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What insight do people derive from these rankings? What can such a "language ranking" be used for? Why is XML listed as a programming language?

geodel 10y ago
One would be what are the language to look out and learn because they are getting popular in market.
- kodfodrasz 10y ago
  It doesn't really matter. After knowing a few, you pick one up in a few months, and the rest will come with use. Looking out for trends won't help, as you can get only limited experience without using a language for solving real problems. Solving Project Euler or HackerRank in a different language is fun, but does not really teach you a language. Languages are more than languages, they have ecosystems and conventions around them, and many of those come up only when doing larger scale problems to solve real problems. Few people do it for themselves as a hobby, most do fun stull as hobby, and do these as work.
officelineback 10y ago
People: What to study, what to choose for personal projects, what to put on your resume. Companies: What languages to standardize on
- weberc2 10y ago
  I would be wary of basing those choices on these data. If I just learned about the concept of programming languages for the first time, I might refer to this for a vague understanding of which languages are popular--I might not opt to learn Coq over JavaScript, but it's not obvious from these data that picking JavaScript will be of greater benefit to my career, interests, or organization than Scala. This seems like one metric to consider, and not even a very good one. In particular, popularity on StackOverflow should probably count against a language, but these rankings consider it a virtue.
  - kodfodrasz 10y ago
    SO popularity is neither clearly positive, neither clearly negative. Why not positive: because if there are lots of questions about something, it must be very hard, with lots of gotchas, unclear points. Why not negative: because if there are lots of questions about something, it must be very popular, so many newcomers have their trivial questions, which do not necessarily indicate problems about the language.
    - weberc2 10y ago
      Right, the SO value is approximately the product of popularity and difficulty; the GH value is approximately popularity, so if you difficulty is approximately SO/GH.
      - kodfodrasz 10y ago
        If this would be true, then "XML" and ASP would be the hardest languages. Also this would suggest that TeX for example is simpler to use than Python or Ruby. I do not think this stands.
        weberc2 10y ago
        Hence, "approximation". In particular, XML isn't a programming language, so questions about it are more likely to pertain to writing parsers and the like. TeX users may well have other sources for answering their questions. The approximation is very rough, but there is clearly a signal in the noise.
a3n 10y ago
If having a github repo factors into your hiring choices, then you're more likely to find compatible hires if you use one or more of the languages in the top-most, right-most blob, and still pretty good if you use a language from the less tight blob below that. Although, of course, you should use the language that is most right for your tasks, and most approved by your developers. Similar statement for "what if I want lots of SO help for my language." Similar statement for "what if I want lots of potential contributors to my GH project." And, for any language that you use, regardless of where it falls on the graph, you get to say "Huh." And you get to discover new languages you've never heard of.
- kodfodrasz 10y ago
  I think the github repos are not relevant in hiring for most applicants, usually are good only as an info to have a card to start a conversation about some topic the applicant is expected to be somewhat proficient. Why would I want SO help for a language? Why is SO help needed for a language? Maybe it is just me, but I find SO largely overrated. Does it sound like a good business decision when starting a project: Let's use JavaScript, as there is a lot of StackOverflow help(?) about that language! I want to solve problems with a project, and for this the language is mostly irrelevant, and the help about the language is even more irrelevant. I won't have solutions for my problem, modeling it, solving it. The ecosystem is more relevant, but on SO the ecosystem related questions are usually killed off by the mods, as not being proper questions, so usually blogs with benchmarks or opinion pieces are more useful, yet those are not factored into this measurement. When starting a project do I want to make a project to have many contributors? Personally I start projects to solve problems, not to attract people, though I work in the software industry, not in entertainment. Sarcasm apart: If the project solves a problem for lots of people, it will surely attract contributors, even if it is done in a mildly popular, but not esoteric language. If I'd find a project in perl which is useful for me, and would need to hack some on it, I might even pick up some Perl to do it, and contribute it back. If a project is not useful, it can be written in however popular language, nobody will use it. The next point is valid, I said huh, when I saw that C is still kicking. Discover new languages? If I have never heard of them, that is probably for a reason. There are way more than being useful. Knowing a few (practically one from every paradigm, and some popular ones) on a basic level, and 1-2 at a good, one at advanced level is enough. Missing a few esoteric languages will likely not have an impact on my career.

