What you are pointing out is nothing revelatory. That a statistical index is dependent on data and methodology is a vacuously true statement and not an argument

What you are pointing out is nothing revelatory. That a statistical index is dependent on data and methodology is a vacuously true statement and not an argument. That there are multiple indexes trying to measure the same thing is also true and not an argument. The point was to show an index which is well respected (criticisms not withstanding) as a counter to silly claims. I personally do not place much stock in these rankings since all of them are flawed in their sampling methodology due to using only publicly accessible indicators like google searches, stack overflow questions, job postings, Github and similar public repositories etc. C programmers on average are more experienced and hence have no need for these. They are already aware of most of the Good/Bad/Ugly about the language and are used to working out problems for themselves and hence don't show up in these metrics. Thus C/C++ rankings might appear to be waning when they are holding steady or rising much more slowly w.r.t. others.