How programmers transition between languages

[Paulo Pinto]

On Sunday, 28 January 2018 at 13:50:03 UTC, Michael wrote:
> On Friday, 26 January 2018 at 09:02:03 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad 
> wrote:
>> While this analysis of language popularity on Github is 
>> enlightening:
>>
>> http://www.benfrederickson.com/ranking-programming-languages-by-github-users/
>>
>> I found the older analysis of how programmers transition (or 
>> adopt new languages) more interesting:
>>
>> https://blog.sourced.tech/post/language_migrations/
>>
>> Like how people move from Rust to Go. And from Go to Python:
>>
>> https://blog.sourced.tech/post/language_migrations/sum_matrix_22lang_eig.svg
>>
>>
>> Also the growth of Java is larger than I would anticipate:
>>
>> https://blog.sourced.tech/post/language_migrations/eigenvect_stack_22lang.png
>>
>> Granted, Java has gotten quite a few convenience features over 
>> the years.
>
> I find it fascinating that C# is in the "languages to avoid" 
> section, because from my perspective it's receiving more and 
> more adoption as the modern alternative to Java, in a way that 
> Go and Rust are not. Different markets and all of that. So I 
> can't see why C# would be seen as a language that is dropping 
> in popularity (though I don't use it myself).
>
> I do worry that, having been using D for about 3 1/2 years now, 
> that the perceptions of D outside of this community don't seem 
> to be changing much. It does seem to make a huge difference to 
> have a big company behind a language, purely for the "free 
> advertisement". Most people at my university, outside of the 
> computer science department, that are using languages like 
> Python and R and MATLAB the most, are very aware of Rust and 
> Go, but not D. I wonder if we do need to pay more attention to 
> attracting new users just to get people talking about it.

This has been mentioned multiple times, D really needs some kind 
of killer application.

On my line of work having Go on the skills list is slowly 
becoming a requirement, due to Docker and Kubernetes adoption on 
cloud infrastructures.

The new OpenGL debugger for Android from Google has been 
re-written in Go.

Go and Rust are also having a relevant role in Fuchsia, e.g. the 
TCP/IP stack is 100% Go code.

The new regexp engine from Visual Studio Code is written in Rust.

The Go plugin for Visual Studio Code is written by Microsoft 
themselves.

D has PowerNex as an example OS, but Redox looks more pleasing to 
the eye, in what concerns attracting new developers to the 
project.

Just wondering if mir or easier GPGPU programming could be that 
killer application.