Google Trends shows most language searches declining

Posted by snowbird122 on Monday April 07, 2008 @12:04AM
from the self-post dept.

I'm always curious about what languages are gaining or losing popularity. I queried google trends and got some surprising results. Just about every language appears to be declining. I'd be interested in hearing some possible explanations.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=ruby%2C+python%2C+.net%2C+perl%2C+lisp http://www.google.com/trends?q=java%2C+c%23%2C+c%2B%2B%2C+html%2C+javascript&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

( 7 comments | 2 points | on HN )

Re:Google Trends shows most language searches declining by noodle on Monday April 07, 2008 @12:27AM (#156664)

its not necessarily that the languages are declining, its that google is becoming more mainstream. the amount of language searches could be increasing, just increasing at a slower rate than non-language searches.

"Google Trends analyzes a portion of Google web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you enter, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. We then show you a graph with the results -- our search-volume graph -- plotted on a linear scale."

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Google Trends shows most language searches declining by enonko on Monday April 07, 2008 @12:24AM (#156662)

AFAIK Google trends normalizes to total search volume. Therefore, it probably means that more and more people who use Google don't care about programming languages.

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Re:Google Trends shows most language searches declining by snowbird122 on Monday April 07, 2008 @12:37AM (#156668)

Thanks. That does explain it. Now for the better question: Is there an impartial source to quantitatively show what languages are gaining/losing popularity?

I found this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/3952/ref=pd_ts_b_...

and this older link: http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/08/programming-langua...

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Re:Google Trends shows most language searches declining by etal on Monday April 07, 2008 @01:11AM (#156686)

Here's one I like:

http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index....

The index checks three search engines for references to each of 100 programming languages and tracks the number of hits. So, it's a measure of buzz. Popularity could mean a lot of things, but buzz/hype is probably the easiest one to gauge.

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Re:Google Trends shows most language searches declining by redorb on Monday April 07, 2008 @12:41AM (#156671)

how about - using google code to establish a base.

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Re:Google Trends shows most language searches declining by rouli on Monday April 07, 2008 @12:07PM (#156941)

Wow, they really like .net in India

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Re:Google Trends shows most language searches declining by flashgordon on Monday April 07, 2008 @10:24PM (#157435)

I am not surprised. After all .net IS a very enterprise language, so youd expect to see it in every certification-cafe on every street-corner!

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