Comments on: P-Languages on the Wane? http://lesscode.org/2005/08/04/p-languages-on-the-wane/ AAaaaaahhhhrrrrrrr! Mon, 17 Sep 2007 09:12:55 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.1 by: duncan http://lesscode.org/2005/08/04/p-languages-on-the-wane/#comment-182 Mon, 08 Aug 2005 14:11:47 +0000 http://lesscode.org/2005/08/04/p-languages-on-the-wane/#comment-182 <p>Cleary, it's a fine piece of reporting by El Reg in the mold of 'post something outrageous and watch the links roll in' but I do think there's a grain of truth in there somewhere.</p> <p>I'd say that, on average, about half the people developing in the P-languages aren't doing it to build the next Intel/SAP rival. They're doing it to build the next Flickr or the next Moveable Type.</p> Cleary, it’s a fine piece of reporting by El Reg in the mold of ‘post something outrageous and watch the links roll in’ but I do think there’s a grain of truth in there somewhere.

I’d say that, on average, about half the people developing in the P-languages aren’t doing it to build the next Intel/SAP rival. They’re doing it to build the next Flickr or the next Moveable Type.

]]> by: Harry Fuecks http://lesscode.org/2005/08/04/p-languages-on-the-wane/#comment-173 Sun, 07 Aug 2005 13:47:26 +0000 http://lesscode.org/2005/08/04/p-languages-on-the-wane/#comment-173 <p>Just for fun, some more lies and statistics thanks to alexa.com;</p> <p>Traffic to <a href="http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&#38;range=1y&#38;size=medium&#38;compare_sites=&#38;y=r&#38;url=python.org#top" rel="nofollow">python.org for the last year</a></p> <p>Traffic to <a href="http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&#38;range=1y&#38;size=medium&#38;compare_sites=&#38;y=r&#38;url=cpan.org#top" rel="nofollow">cpan.org for the last year</a></p> <p>Traffic to <a href="http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&#38;range=1y&#38;size=medium&#38;compare_sites=&#38;y=r&#38;url=php.net#top" rel="nofollow">php.net</a> for the last year.</p> <p>Traffic to <a href="http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&#38;range=1y&#38;size=medium&#38;compare_sites=&#38;y=r&#38;url=www.ruby-lang.org#top" rel="nofollow">ruby-lang.org</a> and <a href="http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&#38;range=1y&#38;size=medium&#38;compare_sites=&#38;y=r&#38;url=rubyforge.org#top" rel="nofollow">rubyforge.org</a> for the last year.</p> <p>They're all say basically the same thing.</p> Just for fun, some more lies and statistics thanks to alexa.com;

Traffic to python.org for the last year

Traffic to cpan.org for the last year

Traffic to php.net for the last year.

Traffic to ruby-lang.org and rubyforge.org for the last year.

They’re all say basically the same thing.

]]> by: Fredrik http://lesscode.org/2005/08/04/p-languages-on-the-wane/#comment-172 Sat, 06 Aug 2005 19:58:40 +0000 http://lesscode.org/2005/08/04/p-languages-on-the-wane/#comment-172 <p>My guess is that they use a narrow and badly controlled sample, leading to huge fluctuations. Remember, this is the same company that reported a 30% increase in MySQL use in only six months.</p> <p>I wonder how many interviewed developers that Python number represents? If Python usage (in this survey) is below 70% of that of PHP, this drop in Python usage is not even a statistically significant change according to the numbers on Evans own (PHP-driven) website.</p> My guess is that they use a narrow and badly controlled sample, leading to huge fluctuations. Remember, this is the same company that reported a 30% increase in MySQL use in only six months.

I wonder how many interviewed developers that Python number represents? If Python usage (in this survey) is below 70% of that of PHP, this drop in Python usage is not even a statistically significant change according to the numbers on Evans own (PHP-driven) website.

