I would say that Google searches for programming languages would be a little better as a benchmark. As it denotes the number of new users trying to learn a lang

I would say that Google searches for programming languages would be a little better as a benchmark. As it denotes the number of new users trying to learn a language (demand). Google Trends for (some) functional languages: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=31&q=erlang%2Cscala%2Cocaml%2Cclojure%2Chaskell&date=1%2F2010%2012m&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=31&q=erlang%2... Just a shame that you can't add more than 5.