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Programming Language Popularity on GitHub and StackOverflow

40 points by jstrieb 10y ago

raarts 10y ago
The map doesn't show on my iPhone
- bananabill 10y ago
  It doesn't show on my computer either
  - shakna 10y ago
    The JSON data used is located at: [0] http://langpop.corger.nl/formatted_data http://langpop.corger.nl/formatted_data And considering how long it took to load for me, the chart might work, but take forever.
    - sker 10y ago
      Yeah, it took forever to load here too. It looks like this, for those who are curious: http://i.imgur.com/O576J4N.png http://i.imgur.com/O576J4N.png
      - kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
        What is the outlier green dot on top left?
        sker 10y ago
        SQL (4.03%) Lines changed on GitHub: 1,347 Tagged on StackOverflow: 363,595 It doesn't have that many lines on GH when you label it as SQL, but compare that to PL/SQL: PLSQL (0.16%) Lines changed on GitHub: 3,561,189 Tagged on StackOverflow: 14,488
  - jlarocco 10y ago
    Same, using Chromium I don't see anything. Weird thing is that I even tried disabling ad-block and still got nothing.
- ChristianGeek 10y ago
  Works for me on my iPhone 7.
jamescostian 10y ago
> Whenever a new push event is detected, the lines that are changed in each of the commits in the push event are collected and stored I think it's important to realize that some languages tend to have more lines of code to achieve the same things as in other languages, and AFAICT this doesn't take that into account. I don't think lines of diff is a reliable metric for "Language Popularity"... For example, the #2 and #3 languages (Java and C# respectively) have some ceremonial lines of getters and setters. Consider the problem "find the area of a square". In Java or C#, one would often write a class like this: public class Square { double side; Square(double s) { side = s; } void setSide(double s) { side = s; } double getSide() { return side; } double getArea() { return side * side; } } OTOH, someone writing bash (language #19 in terms of popularity is "Shell") might write something like this: #!/bin/bash square() { echo "$(($1 * $1))"; };
- beders 10y ago
  The Java/C# as you wrote it doesn't just solve 'find the area of a square', but a whole set of other things. A more idiomatic version would be: Square.calculateArea(double s) { return s*s; } That said: One often finds code with lots of unnecessary boiler plate code and Java's syntax up to Java 8 could not be described as succinct.
  - matthewking 10y ago
    Yep, OP is comparing apples to oranges, and there's several strange things with the example code, but a direct translation of the original Java code provided into C# is: public class Square { public double Side { get; private set; } public Square(double s) { Side = s; } public double Area { get { return Side * Side; } } } TLDR: C# doesn't actually need those ceremonial getters/setters that Java still uses, but there was no real need for that to be a public property anyway, although I have kept it that way to match the original.
    - jamescostian 10y ago
jc4p 10y ago
The graph doesn't load for me so feel free to ignore me if this is not relevant, but regarding this part: > Results from Stack Overflow are based on the number of times that a tag for a certain language is applied, together with the applied count of the synonyms of that language. I would suggest that mere count of tag appearance in questions doesn't give you "Programming Language Quality", it gives you "Languages which people ask questions about a lot". The Stack Overflow datasets include question view counts, I think a combination of tag appearance in questions alongside view counts would be a better metric for "most popular" especially since the number of people _viewing_ posts are a lot higher than the number of people asking questions so you'll get a bigger chunk of the sample.
- smarx007 10y ago
  Requires disabling adblocker.
nhumrich 10y ago
Tried 3 different browsers, still no chart showing up.
- c3534l 10y ago
  Wait 5-10 minutes.
c3534l 10y ago
I've downloaded Linux distros quicker than it takes for that graph to load.
anon335dtzbvc 10y ago
https://madnight.github.io/githut/ https://madnight.github.io/githut/
Roboprog 10y ago
So, synthesizing several of the threads here... While it's true that a language which has genuine interest and activity will be represented on the list, languages which require much boilerplate, or which are confusing, will skew upward in the list. Data is tough. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8558740 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8558740 (The actual PDF link won't load at the moment) E.g. - I'm pretty sure the study above attributed errors in V8 to "Javascript", even though V8 is the interpreter written in C++ or C. Still, if you throw an appropriate uncertainty range on the results, it's much better than no information about where the action is.
- Roboprog 10y ago
  I wonder why Delphi was more "popular" than Go-lang? I wish Borland Pascal had been more popular in the 90s. It's interesting to think how Java would have fared if there was another viable alternative to the clearly inadequate C++ language. Of course, Borland would have had to NOT try to compete with MS Office, and have been content to be like JetBrains is now - provide a best in class IDE for open source languages, assuming they open sourced the Pascal/Delphi command line compiler.

