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Introducing Stack Overflow Trends

37 points by var_explained 9y ago

dentemple 9y ago
The JavaScript "hype-cycle" is fast and cruel. Unless you're Angular or React, of course. But even then, while "Angular" has mostly regained the ground lost by its switch-over from "AngularJS", it's curious to note that the framework overall has been on the downswing. Does this reflect an ACTUAL trend in its popularity, or, as the article points out, do people just not need to ask as many questions about it anymore?
- andrvalg 9y ago
  I was thinking the same thing. This dataset is incomplete without answering questions like the following (I use React vs angular metaphor just for convenience sake): - How likely are React/Redux developers to search for answers on SO, as opposed to Angular developers? - How good are React docs / tutorials compared to Angular?
Buetol 9y ago
Impressive how some technologies have an hype bubble and some simply stabilized: http://i.imgur.com/nmacKa2.png http://i.imgur.com/nmacKa2.png, that's a neat predictor of a solid technology you can build upon. Some small bug, the Y axis can't go lower than 1 % as a maximum, that makes it hard to interpret less popular tags: http://imgur.com/a/zcYBW http://imgur.com/a/zcYBW
wgyn 9y ago
Cool stuff. But it's kind of surprising that you can't link to a tagged chart, only download a raw base-64 encoded SVG.
- var_explained 9y ago
  That feature has been added in the last few hours :) https://insights.stackoverflow.com/trends?tags=python%2Cphp%2Cr https://insights.stackoverflow.com/trends?tags=python%2Cphp%...
keesj 9y ago
I happened to be working on the same idea, but for startup jobs. Shameless plug: http://betalist.com/jobs/trends http://betalist.com/jobs/trends It's different from Stack Overflow in that it shows trends in market demand for programming languages/skills, but similar idea overall. Curious to see if SO will launch something similar for their own Jobs section as well.
netinstructions 9y ago
This is almost a better version of the tool I made a couple years ago to compare Stack Overflow tags - http://www.arepeopletalkingaboutit.com/ http://www.arepeopletalkingaboutit.com/ Only difference is that I try to highlight the number of answered questions, since a bunch of unanswered questions is less helpful than a bunch of answered questions.
matt_s 9y ago
The whole basis of stack overflow is asking questions about things you don't know or understand and mostly about open source software. "Tracking interest in programming languages and technologies" based on that premise means that the results will be flawed if you think they represent all of software development. Popular items on a Q&A site are going to tend toward things that are newish or are churning through releases where things are changing rapidly. jQuery is trending down and angular is trending up very quickly... does that mean angular has more interest? Or does that mean that most jQuery questions already have answers? It would be interesting if there was a general curve of Q&A about software tech to compare against. A control group if you will. Then you could see if something was growing faster than the control group.
vintagedave 9y ago
Interesting to compare trends on SO vs other data sources. I know of one language where SO use has greatly decreased, anecdotally from other forums because of SO culture, yet other measures show it's increasing in use. SO Trends is perhaps displaying popularity /on Stack Overflow/, which is actually a fascinating insight into the popularity of SO itself.
- var_explained 9y ago
  Which language is that? Definitely true that some technologies like SAS and Mathematica have a lot of off-Stack Overflow activity, but curious what you're referring to.

37 points by var_explained 9y ago

The JavaScript "hype-cycle" is fast and cruel. Unless you're Angular or React, of course. But even then, while "Angular" has mostly regained the ground lost by its switch-over from "AngularJS", it's curious to note that the framework overall has been on the downswing. Does this reflect an ACTUAL trend in its popularity, or, as the article points out, do people just not need to ask as many questions about it anymore?

andrvalg 9y ago
I was thinking the same thing. This dataset is incomplete without answering questions like the following (I use React vs angular metaphor just for convenience sake): - How likely are React/Redux developers to search for answers on SO, as opposed to Angular developers? - How good are React docs / tutorials compared to Angular?

Buetol 9y ago

Impressive how some technologies have an hype bubble and some simply stabilized: http://i.imgur.com/nmacKa2.png http://i.imgur.com/nmacKa2.png, that's a neat predictor of a solid technology you can build upon. Some small bug, the Y axis can't go lower than 1 % as a maximum, that makes it hard to interpret less popular tags: http://imgur.com/a/zcYBW http://imgur.com/a/zcYBW

wgyn 9y ago

Cool stuff. But it's kind of surprising that you can't link to a tagged chart, only download a raw base-64 encoded SVG.

var_explained 9y ago
That feature has been added in the last few hours :) https://insights.stackoverflow.com/trends?tags=python%2Cphp%2Cr https://insights.stackoverflow.com/trends?tags=python%2Cphp%...

keesj 9y ago

I happened to be working on the same idea, but for startup jobs. Shameless plug: http://betalist.com/jobs/trends http://betalist.com/jobs/trends It's different from Stack Overflow in that it shows trends in market demand for programming languages/skills, but similar idea overall. Curious to see if SO will launch something similar for their own Jobs section as well.

netinstructions 9y ago

This is almost a better version of the tool I made a couple years ago to compare Stack Overflow tags - http://www.arepeopletalkingaboutit.com/ http://www.arepeopletalkingaboutit.com/ Only difference is that I try to highlight the number of answered questions, since a bunch of unanswered questions is less helpful than a bunch of answered questions.

matt_s 9y ago

The whole basis of stack overflow is asking questions about things you don't know or understand and mostly about open source software. "Tracking interest in programming languages and technologies" based on that premise means that the results will be flawed if you think they represent all of software development. Popular items on a Q&A site are going to tend toward things that are newish or are churning through releases where things are changing rapidly. jQuery is trending down and angular is trending up very quickly... does that mean angular has more interest? Or does that mean that most jQuery questions already have answers? It would be interesting if there was a general curve of Q&A about software tech to compare against. A control group if you will. Then you could see if something was growing faster than the control group.

vintagedave 9y ago

Interesting to compare trends on SO vs other data sources. I know of one language where SO use has greatly decreased, anecdotally from other forums because of SO culture, yet other measures show it's increasing in use. SO Trends is perhaps displaying popularity /on Stack Overflow/, which is actually a fascinating insight into the popularity of SO itself.

var_explained 9y ago
Which language is that? Definitely true that some technologies like SAS and Mathematica have a lot of off-Stack Overflow activity, but curious what you're referring to.