Language Popularity

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Friday 29 October 2010 03:49:32 Jeff Nowakowski wrote:
> On 10/28/2010 04:45 PM, "Jérôme M. Berger" wrote:
> > Todd VanderVeen wrote:
> >> http://langpop.com/
> >> 
> > 	Interesting that D comes first on Reddit with a reasonably
> > 
> > comfortable margin ;)
> 
> It's how they performed the search. These stats are pure crap, because
> "D" matches tons of miscellaneous stuff. There's no way D is more
> popular than Python on reddit.
> 
> I remember years back when the D community was so obsessed over it's
> Tiobe number, watching every little movement, and those stats were
> complete crap too.

It's the sort of thing which is indicative of how much a language is discussed 
or used but which isn't accurate to base much off of. The fact that Java is near 
the top of most such lists whereas D is near the bottom definitely means 
something - Java is definitely used more than D. However, whether D is used more 
than Haskell or Erlang or any other language that might be near it on such lists 
means a lot less. And, of course, as you point out, D is a terrible name for a 
language from the standpoint of keyword searches, which doesn't help at all.

So, I wouldn't say that such lists are worth nothing, but you have to take them 
with a large grain of salt.

- Jonathan M Davis