In our aim of attempting to estimate a programming language’s reputation, we realized that nobody can look over the shoulder of each individual writing code, whether or not that be a toddler writing a Java script for a private Minecraft server, a cell app developer hoping to hit it massive, or an aerospace engineer writing mission-critical code for a voyage to Mars. Our High Programming Languages interactive tries to sort out the issue of estimating a language’s reputation.
We do that by setting up measures of recognition from quite a lot of knowledge sources that we consider are good proxies for lively curiosity for every programming language. In complete we determine 59 programming languages. We then weight every knowledge supply to create an overall index of popularity. Beneath, we describe the sources of knowledge we use to get the measures, and the weighting scheme we use to provide the general indices.
By reputation, we imply we are attempting to rank languages which can be in lively use. We have a look at three totally different facets of recognition: languages in lively use amongst typical IEEE members and dealing software program engineers (the “Spectrum” rating), languages which can be in demand by employers (the “Jobs” rating), and languages which can be within the zeitgeist (the “Trending” rating).
We gauged the recognition of languages utilizing the next sources for a complete of eight metrics (see under). We gathered the data for all metrics in June–July 2023. The info had been gathered manually to keep away from outcomes being biased as a result of API adjustments or terminations and since lots of the programming language’s names (C++, Scheme) collided with widespread phrases present in analysis papers and job advertisements or had been troublesome for a search engine to parse. When a lot of search outcomes made it impractical to resolve ambiguities by inspecting all of them individually, we used a pattern of every knowledge supply, and decided the related pattern measurement primarily based on estimating the true imply with 95 % confidence. Not all knowledge sources include info for every programming language and we interpret this info because the programming language having “no hits” (i.e., not being in style).
The outcomes from every metric are normalized to provide a relative reputation rating between 0 and 1. Then the person metrics are multiplied by a weight issue, mixed, and the end result renormalized to provide an mixture reputation rating.
In aggregating metrics, we hope to compensate for statistical quirks which may distort a language’s reputation rating in any specific supply of knowledge. Various the load elements permits us to create the totally different outcomes for the Spectrum, Jobs, and Trending rankings. We totally acknowledge that, whereas these weights are subjective, they’re primarily based on our understanding of the sources and our prior protection of software program subjects. Various the load elements permits us to emphasise several types of reputation and produce the totally different reputation rankings. We then mixed every weighted knowledge supply for every program after which renormalized the ensuing frequency to provide an mixture reputation rating. In aggregating throughout every knowledge supply, we hope to compensate for statistical quirks which may distort a language’s reputation rating in any specific supply of knowledge.
The High Programming Languages was initially created by knowledge journalist Nick Diakopoulos. Our statistical methodology advisor is Hilary Wething. Rankings are computed utilizing R.
Google is the main search engine on this planet, making it a super match for estimating language reputation. We measured the variety of hits for every language by looking out on the template, “X programming language” (with citation marks) and manually recorded the variety of outcomes that had been returned by the search. We took the measurement in June 2023. We like this measure as a result of it signifies the quantity of on-line info assets about every programming language.
Stack Overflow
Stack Overflow is a well-liked web site the place programmers can ask questions on coding. We recorded the variety of questions tagged to every program throughout the final week previous to our search (June–July 2023). For the Mathematica/Wolfram language, we relied on the sister “Stack” for the Mathematica platform and tallied the variety of programming-related questions requested previously week. These knowledge had been gathered manually. This measure signifies what programming languages are at the moment trending.
IEEE Xplore Digital Library
IEEE maintains a digital library with tens of millions of convention and journal articles overlaying a big selection of scientific and engineering disciplines. We looked for articles that point out every of the languages within the template “X programming” for the years 2022 and 2023, as a result of that is the smallest timeframe for which we might entry articles. For search outcomes that returned hundreds of articles, we recognized the proper pattern measurement for a 95 % confidence interval (often a little bit over 300) and pulled that variety of articles. For every language we sampled, we recognized the share of articles that make the most of the programming language after which multiplied the full variety of articles by this share to tally the possible complete variety of articles that reference a given programming language. We performed this search in June 2023. This metric captures the prevalence of the totally different programming languages as used and referenced in engineering scholarship.
IEEE Job Website
We measured the demand for various programming languages in job postings on the IEEE Job Site. For search outcomes that returned hundreds of listings, we recognized the proper pattern measurement for a 95 % confidence interval (often round 300 outcomes) and pulled that variety of job listings to manually look at. For every language we sampled, we recognized the share of listings that make the most of the programming language after which multiplied the full variety of job listings by this share to tally the possible complete variety of job listings that reference a given programming language. Moreover, as a result of a number of the languages we observe could possibly be ambiguous in plain textual content—equivalent to lD, Go, J, Ada, and R—we looked for job postings with these phrases within the job description after which manually examined the outcomes, once more sampling entries if the variety of outcomes was massive. The search was performed in July 2023. We just like the IEEE Job Website for its massive variety of non-U.S. listings, making it a super to measure international reputation.
CareerBuilder
We measured the demand for various programming languages on the CareerBuilder job web site. We looked for “Developer” jobs provided inside america, as that is the most well-liked job title for programmers. We sampled 400 job advertisements and manually examined them to determine which languages employers talked about within the postings. The search was performed in July 2023. We just like the profession builder web site to determine the recognition of programmer jobs in america.
GitHub
GitHub is a public repository for a lot of volunteer-driven open-source software program tasks. We used knowledge gathered by GitHut 2.0, which measures the highest 50 languages utilized by the variety of repositories tagged with that language and attracts from GitHub’s public API. We use two metrics from GitHub: repositories which were “starred” by customers to mirror long-term pursuits, and the variety of pull requests to point present exercise. The info cowl the second quarter of 2023. These measures point out what languages coders select to work in after they have a private selection.
Trinity School Dublin Library
The library of Trinity College Dublin is considered one of six authorized deposit libraries in Eire and the UK. A duplicate have to be deposited with the library of any e-book printed or distributed in Eire, and on request any U.Okay. writer or distributor should additionally deposit a e-book. We looked for all books printed within the yr to this point that had their material categorized as laptop programming and totaled the variety of returns. The search was performed in June 2023. We like this library assortment as a result of it represents a big and categorized pattern of works, primarily within the English language.
Discord
Discord is popular chat-room platform where many programmers exchange information. We counted the number of tags that correspond to each language. In the case of languages that could also be names of nonprogramming topics, (many nonprogramming-related topics also have dedicated Discord servers; for example, “Julia” could refer to the programming language or the Sesame Street puppet), outcomes had been manually examined. Disboard was searched in June 2023. Disboard lists many public discord servers and lots of younger coders use the location, contributing a unique demographic of coders.
