and Cobol.

nostrademons 17y ago
24/25. Missed ColdFusion. Why the heck do they put SQL as a language but not HTML, CSS, or Makefiles? I kept trying variants of those, because once I got SQL anything goes...

oscardelben 17y ago

This is nice as well http://www.sporcle.com/games/psychofish25/hello_world_syntax http://www.sporcle.com/games/psychofish25/hello_world_syntax

Sephr 17y ago
Wouldn't JavaScript be print('Hello, World!') instead of document.write('Hello, World!')? The DOM isn't part of JavaScript; it's just a common environment. I would assume that the official JavaScript shell's environment would be assumed instead.
- wolfgke 17y ago
  Or rather: alert('Hello, World!')

uggedal 17y ago

21/25 with SQL, Assembly, Actionscript, and Delphi missing. What happened to Smalltalk?

Jeema3000 17y ago

I'm always kind of suspect of these 'programming language popularity' measurements because they usually rely on search engine result volume. I think a more meaningful metric would be, say, job openings by programming language.