3 ms·

If programmers are leaving VB and aren't going to C#, where are they going?

7 points by nreece 18y ago

TomOfTTB 18y ago
I think this is an example of someone trying to extrapolate data from a source that's incapable of providing the conclusions he wants. He’s using Google Trends to try to determine the popularity of programming languages which doesn’t logically track. I’ll give you one example of what I mean. He states that over the last 5 years searches for C# have remained flat and that VB.NET searches are going down. But in the last 5 years several very helpful .Net aggregation sites have gone up (dotnetkicks, asp.net weblogs, stackoverflow, etc...). That aggregation trend might cause people to search less That’s just one of many reasons why search results aren’t an accurate measure of language popularity.
bdfh42 18y ago
OK none of this is scientific - just observations: A lot of old school (shall we call them) programmers are still operating but in their "comfort zone" in VB5 and VB6 - which is why they are not searching for new information and tools on the Net. Lot's of occasional programmers have just given up - there is a good deal more "bodging" of mini apps using spreadsheets within businesses that I get a chance to observe. This is probably good for the overall quality of corporate code but worrying - while some of those old VB apps were pretty clunky home grown spreadsheets are just about guaranteed to be buggy and likely to lead to management errors/
DougBTX 18y ago
Interesting line about "every other traditional language is trending downward". I don't really consider c# a traditional language, and other non-traditional languages such as ruby, python are also flat (as compared to not dropping).
ananthrk 18y ago
Perhaps developers are using Live.com instead of Google? I'd accept that if it were just the Microsoft languages, but LAMP programmers leaving Google for Live.com? I don't think so. Something real is happening. insight :)

3 ms·

If programmers are leaving VB and aren't going to C#, where are they going?

7 points by nreece 18y ago

TomOfTTB 18y ago
I think this is an example of someone trying to extrapolate data from a source that's incapable of providing the conclusions he wants. He’s using Google Trends to try to determine the popularity of programming languages which doesn’t logically track. I’ll give you one example of what I mean. He states that over the last 5 years searches for C# have remained flat and that VB.NET searches are going down. But in the last 5 years several very helpful .Net aggregation sites have gone up (dotnetkicks, asp.net weblogs, stackoverflow, etc...). That aggregation trend might cause people to search less That’s just one of many reasons why search results aren’t an accurate measure of language popularity.
bdfh42 18y ago
OK none of this is scientific - just observations: A lot of old school (shall we call them) programmers are still operating but in their "comfort zone" in VB5 and VB6 - which is why they are not searching for new information and tools on the Net. Lot's of occasional programmers have just given up - there is a good deal more "bodging" of mini apps using spreadsheets within businesses that I get a chance to observe. This is probably good for the overall quality of corporate code but worrying - while some of those old VB apps were pretty clunky home grown spreadsheets are just about guaranteed to be buggy and likely to lead to management errors/
DougBTX 18y ago
Interesting line about "every other traditional language is trending downward". I don't really consider c# a traditional language, and other non-traditional languages such as ruby, python are also flat (as compared to not dropping).
ananthrk 18y ago
Perhaps developers are using Live.com instead of Google? I'd accept that if it were just the Microsoft languages, but LAMP programmers leaving Google for Live.com? I don't think so. Something real is happening. insight :)