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People will stop paying attention to TIOBE when there is a better metric. Most HN readers are probably aware of TIOBE's limitations, but it is better than noth
by rwj 13y ago
People will stop paying attention to TIOBE when there is a better metric. Most HN readers are probably aware of TIOBE's limitations, but it is better than nothing.
- MetaCosm 13y agoTL;DR - TIOBE is crap, bad information is worse than no information. I agree with your first point, people will take any information over no information (for better or worse). I highly doubt most HN readers are aware of the limitations, else they wouldn't put so high a value on it, so I don't concur with your second point. Your final point I vehemently disagree with, bad information is worse than no information. A lie is worse than silence. Misinformation is more harmful that no information. TIOBE is hardly anything to be taken seriously. In 2004, when Google swapped an algorithm, a bunch of TIOBE "rankings" swung massively. Back then they only used Google (the rankings are generated from search engine results, more results == better). Now they use multiple engines, but the list of issues that make it crap persist. * Older languages like Perl, have years of postings and pages to draw from ... even if many of them are wrong with current Perl. * Better documented languages generate less noise in terms of pages * Languages with a higher base level developers (lisp, haskell) tend to generate less pages of noise * The system is very easily gamed by anyone with the motivation (not sure if anyone cares) * Communities that rally around good answers rather than repeat themselves generate less noise Noise == Search Results == Rank