in reply to LUI: Language Usage Indicators page
An interesting concept, but any attempt to bring popularity by numbers into an argument isn't going to hold as much water as it might first appear.
Age has a lot to do with it. Newer languages could naturally be expected to be "better" (based on more experience/research/whatever going into their design, learning from the older guys) but they will still take awhile to catch up with say, C++'s or Java's huge head start.
Or, for years and years native Windows development had to be done in old VB or C++; now you can use C#. In fact, it's almost the automatic choice for it these days (or VB.NET), but lots of stuff was already done in C(++), lots of people had to learn it, now people have to maintain it, and most people are naturally opposed to change, and that influences the metrics.
And what about versioning? Person A might use Python over Ruby until Ruby 1.9 finalizes with those whatever really important features he was looking for.
Anyway, cool nonetheless, I guess I'm just saying it seems to be more useful to look to the future than to the past when deciding which languages to learn or whatever.
Age has a lot to do with it. Newer languages could naturally be expected to be "better" (based on more experience/research/whatever going into their design, learning from the older guys) but they will still take awhile to catch up with say, C++'s or Java's huge head start.
Or, for years and years native Windows development had to be done in old VB or C++; now you can use C#. In fact, it's almost the automatic choice for it these days (or VB.NET), but lots of stuff was already done in C(++), lots of people had to learn it, now people have to maintain it, and most people are naturally opposed to change, and that influences the metrics.
And what about versioning? Person A might use Python over Ruby until Ruby 1.9 finalizes with those whatever really important features he was looking for.
Anyway, cool nonetheless, I guess I'm just saying it seems to be more useful to look to the future than to the past when deciding which languages to learn or whatever.
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