TIOBE December 2015 - D rose 5 positions

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad via Digitalmars-d]

On Friday, 8 January 2016 at 18:31:37 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>> He has categorically refused to add volatile or VLA...
>
> Because he prefers other solutions for those problems.

But programmers don't. Heap allocation is not a solution to VLA. 
VLA provides a bound on execution time, malloc doesn't.

> So accessibility is only required of web browsers?  Sure, many 
> antiquated native UI frameworks are almost as bad, but I'd 
> guess that none in wide use is as bad.

No, accessibility (for blind people etc) is required for all 
general public services. The web has standards that makes this 
low overhead. But obviously, if you have an accessible web 
service, you can provide alternative non-accessible means too. 
But you do need the accessible version.

> running the Dev version and then report them.  Many are weeded 
> out before hitting Chrome Stable, whereas others persisted over 
> many Stable releases, before magically disappearing one day, 
> likely randomly fixed by some commit that introduced some other 
> bug. ;)

Ah ok. The issues I have had was only triggered when using non-OS 
fonts (webfonts).

> decide that for yourself.  In any case, since it's still using 
> the same client-server approach as the web, I don't think it 
> matters: that entire approach is doomed.

Still wishful thinking... ;) You seem to take a political stance 
on this. That's ok, but if it isn't commercial friendly it won't 
gain traction easily.

> usually cycles them every couple days between customers.  In 
> any case, not a real problem with current p2p tech, which 
> doesn't assume it.

Ok, I've never used p2p on mobile. I don't use p2p on the desktop 
anymore either. I generally avoid apps that connect to random 
servers. It makes your connection and machine more vulnerable to 
attacks.

> Did any companies have more critical mass than Microsoft with 
> Windows and Intel with x86 chips?  Yet, they missed the largest 
> computing platform of them all, the smartphone, which Apple 
> rode to become the largest and most profitable company on the 
> planet.  You greatly overestimate the value of "mass" in this 
> day and age.

Windows still has critical mass in businesses. Microsoft also 
missed the Internet, but managed somehow to dominate it 
eventually, for over a decade, with IE, and still has a dominant 
position alongside Chrome. The tail for IE and Windows is 
looooong. I even have a machine with XP still, because of 
software I have on it.

Smartphones took over the feature-phone market, not the desktop. 
Yet many people prefer feature phones still. I do. I use a tablet 
in my backpack, and a cheap robust feature phone in my jacket, it 
has 30 days battery life and is basically unbreakable (I drop it 
into the ground/pavement frequently). Smartphones are fashionable 
gadgets, but not very practical (big size, breaks easily, no 
battery life) or particularly useful. But because they are 
fashionable people try to invent use scenarios for them, thus you 
gets lots of "superfluous" apps, making them seem like a 
necessity. "You need one in order to be part of society". But 
that is rubbish.

The same goes for "you have to be on Facebook in order to be part 
of society". I got into such social media 20+ years ago, got 
bored with it 10 years ago. We had access to iPAQs with wireless 
networking 15 years ago. If you get access to tech ahead of the 
curve (like 10+ years) and the actual realization of it becomes 
rather bland... And you can just sit down and wait for it to 
taper off.

That is not true for the web. I was underimpressed with the web 
when it was introduced. Today I am impressed. It is dominating 
the desktop severely.

The enabling factor of mobile apps is not mind-blowing on the 
same level. I am under-impressed. Ipad is an excellent gaming 
platform, a decent reader and browser unit. Chat I got fed up 
with in 1992... ;)

The only big negative for web tech is the lack of a solution for 
small/micro-payments.

> Open source would definitely be a big piece of the p2p wave, as 
> you could get a lot more done with less source using each, but 
> I think there will be a big role for new business models too.

First you need to fix vulnerability issues such as DoS and 
breakin. P2P isn't viable as the general paradigm until that is 
fixed.

> No idea what this means, you think the web won because it was 
> open source?  It was an open standard, but it certainly was not 
> open source when it won in the '90s.

I think the web managed to keep an open document model because:

1. There were enough good  free widespread browsers to prevent a 
closed binary protocol from emerging.

2. The standards emerged from an open infrastructure project that 
had wide support in the academic community and therefore also 
among programmers. Meaning: society as a whole was behind it.

IE6 created issues for developers, but not for the open format, 
although the immature browser wars was far from ideal and had 
some negative effects.

One problem for new projects is that commercial interests will 
try to displace the tech before it gains widespread adoption. 
That has happened with chat. Over and over.