In our aim of attempting to estimate a programming language’s reputation, we realized that nobody can look over the shoulder of each particular person writing code, whether or not that be a baby writing a Java script for a private Minecraft server, a cellular app developer hoping to hit it large, or an aerospace engineer writing mission-critical code for a voyage to Mars. Our High Programming Languages interactive tries to deal with the issue of estimating a language’s reputation by in search of proxy indicators.
We do that by establishing measures of recognition from quite a lot of information sources that we imagine are good proxies for lively curiosity for every programming language. In complete, we determine 63 programming languages. We then weight every information supply to create an general index of recognition, excluding among the lowest scorers. Under, we describe the sources of information we use to get the measures, and the weighting scheme we use to supply the general indices.
By reputation, we imply we try to rank languages which might be in lively use. We take a look at three completely different features of recognition: languages in lively use amongst typical IEEE members and dealing software program engineers (the “Spectrum” rating), languages which might be in demand by employers (the “Jobs” rating), and languages which might be within the zeitgeist (the “Trending” rating).
We gauged the recognition of languages utilizing the next sources for a complete of eight metrics (see beneath). We gathered the data for all metrics in July—August 2024. The information have been gathered manually to keep away from outcomes being biased resulting from API modifications or terminations and since lots of the programming language’s names (C++, Scheme) collided with frequent phrases present in analysis papers and job adverts or have been troublesome for a search engine to parse. When a lot of search outcomes made it impractical to resolve ambiguities by analyzing all the outcomes individually, we used a pattern of every information supply, and decided the related pattern dimension primarily based on estimating the true imply with 95 p.c confidence. Not all information sources comprise data for every programming language and we interpret this data because the programming language having “no hits” (that’s, not being well-liked).
The outcomes from every metric are normalized to supply a relative reputation rating between 0 and 1. Then the person metrics are multiplied by a weight issue, mixed, and the outcome renormalized to supply an combination reputation rating.
In aggregating metrics, we hope to compensate for statistical quirks that may distort a language’s reputation rating in any specific supply of information. Various the load components permits us to create the completely 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 components permits us to emphasise several types of reputation and produce the completely different rankings. We then mixed every weighted information supply for every program after which renormalized the ensuing frequency to supply an combination reputation rating.
The High Programming Languages was initially created by information journalist Nick Diakopoulos. Our statistical methodology advisor is Hilary Wething. Analysis help was offered by Elizabeth Wooden. Rankings are computed utilizing R.
Google is the main search engine on this planet, making it a really perfect match for estimating language reputation. We measured the variety of hits for every language by looking on the template, “X programming language” (with citation marks) and manually recorded the variety of outcomes that have been returned by the search. We took the measurement in July 2024. We like this measure as a result of it signifies the amount of on-line data 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 inside the final week previous to our search (August 2024). For the Mathematica/Wolfram language, we relied on the sister “Stack” for the Mathematica platform and tallied the variety of programming-related questions requested up to now week. These information have been gathered manually. This measure signifies what programming languages are at present trending.
IEEE Xplore Digital Library
IEEE maintains a digital library with tens of millions of convention and journal articles protecting a wide 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 2023 and 2024, as a result of that is the smallest timeframe for which we may entry articles. For search outcomes that returned hundreds of articles, we recognized the right pattern dimension for a 95 p.c confidence interval (normally somewhat 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 overall 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 July 2024. This metric captures the prevalence of the completely different programming languages as used and referenced in engineering scholarship.
IEEE Job Web site
We measured the demand for various programming languages in job postings on the IEEE Job Web site. For search outcomes that returned hundreds of listings, we recognized the right pattern dimension for a 95 p.c confidence interval (normally 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 overall 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 among the languages we observe may very well be ambiguous in plain textual content—corresponding 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 giant. The search was performed in July 2024. We just like the IEEE Job Web site for its giant variety of non-U.S. listings, making it a really perfect to measure world 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 preferred job title for programmers. We sampled 400 job adverts and manually examined them to determine which languages employers talked about within the postings. The search was performed in July 2024. 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 information 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 information cowl the second quarter of 2024. These measures point out what languages coders select to work in after they have a private alternative.
Trinity School Dublin Library
The library of Trinity School Dublin is considered one of six authorized deposit libraries in Eire and the UK. A replica should be deposited with the library of any e book revealed or distributed in Eire, and on request any U.Okay. writer or distributor should additionally deposit a e book. We looked for all books revealed within the yr to this point that had their subject material categorized as laptop programming and totaled the variety of returns. The search was performed in June 2024. 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 well-liked chat-room platform the place many programmers trade data. We counted the variety of tags that correspond to every language. Within the case of languages that may be names of nonprogramming subjects, (many nonprogramming-related subjects even have devoted Discord servers; for instance, “Julia” may confer with the programming language or the Sesame Road puppet), outcomes have been manually examined. Disboard was searched in August 2024. Disboard lists many public discord servers and plenty of younger coders use the positioning, contributing a special demographic of coders.