]]> by: Bob Ippolito http://lesscode.org/2005/08/04/p-languages-on-the-wane/#comment-169 Sat, 06 Aug 2005 09:03:23 +0000 http://lesscode.org/2005/08/04/p-languages-on-the-wane/#comment-169 <p>I certainly wouldn't mind if the people so easily swayed by such nonsense would just go waste their time with C# and Java.</p> <p>It'd certainly mean less competition for those of us running businesses built on agile languages... though, I guess the other side of the coin is that the unemployed überhackers that specialize in agile languages may have a harder time finding (boring) work.</p> I certainly wouldn’t mind if the people so easily swayed by such nonsense would just go waste their time with C# and Java.

It’d certainly mean less competition for those of us running businesses built on agile languages… though, I guess the other side of the coin is that the unemployed überhackers that specialize in agile languages may have a harder time finding (boring) work.

]]> by: Ryan Tomayko http://lesscode.org/2005/08/04/p-languages-on-the-wane/#comment-168 Fri, 05 Aug 2005 16:51:38 +0000 http://lesscode.org/2005/08/04/p-languages-on-the-wane/#comment-168 <p>Yea, I'm gonna third Harry's horseshit. The Reg or EDC could have dug a little deeper to find supporting evidence for such a bold claim. Those kinds of drops don't happen for no reason and you should see similarities between polls if they're acurate.</p> Yea, I’m gonna third Harry’s horseshit. The Reg or EDC could have dug a little deeper to find supporting evidence for such a bold claim. Those kinds of drops don’t happen for no reason and you should see similarities between polls if they’re acurate.

]]> by: Chris Foster http://lesscode.org/2005/08/04/p-languages-on-the-wane/#comment-167 Fri, 05 Aug 2005 14:26:54 +0000 http://lesscode.org/2005/08/04/p-languages-on-the-wane/#comment-167 <p>I second Harry's "horseshit." The stats are most likely compiled against responses from easy to find corporate/government trolls who are spoon fed .NET or legacy vendor Java solutions.</p> <p>Take a look at craigslist.org. There was no Python market for me locally last year, but now there is a slow, but steady stream. And, PHP opportunities pile up daily.</p> I second Harry’s “horseshit.” The stats are most likely compiled against responses from easy to find corporate/government trolls who are spoon fed .NET or legacy vendor Java solutions.

Take a look at craigslist.org. There was no Python market for me locally last year, but now there is a slow, but steady stream. And, PHP opportunities pile up daily.

]]> by: Harry Fuecks http://lesscode.org/2005/08/04/p-languages-on-the-wane/#comment-166 Fri, 05 Aug 2005 12:32:24 +0000 http://lesscode.org/2005/08/04/p-languages-on-the-wane/#comment-166 <p>Someone's gotta call horseshit.</p> <p>It's a shame The Register jumped on the story which is not a big step from "We surveyed 5 people on a bus and guess what?!? P* languages are in decline".</p> <p>Some slightly more solid stats:</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.tiobe.com/tpci.htm">http://www.tiobe.com/tpci.htm</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.php.net/usage.php">http://www.php.net/usage.php</a></li> </ul> <p>Also if you head to http://www.jobserve.com/ which is a UK based job search engine. I've always found it presents a pretty accurate picture of corporate demand for technologies. Listings are aged out quickly and are usually posted by specialist IT Job Agencies and usually represent a real requirement from a real business.</p> <p>Back in Nov 2002, on a good day you'd see about 70-80 PHP jobs listed. Today it's returning 271 jobs. Python is up from somewhere like 1-5 jobs back in 2002 to 84 right now. Perl I've never followed by right now there's 929 jobs listed and Ruby's putting in an appearance with 6. For reference Java has 3811 right now and C# - 1998, which helps convince me of the type of demand being reflected here.</p> <p>In the end if this survey has got it right, the hidden story must be corporations cutting back in web development and imminent IT downturn.</p> Someone’s gotta call horseshit.

It’s a shame The Register jumped on the story which is not a big step from “We surveyed 5 people on a bus and guess what?!? P* languages are in decline”.

Some slightly more solid stats:

Also if you head to http://www.jobserve.com/ which is a UK based job search engine. I’ve always found it presents a pretty accurate picture of corporate demand for technologies. Listings are aged out quickly and are usually posted by specialist IT Job Agencies and usually represent a real requirement from a real business.