40 points by jstrieb 10y ago

raarts 10y ago

The map doesn't show on my iPhone

bananabill 10y ago
It doesn't show on my computer either
- shakna 10y ago
  The JSON data used is located at: [0] http://langpop.corger.nl/formatted_data http://langpop.corger.nl/formatted_data And considering how long it took to load for me, the chart might work, but take forever.
  - sker 10y ago
    Yeah, it took forever to load here too. It looks like this, for those who are curious: http://i.imgur.com/O576J4N.png http://i.imgur.com/O576J4N.png
    - kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
      What is the outlier green dot on top left?
      - sker 10y ago
        SQL (4.03%) Lines changed on GitHub: 1,347 Tagged on StackOverflow: 363,595 It doesn't have that many lines on GH when you label it as SQL, but compare that to PL/SQL: PLSQL (0.16%) Lines changed on GitHub: 3,561,189 Tagged on StackOverflow: 14,488
- jlarocco 10y ago
  Same, using Chromium I don't see anything. Weird thing is that I even tried disabling ad-block and still got nothing.
ChristianGeek 10y ago
Works for me on my iPhone 7.

jamescostian 10y ago

> Whenever a new push event is detected, the lines that are changed in each of the commits in the push event are collected and stored I think it's important to realize that some languages tend to have more lines of code to achieve the same things as in other languages, and AFAICT this doesn't take that into account. I don't think lines of diff is a reliable metric for "Language Popularity"... For example, the #2 and #3 languages (Java and C# respectively) have some ceremonial lines of getters and setters. Consider the problem "find the area of a square". In Java or C#, one would often write a class like this: public class Square { double side; Square(double s) { side = s; } void setSide(double s) { side = s; } double getSide() { return side; } double getArea() { return side * side; } } OTOH, someone writing bash (language #19 in terms of popularity is "Shell") might write something like this: #!/bin/bash square() { echo "$(($1 * $1))"; };

beders 10y ago
The Java/C# as you wrote it doesn't just solve 'find the area of a square', but a whole set of other things. A more idiomatic version would be: Square.calculateArea(double s) { return s*s; } That said: One often finds code with lots of unnecessary boiler plate code and Java's syntax up to Java 8 could not be described as succinct.
- matthewking 10y ago
  Yep, OP is comparing apples to oranges, and there's several strange things with the example code, but a direct translation of the original Java code provided into C# is: public class Square { public double Side { get; private set; } public Square(double s) { Side = s; } public double Area { get { return Side * Side; } } } TLDR: C# doesn't actually need those ceremonial getters/setters that Java still uses, but there was no real need for that to be a public property anyway, although I have kept it that way to match the original.
  - jamescostian 10y ago

jc4p 10y ago

The graph doesn't load for me so feel free to ignore me if this is not relevant, but regarding this part: > Results from Stack Overflow are based on the number of times that a tag for a certain language is applied, together with the applied count of the synonyms of that language. I would suggest that mere count of tag appearance in questions doesn't give you "Programming Language Quality", it gives you "Languages which people ask questions about a lot". The Stack Overflow datasets include question view counts, I think a combination of tag appearance in questions alongside view counts would be a better metric for "most popular" especially since the number of people _viewing_ posts are a lot higher than the number of people asking questions so you'll get a bigger chunk of the sample.

smarx007 10y ago
Requires disabling adblocker.

nhumrich 10y ago

Tried 3 different browsers, still no chart showing up.

c3534l 10y ago
Wait 5-10 minutes.

c3534l 10y ago

I've downloaded Linux distros quicker than it takes for that graph to load.

anon335dtzbvc 10y ago

https://madnight.github.io/githut/ https://madnight.github.io/githut/

Roboprog 10y ago

So, synthesizing several of the threads here... While it's true that a language which has genuine interest and activity will be represented on the list, languages which require much boilerplate, or which are confusing, will skew upward in the list. Data is tough. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8558740 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8558740 (The actual PDF link won't load at the moment) E.g. - I'm pretty sure the study above attributed errors in V8 to "Javascript", even though V8 is the interpreter written in C++ or C. Still, if you throw an appropriate uncertainty range on the results, it's much better than no information about where the action is.

Roboprog 10y ago
I wonder why Delphi was more "popular" than Go-lang? I wish Borland Pascal had been more popular in the 90s. It's interesting to think how Java would have fared if there was another viable alternative to the clearly inadequate C++ language. Of course, Borland would have had to NOT try to compete with MS Office, and have been content to be like JetBrains is now - provide a best in class IDE for open source languages, assuming they open sourced the Pascal/Delphi command line compiler.