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>Note the big spike on the left and the mostly sub-2% numbers for programmers coding more than 50% of the time in one language. I expect, after some reflection,
by ultimoo 14y ago
>Note the big spike on the left and the mostly sub-2% numbers for programmers coding more than 50% of the time in one language. I expect, after some reflection, that most readers will find this chart unexceptional.
Am I missing something? I find the first graph in the article quite difficult to comprehend in terms of what it signifies. Although the numbers are "sub 2%" after the 50% line, isn't it an aggregation across 5 data points on the x-axis and 7 languages that will still add up to a substantial number of developers who program mostly in a single language?
I am yet to meet someone who vastly switches between languages on a daily basis in given 12 month period. One occurrence is probably working on a python and javascript for a webapp and writing an occasional chef cookbook in ruby.
- tracker1 14y agoGoing back around 15 years, I was mostly in VB5-6, some VBScript, some JavaScript and some SQL. 10 years ago that expanded to include C#, VB.Net, ActionScript/Flash... most of those used at least a few hours a week, and often switching between the two... Today, it's about 1/2 .Net web projects C#/HTML/CSS/JS and the other half NodeJS backend code (JS), with more movement towards full-stack Js (NodeJS, MongoDB, web front end). I like looking at different languages/tools/platforms, and am a bit into different languages. I've actually liked JS for a long time. The nature of web based apps make it a requirement, so it is nice to see decent frameworks take hold server-side that use it. Just pointing, that for me personally, if you add all the web stuff, more than half my time is in JS these days, and a decade or five years ago, I could not say the same.
- zaphar 14y agoIn the last 12 months I have written Java, Python, C++ and Go for work. I don't switch daily but it's not unusual for the switching be weekly or semi-monthly. That seems pretty polyglot to me. I'm not unusual at work either. Many of us switch among the big 3 of Java, Python, and C++. It is possible that Google is unique in this though.
- coolsunglasses 14y agoHow do you like Go? I've been bouncing between Python, Clojure, and Go lately.
- zaphar 14y agoGo is my current favourite. It is opinionated in ways I appreciate and it is very low friction.
- Groxx 14y agofwiw I switch between Javascript, Ruby, SQL, Objective C, and Java pretty frequently (all at one job), and I don't work at Google.