geodel 10y ago

One would be what are the language to look out and learn because they are getting popular in market.

kodfodrasz 10y ago
It doesn't really matter. After knowing a few, you pick one up in a few months, and the rest will come with use. Looking out for trends won't help, as you can get only limited experience without using a language for solving real problems. Solving Project Euler or HackerRank in a different language is fun, but does not really teach you a language. Languages are more than languages, they have ecosystems and conventions around them, and many of those come up only when doing larger scale problems to solve real problems. Few people do it for themselves as a hobby, most do fun stull as hobby, and do these as work.

officelineback 10y ago

People: What to study, what to choose for personal projects, what to put on your resume. Companies: What languages to standardize on

weberc2 10y ago
I would be wary of basing those choices on these data. If I just learned about the concept of programming languages for the first time, I might refer to this for a vague understanding of which languages are popular--I might not opt to learn Coq over JavaScript, but it's not obvious from these data that picking JavaScript will be of greater benefit to my career, interests, or organization than Scala. This seems like one metric to consider, and not even a very good one. In particular, popularity on StackOverflow should probably count against a language, but these rankings consider it a virtue.
- kodfodrasz 10y ago
  SO popularity is neither clearly positive, neither clearly negative. Why not positive: because if there are lots of questions about something, it must be very hard, with lots of gotchas, unclear points. Why not negative: because if there are lots of questions about something, it must be very popular, so many newcomers have their trivial questions, which do not necessarily indicate problems about the language.
  - weberc2 10y ago
    Right, the SO value is approximately the product of popularity and difficulty; the GH value is approximately popularity, so if you difficulty is approximately SO/GH.
    - kodfodrasz 10y ago
      If this would be true, then "XML" and ASP would be the hardest languages. Also this would suggest that TeX for example is simpler to use than Python or Ruby. I do not think this stands.
      - weberc2 10y ago
        Hence, "approximation". In particular, XML isn't a programming language, so questions about it are more likely to pertain to writing parsers and the like. TeX users may well have other sources for answering their questions. The approximation is very rough, but there is clearly a signal in the noise.

a3n 10y ago

If having a github repo factors into your hiring choices, then you're more likely to find compatible hires if you use one or more of the languages in the top-most, right-most blob, and still pretty good if you use a language from the less tight blob below that. Although, of course, you should use the language that is most right for your tasks, and most approved by your developers. Similar statement for "what if I want lots of SO help for my language." Similar statement for "what if I want lots of potential contributors to my GH project." And, for any language that you use, regardless of where it falls on the graph, you get to say "Huh." And you get to discover new languages you've never heard of.

kodfodrasz 10y ago
I think the github repos are not relevant in hiring for most applicants, usually are good only as an info to have a card to start a conversation about some topic the applicant is expected to be somewhat proficient. Why would I want SO help for a language? Why is SO help needed for a language? Maybe it is just me, but I find SO largely overrated. Does it sound like a good business decision when starting a project: Let's use JavaScript, as there is a lot of StackOverflow help(?) about that language! I want to solve problems with a project, and for this the language is mostly irrelevant, and the help about the language is even more irrelevant. I won't have solutions for my problem, modeling it, solving it. The ecosystem is more relevant, but on SO the ecosystem related questions are usually killed off by the mods, as not being proper questions, so usually blogs with benchmarks or opinion pieces are more useful, yet those are not factored into this measurement. When starting a project do I want to make a project to have many contributors? Personally I start projects to solve problems, not to attract people, though I work in the software industry, not in entertainment. Sarcasm apart: If the project solves a problem for lots of people, it will surely attract contributors, even if it is done in a mildly popular, but not esoteric language. If I'd find a project in perl which is useful for me, and would need to hack some on it, I might even pick up some Perl to do it, and contribute it back. If a project is not useful, it can be written in however popular language, nobody will use it. The next point is valid, I said huh, when I saw that C is still kicking. Discover new languages? If I have never heard of them, that is probably for a reason. There are way more than being useful. Knowing a few (practically one from every paradigm, and some popular ones) on a basic level, and 1-2 at a good, one at advanced level is enough. Missing a few esoteric languages will likely not have an impact on my career.