Thursday, August 07, 2008
C++, C, and Java popularity on web steadily falling since 2002
I want to preface this by saying that not everyone regards the monthly TIOBE Programming Language Rankings to have the same amount of value. The way TIOBE rankings are determined are a bit unorthodox. They count the number of hits returned for each language when it is passed to a web search engine.
This popularity I speak of below basically means popularity with web searchers, not people or projects. You have to decide yourself how much that means.
According to the monthly list C++, Java, and C programming languages' popularity is dropping. Personally, I have done most of my professional programming using these 3 langauages.
No, I am not surprised that C++ has gone down some. What surprises me is that its share of the programming market has gone down from 15% to 18% between 2002-2004 - to only 10% last month (July 2008).
There was a brief upward spike in 2004 and a brief downward spike at the end of 2007 (last year). The downward spike was another jaw-dropper to me. C++ plunged down to only 8%.
I programmed for over half a decade in C++ and that was the period during which I learned what object-oriented programming was, and how to use the leverage it affords to make systems faster and with fewer worries than say using C, which I have also used for half a decade or so.
I am not just some guy who "tasted C++ and spit it out". I do prefer programming in Java over C++ but I feel confident working in both languages.
My reason for checking the TIOBE programming language ranking site was, frankly, to see if C++ popularity had increased in the past 2-3 years. I was thinking perhaps it had gone up a little bit.
The overall trend is that C++ is losing an average of 1.5% per year. If you take its current figure of 10% and divide by 1.5%, you get a little less than 7 years left in C++ language.
It is just math. That does not mean that is what will happen, just that it seems like that is what is happening.
Java popularity has been falling steadily too! Just not as remarkably fast as C++. Java is more than twice as popular now too as C++.
Java enjoys the top-ranked spot among programming language and enjoys a 21% popularity rating. Yet it is still decreasing.
C is dropping in popularity too!
Speaking of C, I sort of assumed that the popularity of C had been quite low since the 1990s.
C at 20% popularity in 2002. It is at 16% this month. It is not particularly low. In fact, C is #2 - right behind Java which is ranked #1.
What language is picking up the slack for C++, C, and Java as their popularity steadily declines?
Multiple languages.
C and its two object-oriented offspring C++ and Java are losing some of their overall percentage of popularity.
Three dynamically-typed languages without separate compile and run steps are steadily taking up the slack.
There are two other surprises.
The first surprise is that C seems to have maintained higher popularity than C++ since at least 2001, which is as far back as the TIOBE survey goes.
My expectation would have been that once we got out of the 1990s, C++ would have surpassed C or else been snapping at its heels.
The second surpise is that the popularity of C# is measured really low - below 4%. It is ranked #8, down from #7 a year ago. I had assumed that C# was gaining in popularity and it was eating into Java popularity. Not really the case.
Bear in mind, this is just a survey of web searches - not people or companies.
This popularity I speak of below basically means popularity with web searchers, not people or projects. You have to decide yourself how much that means.
According to the monthly list C++, Java, and C programming languages' popularity is dropping. Personally, I have done most of my professional programming using these 3 langauages.
No, I am not surprised that C++ has gone down some. What surprises me is that its share of the programming market has gone down from 15% to 18% between 2002-2004 - to only 10% last month (July 2008).
There was a brief upward spike in 2004 and a brief downward spike at the end of 2007 (last year). The downward spike was another jaw-dropper to me. C++ plunged down to only 8%.
I programmed for over half a decade in C++ and that was the period during which I learned what object-oriented programming was, and how to use the leverage it affords to make systems faster and with fewer worries than say using C, which I have also used for half a decade or so.
I am not just some guy who "tasted C++ and spit it out". I do prefer programming in Java over C++ but I feel confident working in both languages.
My reason for checking the TIOBE programming language ranking site was, frankly, to see if C++ popularity had increased in the past 2-3 years. I was thinking perhaps it had gone up a little bit.
The overall trend is that C++ is losing an average of 1.5% per year. If you take its current figure of 10% and divide by 1.5%, you get a little less than 7 years left in C++ language.
It is just math. That does not mean that is what will happen, just that it seems like that is what is happening.
Java popularity has been falling steadily too! Just not as remarkably fast as C++. Java is more than twice as popular now too as C++.
Java enjoys the top-ranked spot among programming language and enjoys a 21% popularity rating. Yet it is still decreasing.
C is dropping in popularity too!
Speaking of C, I sort of assumed that the popularity of C had been quite low since the 1990s.
C at 20% popularity in 2002. It is at 16% this month. It is not particularly low. In fact, C is #2 - right behind Java which is ranked #1.
What language is picking up the slack for C++, C, and Java as their popularity steadily declines?
Multiple languages.
- PHP
- Python
- Visual Basic (VB)
C and its two object-oriented offspring C++ and Java are losing some of their overall percentage of popularity.
Three dynamically-typed languages without separate compile and run steps are steadily taking up the slack.
There are two other surprises.
The first surprise is that C seems to have maintained higher popularity than C++ since at least 2001, which is as far back as the TIOBE survey goes.
My expectation would have been that once we got out of the 1990s, C++ would have surpassed C or else been snapping at its heels.
The second surpise is that the popularity of C# is measured really low - below 4%. It is ranked #8, down from #7 a year ago. I had assumed that C# was gaining in popularity and it was eating into Java popularity. Not really the case.
Bear in mind, this is just a survey of web searches - not people or companies.
Labels: java, php, programming, python, statistics
