In our purpose 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 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.
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 establish 59 programming languages. We then weight every information supply to create an general index of recognition. Beneath, we describe the sources of information we use to get the measures, and the weighting scheme we use to provide the general indices.
By reputation, we imply we try to rank languages which can be in lively use. We have a look at three totally different points 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 beneath). We gathered the data for all metrics in June–July 2023. The info had been gathered manually to keep away from outcomes being biased attributable to API modifications or terminations and since most of the programming language’s names (C++, Scheme) collided with frequent 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 analyzing all of them individually, we used a pattern of every information supply, and decided the related pattern dimension primarily based on estimating the true imply with 95 % confidence. Not all information sources comprise data for every programming language and we interpret this data 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 consequence renormalized to provide an mixture 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 burden 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 burden elements permits us to emphasise several types of reputation and produce the totally different reputation rankings. We then mixed every weighted information supply for every program after which renormalized the ensuing frequency to provide an mixture reputation rating. In aggregating throughout every information supply, we hope to compensate for statistical quirks that may distort a language’s reputation rating in any specific supply of information.
The High Programming Languages was initially created by information journalist Nick Diakopoulos. Our statistical methodology advisor is Hilary Wething. Rankings are computed utilizing R.
Google is the main search engine on the planet, making it a super 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 had been returned by the search. We took the measurement in June 2023. We like this measure as a result of it signifies the amount of on-line data sources about every programming language.
Stack Overflow
Stack Overflow is a well-liked website 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 up to now week. These information had been gathered manually. This measure signifies what programming languages are presently trending.
IEEE Xplore Digital Library
IEEE maintains a digital library with tens of millions of convention and journal articles masking 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 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 dimension for a 95 % confidence interval (normally 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 carried out 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 Website. For search outcomes that returned hundreds of listings, we recognized the proper pattern dimension for a 95 % confidence interval (normally round 300 outcomes) and pulled that variety of job listings to manually study. 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 few of the languages we monitor may very well be ambiguous in plain textual content—similar 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 carried out 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 website. We looked for “Developer” jobs provided inside the USA, as that is the most well-liked job title for programmers. We sampled 400 job advertisements and manually examined them to establish which languages employers talked about within the postings. The search was carried out in July 2023. We just like the profession builder website to establish the recognition of programmer jobs in the USA.
GitHub
GitHub is a public repository for a lot of volunteer-driven open-source software program initiatives. 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 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 School Dublin is one among six authorized deposit libraries in Eire and the UK. A duplicate have to 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 12 months up to now that had their material categorized as pc programming and totaled the variety of returns. The search was carried out 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 in style 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 is also names of nonprogramming subjects, (many nonprogramming-related subjects even have devoted Discord servers; for instance, “Julia” might check with the programming language or the Sesame Road puppet), outcomes had been manually examined. Disboard was searched in June 2023. Disboard lists many public discord servers and plenty of younger coders use the location, contributing a unique demographic of coders.
