Github and Stackoverflow programming language popularity
1–10 of 48 posts
Re: Github and Stackoverflow programming language popularity
#2Somehow I do not feel confidant about correlating language popularity on stackoverflow to the actual popularity. For some languages (e.g. in my observation:, c#, objective c), there are only few tutorial/sample code outside of stackoverflow as compared to other languages (e.g. again in my observation Java). This makes more and more activity on stackoverflow for some languages as compared to the other languages which has more sample/tutorial on other place on internet.
In my observation, whenever I am writing code in c# and objective c, I almost always land to stackoverflow by google search but this is not the case whenever I write code in JAVA
Re: Github and Stackoverflow programming language popularity
#3My interpretation of this is that Common Lisp is a computer scientist's language (lots of code written in it, very few questions, presumably these are very advanced level questions).
On the other hand, C# and Visual Basic are weekend coders' languages (reasonable amounts of code, massive amounts of very basic level questions).
Re: Github and Stackoverflow programming language popularity
#4Somehow I do not feel confidant about correlating language popularity on stackoverflow to the actual popularity. For some languages (e.g. in my observation:, c#, objective c), there are only few tutorial/sample code outside of stackoverflow as compared to other languages (e.g. again in my observation Java). This makes more and more activity on stackoverflow for some languages as compared to the other languages which…
It's not called JAVA. It's called Java. Why do you write it in all-caps?
Re: Github and Stackoverflow programming language popularity
#5Somehow I do not feel confidant about correlating language popularity on stackoverflow to the actual popularity. For some languages (e.g. in my observation:, c#, objective c), there are only few tutorial/sample code outside of stackoverflow as compared to other languages (e.g. again in my observation Java). This makes more and more activity on stackoverflow for some languages as compared to the other languages which…
It's not called JAVA. It's called Java. Why do you write it in all-caps?
Does that matter? Are Java and JAVA so different? I am not a native English speaker.
Re: Github and Stackoverflow programming language popularity
#6Somehow I do not feel confidant about correlating language popularity on stackoverflow to the actual popularity. For some languages (e.g. in my observation:, c#, objective c), there are only few tutorial/sample code outside of stackoverflow as compared to other languages (e.g. again in my observation Java). This makes more and more activity on stackoverflow for some languages as compared to the other languages which…
(disclaimer: i'm the author) it's important to keep two things in mind when considering any ranking: first, and most obviously, no language ranking will be perfect for all readers, because the metrics for ranking languages will vary on an individual basis. second, the intent of the ranking. for our purposes at redmonk, this is an important consideration, because we neither intend to nor claim to produce rankings that are representative of language use broadly. if the rankings were representative of all use, languages such as COBOL would have a substantial presence on the list. we are rather interested in communities that we believe to be more predictive in terms of future use, of which github and stackoverflow are two obvious examples. the sustained strength of javascript on both properties has been one example of their ability to identify trending languages.
as for the criticisms regarding the usage of stackoverflow above, this is why we correlate the stackoverflow rankings with github. one represents discussion and research about a language, the other is manifestation of activity within a language. what's interesting is that the correlation between these properties has historically been strong and appears to be getting stronger over time.
again, no ranking is perfect - ours included - but we feel that measuring programming language interest and traction via these properties is at the very least an interesting datapoint.
Re: Github and Stackoverflow programming language popularity
#7Check out my article "Measuring Language Popularity is Harder Than Many Think" http://smthngsmwhr.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/measuring-popula... and I must say that both github.com and stackoverflow.com are not just typical sites and getting data only from those sites is not enough. JavaScript is very popular at github.com and C# at stackoverflow.com Other sources give different results as well.
We may be more or less sure only in 10 or so most popular languages and judging relative online popularity may be hard for them.
Re: Github and Stackoverflow programming language popularity
#8And judging the relative popularity for less popular languages such as Common Lisp is even less precise if we base the research only on github and stackoverflow. So I would be very careful with this comparison of language popularity. Although it is better to have some chart that none :)
Re: Github and Stackoverflow programming language popularity
#9Somehow I do not feel confidant about correlating language popularity on stackoverflow to the actual popularity. For some languages (e.g. in my observation:, c#, objective c), there are only few tutorial/sample code outside of stackoverflow as compared to other languages (e.g. again in my observation Java). This makes more and more activity on stackoverflow for some languages as compared to the other languages which…
(disclaimer: i'm the author) it's important to keep two things in mind when considering any ranking: first, and most obviously, no language ranking will be perfect for all readers, because the metrics for ranking languages will vary on an individual basis. second, the intent of the ranking. for our purposes at redmonk, this is an important consideration, because we neither intend to nor claim to produce rankings that…
Completely agree.
I commented based on my personal observation which, I guess, can not be generalized.
Re: Github and Stackoverflow programming language popularity
#10My interpretation of this is that Common Lisp is a computer scientist's language (lots of code written in it, very few questions, presumably these are very advanced level questions). On the other hand, C# and Visual Basic are weekend coders' languages (reasonable amounts of code, massive amounts of very basic level questions).
>On the other hand, C# and Visual Basic are weekend coders' languages
Or they simply have anti-git bias in developer's culture. Like F#, which is not popular among beginners but placed far away over median too.