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Using new SO questions as a metric for popularity is kind of weird. I mean, if people keep asking questions and getting answers, at some point people looking fo

Using new SO questions as a metric for popularity is kind of weird. I mean, if people keep asking questions and getting answers, at some point people looking for something already have an answer, right? Even when accounting for duplicates, you can expect the amount of new questions to lower with time. I guess a better metric would be the amount of upvotes over time for questions and answers about a topic.

stanislavb 9y ago
...and this is a pretty good point.
bjpbakker 9y ago
> at some point people looking for something already have an answer Yes, that's when you notice a technology is becoming more mature. But that doesn't mean there will not be any new questions however. When technology evolves people will have new questions. So the number of new questions may be a valid metric for how much the technology is evolving. I agree that number of new questions does not directly relate to popularity. To do that IMO we first need to find out the relation between popularity and evolution of technology. > I guess a better metric would be the amount of upvotes over time for questions and answers about a topic To measure the total number of people who experienced that particular problem, yes. Not to measure the popularity of a piece of technology IMO. But I'm not anywhere near an expert on this :)
matt_s 9y ago
I've made this point a few times here on HN. StackOverflow QA& isn't really a good indicator of anything industry wide. Most experienced developers who know their language just use API docs if needed to get things done. Sure there might be some obscure edge scenario you need to ask a question about once in a while. Beginners ask lots of questions also new languages/frameworks will generate interest and questions. That doesn't mean those are the things that are most used or most in demand in the industry. Also SO primarly contains questions on open source based web programming. This discounts entire sectors of the industry using proprietary tech. SO likes to publish their metrics since it brings more attention to them, its marketing, they are a business. A good way to track things would be if job postings (not just SO careers) could somehow be marked as filled. Then you could ascertain from the description what tech stack is used.
myth_drannon 9y ago
You are right, but using a metric such as SO Careers posts you can get a better picture. And indeed shockingly Spring became more popular than RoR (at least on SO Careers that has a mix of big corps and startups) . http://www.reallyhyped.com/?keywords=ruby-on-rails%2Cspring http://www.reallyhyped.com/?keywords=ruby-on-rails%2Cspring

stanislavb 9y ago

...and this is a pretty good point.

bjpbakker 9y ago

> at some point people looking for something already have an answer Yes, that's when you notice a technology is becoming more mature. But that doesn't mean there will not be any new questions however. When technology evolves people will have new questions. So the number of new questions may be a valid metric for how much the technology is evolving. I agree that number of new questions does not directly relate to popularity. To do that IMO we first need to find out the relation between popularity and evolution of technology. > I guess a better metric would be the amount of upvotes over time for questions and answers about a topic To measure the total number of people who experienced that particular problem, yes. Not to measure the popularity of a piece of technology IMO. But I'm not anywhere near an expert on this :)

matt_s 9y ago

I've made this point a few times here on HN. StackOverflow QA& isn't really a good indicator of anything industry wide. Most experienced developers who know their language just use API docs if needed to get things done. Sure there might be some obscure edge scenario you need to ask a question about once in a while. Beginners ask lots of questions also new languages/frameworks will generate interest and questions. That doesn't mean those are the things that are most used or most in demand in the industry. Also SO primarly contains questions on open source based web programming. This discounts entire sectors of the industry using proprietary tech. SO likes to publish their metrics since it brings more attention to them, its marketing, they are a business. A good way to track things would be if job postings (not just SO careers) could somehow be marked as filled. Then you could ascertain from the description what tech stack is used.

myth_drannon 9y ago

You are right, but using a metric such as SO Careers posts you can get a better picture. And indeed shockingly Spring became more popular than RoR (at least on SO Careers that has a mix of big corps and startups) . http://www.reallyhyped.com/?keywords=ruby-on-rails%2Cspring http://www.reallyhyped.com/?keywords=ruby-on-rails%2Cspring