5 ms·

Ruby drops out of 10 most used languages

25 points by AdamN 16y ago

AdamN 16y ago
I'm not totally surprised about Ruby becoming less important - more people are moving to iPhone/iPad development and existing infrastructures (i.e. PHP) are staying static.
- danieldon 16y ago
  I didn't downvote you, but I'll point out that the actual percentage decline for Ruby is very small (-0.35%), less than the declines of Python, Java, C++ and Javascript, and almost the same as PHP. The percentage rise of Objective-C (2.15%) is far higher than what could have come from Ruby.
ianb 16y ago
Delphi is #9?!? This does not make sense to me. And Go is #15? Are people actually using Go? This seems a little implausible.
- tibbon 16y ago
  And Pascal? No lisp?
- ggchappell 16y ago
  I've wondered about that for a long time. Delphi has been high on the TIOBE index for years, but no one ever talks about it. Maybe it's only used for incredibly boring projects at gigantic companies?
  - dejv 16y ago
    I am using Delphi 5 and 6 on daily basis maintaining some very very old and mega boring projects. There is a lot of crap (and some good) software written in this language and IDE around medium sized companies.
  - hello_moto 16y ago
    ... but nonetheless they are useful projects that probably helped the business to make money ...
- jherdman 16y ago
  No kidding. Did you notice the drop in usage of JavaScript? I highly doubt that this is the case. If anything I would have expected its usage to go up.
frou_dh 16y ago
Go used more than ActionScript? What the?
- jdminhbg 16y ago
  You can google for ActionScript without 'programming,' but not so for Go. I think that explains its outlier status.
danieldon 16y ago
Interesting. Python has a bigger drop in percentage, second only to VB.
acangiano 16y ago
I'm just going to leave this here: http://langpop.com/ http://langpop.com/
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  Freshmeat and Google Code, but no GitHub?
  - davidw 16y ago
    Not yet. It's still way too Ruby heavy to be a good source of information. I'll probably give it another year or two to let things even out and then throw it on, maybe with StackOverflow, which will hopefully undergo the same process of broadening out from their initial community of .Net people.
    - danieldon 16y ago
      It's still way too Ruby heavy to be a good source of information. However, since Ruby projects are overwhelmingly (almost exclusively) hosted on Github, excluding it suggests that Ruby is underrepresented.
      - davidw 16y ago
        Google code search looks at github too, actually.
    - steveklabnik 16y ago
      It's actually much flatter than you'd think: http://github.com/languages http://github.com/languages
      - davidw 16y ago
        Ruby being more popular than anything else flies in the face of all the other metrics. There's no way it's more popular, in general, than PHP and Java, for instance.
ryanelkins 16y ago
The ratings are largely based on number of hits from search engines using the query +"<language> programming". This seems largely biased towards older languages. You can read more about it here: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/tpci_definition.htm http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/tpci_d... I'm not sure how useful this data really is. I should create a language called "game" - then it could probably make it to #3.
- alttab 16y ago
  Also note that if this is done by hits, that it is no wonder objective-c has such a high jump. I've been programming in C/C++ for a decade and objective-c still confused the crap out of me for my first iPhone app.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    What tripped you up the most? I just re-re-learned it, and: * How to handle type 'id' * Formal protocols (informal protocols I get just fine) * Autorelease
    - iron_ball 16y ago
      I'm learning it now, and although nothing is confusing me yet, the un-named first argument to each method is a pretty amazing wart. The designers never saw "nameOfMethodWithFirstArgument:(Type )arg1 secondArgument:(Type )arg2" and decided to rethink things? Why not?
      - yan 16y ago
        How would you design it?
        iron_ball 16y ago
        Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but why not nameOfMethod: firstArgName(Type '')arg1 secondArgName(Type )arg2? So you'd get invocations like this: point = createPoint: x:10 y:15; Instead of this: point = createPointWithX:10 y:15; edit: no idea how to get asterisks to appear, so pretend I have pointer symbols where appropriate.
strebler 16y ago
Just to note, article's main point (that C surpassed Java) also happened previously in 2004-2005 as well, at least according to this Tiobe graph from Wikipedia (cum grano salis): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d3/Tiobe_index.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d3/Tiobe_index.pn...

