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What is going on with measures of programming language popularity?

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Re: What is going on with measures of programming language popularity?

#81

Post by slow_donkey »

gaius wrote: post #78
octorian wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You used to be a "programmer". Now you're a data engineer, ops engineer, front-end engineer, back-end/full-stack engineer, ios/android/react, system/OS programmer, etc. I still wonder when there's actually going to be official training in these specialties, that counts as credentials when seeking employment. As far as I know (and I could be wrong), traditional education tends to be somewhat general. Which specialty…

You can totally do a MOOC in any of those things and put it on your CV

Which tends to be a signal for being unqualified

Re: What is going on with measures of programming language popularity?

#82

Post by gaius »

slow_donkey wrote: post #81
gaius wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can totally do a MOOC in any of those things and put it on your CV

Which tends to be a signal for being unqualified

What would you consider to be “official” enough then? All EdX MOOCs are backed by real institutions, for example.

Re: What is going on with measures of programming language popularity?

#83

Post by wincy »

munificent wrote: post #39

The TIOBE index is hot garbage, and always has been. Even so, this article is also pretty bad. Nowhere does the author define what he means by "popularity", which is one of the key problems all of these popularity contests suffer. If we say "Language X is more popular than language Y?" What does that mean? Answers could be any of: * Total extant corpus of X is larger than Y. * Number of people who know X is larger th…

There can also be local factors at work if you’re looking for a job. I had a job doing Elixir/Erlang (obviously not something people are writing everywhere), and did an analysis of job listings for languages in my city.

I ended up finding C#/.NET was listed on 33/50 recent job listings, Java was on 30/50 (some jobs had multiple languages listed), and other languages cropped up between 1-20 times or so.

So in my market, if I want a job where I don’t relocate (with a 3 year old and a baby and a wife who chooses not to work non-remote SV jobs are out), I’d better get to learning C#.

Re: What is going on with measures of programming language popularity?

#84

Post by WiseWeasel »

Scarblac wrote: post #80
WiseWeasel wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ooh, that's an interesting question. I'd have to go with highest total energy consumed through their metabolism and activities. Those with the highest chemical impact on the planet.

Why is that even the right direction of the axis? Couldn't you argue that the less energy you need for all your species' activities the better, if all else is equal?

Because energy is a limited resource, ability to extract a higher share of it implies competitive success. Also, it's possible to convert and directly compare the energy potential lost to the environment through the various mechanisms for metabolism and activity.

Re: What is going on with measures of programming language popularity?

#85

Post by WiseWeasel »

maxxxxx wrote: post #60
WiseWeasel wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ooh, that's an interesting question. I'd have to go with highest total energy consumed through their metabolism and activities. Those with the highest chemical impact on the planet.

I would go with the highest biomass :-). Whoever weights most in total wins. EDIT: According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_(ecology)#Ocean_biomas... it's earthworms.

Is a giant sequoia tree, the largest of which was able to accumulate ~1350 tons over 2000 years, more successful than the quantity of worms that lived under it during that time? A continual measurement per unit time seems more fair to me than instant current weight at any given time. Maybe if it was possible to measure the biomass generated over the course of the year for each species. I'd think that's directly related to their energy consumption.

Re: What is going on with measures of programming language popularity?

#86

Post by eldavido »

octorian wrote: post #72
eldavido wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false aggregate: https://blog.shortbar.com/false-aggregates-571745b2d483 If I'm writing a game I care about what's most popular with games. If I'm writing an enterprise reservation system, I care about that. These languages really live in completely different universes and I think it's time we acknowledge that. The one-size-fits-all survey of this sort feels like a holdover of a time when software developme…

> You used to be a "programmer". Now you're a data engineer, ops engineer, front-end engineer, back-end/full-stack engineer, ios/android/react, system/OS programmer, etc. I still wonder when there's actually going to be official training in these specialties, that counts as credentials when seeking employment. As far as I know (and I could be wrong), traditional education tends to be somewhat general. Which specialty…

I've been thinking about this recently.

The split started to happen about 5 years ago and it's really picked up velocity in the last year or two, to where it's getting hard to "jump" if you want to change. It's one of those slow, long-term things that's easy to miss if you aren't paying attention.

I think Udacity has a good model for this. I'm a generalist dev who has let curiosity drive my career more than anything else and feel I'm paying the penalty for it. Most places seem to want 5+ years specialization in whatever you're applying for if you're coming in at the senior level.

It's getting harder asking people to trust you if your resume isn't properly "tracked" into one specialty. I think that's a huge loss in terms of diversity and cross-skilling but perhaps necessary given the immense amount of sheer knowledge there is in each area, e.g. the entire iOS or Android API set.

Re: What is going on with measures of programming language popularity?

#87

Post by eldavido »

slow_donkey wrote: post #81
gaius wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can totally do a MOOC in any of those things and put it on your CV

Which tends to be a signal for being unqualified

Or maybe we're starting to act like a real profession, adopting the idea of "continuing education" they have in every other field from law to dietetics?

Just a thought

Re: What is going on with measures of programming language popularity?

#88

Post by Shorel »

octorian wrote: post #72
eldavido wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false aggregate: https://blog.shortbar.com/false-aggregates-571745b2d483 If I'm writing a game I care about what's most popular with games. If I'm writing an enterprise reservation system, I care about that. These languages really live in completely different universes and I think it's time we acknowledge that. The one-size-fits-all survey of this sort feels like a holdover of a time when software developme…

> You used to be a "programmer". Now you're a data engineer, ops engineer, front-end engineer, back-end/full-stack engineer, ios/android/react, system/OS programmer, etc. I still wonder when there's actually going to be official training in these specialties, that counts as credentials when seeking employment. As far as I know (and I could be wrong), traditional education tends to be somewhat general. Which specialty…

As has always been. Academia is a trailing indicator for the job market, except in a very small group of innovative fields.

This is just a return to the norm.

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