4 ms·

It recently hit top 50 on one of the big lists of programming languages and I see more people getting into it every day. It is growing unless there's s lsrge dr

by lawik 6y ago

It recently hit top 50 on one of the big lists of programming languages and I see more people getting into it every day. It is growing unless there's s lsrge drain hole somewhere. Might not be growing relative to other larger langs but I'm fairly certain it is growing. And I've heard a lot of concern about it being niche so I tend to mention that it is growing. Because in my experience the biche is quite large and .. growing. I find plenty of work.

joelbluminator 6y ago
There's quite a disconnect between the amount of attention it gets on HN and the fact it's not in the top 40 languages. I mean Tiobe index has it behind Lua, Lisp and RPG (?). So yes you can definitely say it's a niche.
- 1_player 6y ago
  This is a forum composed mostly of software engineers working on web technologies in young companies or startups, which means we're usually at the bleeding edge of computing. The TIOBE Index represents the world of computing at large, including embedded development, industrial, financial, automotive, medical, hardware, etc. This is why C and Java are at the top of the TIOBE index and I'll argue will be there for the next 40 years, and doesn't mean that any language which is not C or Java are unpopular or niche. Ours might be a small percentage of total computing, but would you argue that web technologies/the Internet as a whole is a niche? There is a reason the embedded world still uses C, and there is a reason the web world doesn't. Using the TIOBE index as popularity contest is misguided.
  - joelbluminator 6y ago
    Elixir is niche. It's number 48 in Tiobe, in Redmonk it's not in the top 20, in Stackoverflow yearly surveys it dropped out of the list (too little usage). You mean to tell me a programming language not in the top 40 isn't niche? Hey I'm a Rubyist and I acknowledge the fact Ruby is niche (in some cities/countries you will have difficulty getting a Ruby job), yet even Ruby is way more popular than Elixir.
  - astrowilson 6y ago
    I can’t reply directly to the comment below yours, so it will be as a side comment. I don’t think anyone is arguing Elixir isn’t niche, we are just explaining why Elixir gets attention on HN even though it is top 50 on TIOBE. HN itself is focused on certain domains and tends to be early adopters.
    - joelbluminator 6y ago
      I think a lot of Elixir devs think or want to believe Elixir is bigger than it really is. That's what I understand from the guy I made the comment to. Now I don't enjoy popping people's bubbles but I think it's better for everyone to acknowledge the truth and then think how to deal with it.
      - 1_player 6y ago
        > Now I don't enjoy popping people's bubbles but I think it's better for everyone to acknowledge the truth and then think how to deal with it. How to deal with what? That Elixir isn't as popular, so I should tell my company to drop it? I should stop enjoying programming in it? Sorry, sounds like you don't want to accept that Elixir is on the up, for whatever reason. Yes, it's not super popular. Yes, people are being productive with it. I don't get the point of your comment.
        joelbluminator 6y ago
        I won't tell you what to do with it, but the fact is Elixir is not on the up, it's very niche (nichier than even Rust is) and it's probably starting to decline already. Look at Linkedin jobs Lisp - 142 Clojure - 700 Elixir - 828 Rust - 3160 Golang - 9205 Ruby - 24353 PHP - 68444 Java - 132606 So Elixir, at its peak, has about the amount of jobs Clojure has (never knew anyone using Clojure btw). That's quite a niche, ±800 jobs in the entire U.S is very very little. You might not care or have any action items from these facts, others may. As for companies - I would never choose something like Clojure/Elixir for my startup that's quite crazy considering the small eco system.

by lawik 6y ago

joelbluminator 6y ago

There's quite a disconnect between the amount of attention it gets on HN and the fact it's not in the top 40 languages. I mean Tiobe index has it behind Lua, Lisp and RPG (?). So yes you can definitely say it's a niche.

1_player 6y ago
This is a forum composed mostly of software engineers working on web technologies in young companies or startups, which means we're usually at the bleeding edge of computing. The TIOBE Index represents the world of computing at large, including embedded development, industrial, financial, automotive, medical, hardware, etc. This is why C and Java are at the top of the TIOBE index and I'll argue will be there for the next 40 years, and doesn't mean that any language which is not C or Java are unpopular or niche. Ours might be a small percentage of total computing, but would you argue that web technologies/the Internet as a whole is a niche? There is a reason the embedded world still uses C, and there is a reason the web world doesn't. Using the TIOBE index as popularity contest is misguided.
- joelbluminator 6y ago
  Elixir is niche. It's number 48 in Tiobe, in Redmonk it's not in the top 20, in Stackoverflow yearly surveys it dropped out of the list (too little usage). You mean to tell me a programming language not in the top 40 isn't niche? Hey I'm a Rubyist and I acknowledge the fact Ruby is niche (in some cities/countries you will have difficulty getting a Ruby job), yet even Ruby is way more popular than Elixir.
- astrowilson 6y ago
  I can’t reply directly to the comment below yours, so it will be as a side comment. I don’t think anyone is arguing Elixir isn’t niche, we are just explaining why Elixir gets attention on HN even though it is top 50 on TIOBE. HN itself is focused on certain domains and tends to be early adopters.
  - joelbluminator 6y ago
    I think a lot of Elixir devs think or want to believe Elixir is bigger than it really is. That's what I understand from the guy I made the comment to. Now I don't enjoy popping people's bubbles but I think it's better for everyone to acknowledge the truth and then think how to deal with it.
    - 1_player 6y ago
      > Now I don't enjoy popping people's bubbles but I think it's better for everyone to acknowledge the truth and then think how to deal with it. How to deal with what? That Elixir isn't as popular, so I should tell my company to drop it? I should stop enjoying programming in it? Sorry, sounds like you don't want to accept that Elixir is on the up, for whatever reason. Yes, it's not super popular. Yes, people are being productive with it. I don't get the point of your comment.
      - joelbluminator 6y ago
        I won't tell you what to do with it, but the fact is Elixir is not on the up, it's very niche (nichier than even Rust is) and it's probably starting to decline already. Look at Linkedin jobs Lisp - 142 Clojure - 700 Elixir - 828 Rust - 3160 Golang - 9205 Ruby - 24353 PHP - 68444 Java - 132606 So Elixir, at its peak, has about the amount of jobs Clojure has (never knew anyone using Clojure btw). That's quite a niche, ±800 jobs in the entire U.S is very very little. You might not care or have any action items from these facts, others may. As for companies - I would never choose something like Clojure/Elixir for my startup that's quite crazy considering the small eco system.