25 points by AdamN 16y ago

AdamN 16y ago

I'm not totally surprised about Ruby becoming less important - more people are moving to iPhone/iPad development and existing infrastructures (i.e. PHP) are staying static.

danieldon 16y ago
I didn't downvote you, but I'll point out that the actual percentage decline for Ruby is very small (-0.35%), less than the declines of Python, Java, C++ and Javascript, and almost the same as PHP. The percentage rise of Objective-C (2.15%) is far higher than what could have come from Ruby.

ianb 16y ago

Delphi is #9?!? This does not make sense to me. And Go is #15? Are people actually using Go? This seems a little implausible.

tibbon 16y ago
And Pascal? No lisp?
ggchappell 16y ago
I've wondered about that for a long time. Delphi has been high on the TIOBE index for years, but no one ever talks about it. Maybe it's only used for incredibly boring projects at gigantic companies?
- dejv 16y ago
  I am using Delphi 5 and 6 on daily basis maintaining some very very old and mega boring projects. There is a lot of crap (and some good) software written in this language and IDE around medium sized companies.
- hello_moto 16y ago
  ... but nonetheless they are useful projects that probably helped the business to make money ...
jherdman 16y ago
No kidding. Did you notice the drop in usage of JavaScript? I highly doubt that this is the case. If anything I would have expected its usage to go up.

frou_dh 16y ago

Go used more than ActionScript? What the?

jdminhbg 16y ago
You can google for ActionScript without 'programming,' but not so for Go. I think that explains its outlier status.

danieldon 16y ago

Interesting. Python has a bigger drop in percentage, second only to VB.

acangiano 16y ago

I'm just going to leave this here: http://langpop.com/ http://langpop.com/

steveklabnik 16y ago
Freshmeat and Google Code, but no GitHub?
- davidw 16y ago
  Not yet. It's still way too Ruby heavy to be a good source of information. I'll probably give it another year or two to let things even out and then throw it on, maybe with StackOverflow, which will hopefully undergo the same process of broadening out from their initial community of .Net people.
  - danieldon 16y ago
    It's still way too Ruby heavy to be a good source of information. However, since Ruby projects are overwhelmingly (almost exclusively) hosted on Github, excluding it suggests that Ruby is underrepresented.
    - davidw 16y ago
      Google code search looks at github too, actually.
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    It's actually much flatter than you'd think: http://github.com/languages http://github.com/languages
    - davidw 16y ago
      Ruby being more popular than anything else flies in the face of all the other metrics. There's no way it's more popular, in general, than PHP and Java, for instance.

ryanelkins 16y ago

The ratings are largely based on number of hits from search engines using the query +"<language> programming". This seems largely biased towards older languages. You can read more about it here: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/tpci_definition.htm http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/tpci_d... I'm not sure how useful this data really is. I should create a language called "game" - then it could probably make it to #3.

alttab 16y ago
Also note that if this is done by hits, that it is no wonder objective-c has such a high jump. I've been programming in C/C++ for a decade and objective-c still confused the crap out of me for my first iPhone app.
- tptacek 16y ago
  What tripped you up the most? I just re-re-learned it, and: * How to handle type 'id' * Formal protocols (informal protocols I get just fine) * Autorelease
  - iron_ball 16y ago
    I'm learning it now, and although nothing is confusing me yet, the un-named first argument to each method is a pretty amazing wart. The designers never saw "nameOfMethodWithFirstArgument:(Type )arg1 secondArgument:(Type )arg2" and decided to rethink things? Why not?
    - yan 16y ago
      How would you design it?
      - iron_ball 16y ago
        Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but why not nameOfMethod: firstArgName(Type '')arg1 secondArgName(Type )arg2? So you'd get invocations like this: point = createPoint: x:10 y:15; Instead of this: point = createPointWithX:10 y:15; edit: no idea how to get asterisks to appear, so pretend I have pointer symbols where appropriate.

strebler 16y ago

Just to note, article's main point (that C surpassed Java) also happened previously in 2004-2005 as well, at least according to this Tiobe graph from Wikipedia (cum grano salis): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d3/Tiobe_index.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d3/Tiobe_index.pn...