Back in Nov 2002, on a good day you’d see about 70-80 PHP jobs listed. Today it’s returning 271 jobs. Python is up from somewhere like 1-5 jobs back in 2002 to 84 right now. Perl I’ve never followed by right now there’s 929 jobs listed and Ruby’s putting in an appearance with 6. For reference Java has 3811 right now and C# - 1998, which helps convince me of the type of demand being reflected here.

In the end if this survey has got it right, the hidden story must be corporations cutting back in web development and imminent IT downturn.

]]> by: Lorenzo Gatti http://lesscode.org/2005/08/04/p-languages-on-the-wane/#comment-165 Fri, 05 Aug 2005 07:30:39 +0000 http://lesscode.org/2005/08/04/p-languages-on-the-wane/#comment-165 <p>Statistics must be taken with a grain of salt, more so when the sample is undocumented: the "400 developers" might be writing downloadable cellphone trinkets, embedded control systems, Excel or Access "applications", DirectX or OpenGL shaders, anything for z/OS or older mainframe environments, JDBC drivers, console games, and countless other kinds of software where language choice is limited or nonexistent. I'd rather trust direct interest metrics like downloads and page views, mailing list volume, revenue of relevant companies.</p> Statistics must be taken with a grain of salt, more so when the sample is undocumented: the “400 developers” might be writing downloadable cellphone trinkets, embedded control systems, Excel or Access “applications”, DirectX or OpenGL shaders, anything for z/OS or older mainframe environments, JDBC drivers, console games, and countless other kinds of software where language choice is limited or nonexistent.
I’d rather trust direct interest metrics like downloads and page views, mailing list volume, revenue of relevant companies.

]]> by: Ryan Tomayko http://lesscode.org/2005/08/04/p-languages-on-the-wane/#comment-161 Fri, 05 Aug 2005 03:14:24 +0000 http://lesscode.org/2005/08/04/p-languages-on-the-wane/#comment-161 <p>The Reg just doubled up with <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/04/php_evans/" rel="nofollow">Is the web's love affair with PHP over?</a>. This time they're pointing the folly at the recent crop of LAMP startups:</p> <blockquote> <p>Andrew agrees that the big vendors are just keeping their options open. "I don't think PHP is going to go away fast - they have a large share of the market. Most of those suppliers have to remain open to multiple ways to be friendly," he said.</p> <p>If EDC is right, then the real problem is not for the tier one vendors who have deep pockets and multi-platform support to ride out any tactical snafu, but an emerging class of start-ups betting their business on LAMP. Companies like SpikeSource and SourceLabs plan to provide certification and testing for business software in the Linux, Apache, MySQL and Perl/Python/PHP (LAMP) stack. But, what happens if the "P" part of the stack is losing developers and evaporates?</p> <p>Andrew is confidant LAMP will adapt, and other open source languages will take the place of PHP. "[LAMP] was intended to be interchangeable - that's the beauty of it. That's the beauty of open standards and open source," he said.</p> </blockquote> The Reg just doubled up with Is the web’s love affair with PHP over?. This time they’re pointing the folly at the recent crop of LAMP startups:

Andrew agrees that the big vendors are just keeping their options open. “I don’t think PHP is going to go away fast - they have a large share of the market. Most of those suppliers have to remain open to multiple ways to be friendly,” he said.

If EDC is right, then the real problem is not for the tier one vendors who have deep pockets and multi-platform support to ride out any tactical snafu, but an emerging class of start-ups betting their business on LAMP. Companies like SpikeSource and SourceLabs plan to provide certification and testing for business software in the Linux, Apache, MySQL and Perl/Python/PHP (LAMP) stack. But, what happens if the “P” part of the stack is losing developers and evaporates?

Andrew is confidant LAMP will adapt, and other open source languages will take the place of PHP. “[LAMP] was intended to be interchangeable - that’s the beauty of it. That’s the beauty of open standards and open source,” he said.

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