[SeekAndFind]

A possible interpretation of this diagram is :

• Java and javascript are fairly stable
• which language is taking advantage of PHP's decline, if confirmed ? It's too early to say
• there is a curious dance between C# and C in 2009-2011
• the growth of C# comes at the expense of C++ and Basic
• the growth of Python comes at the expense of Perl

[Olog-hai]

There any resources for C♭?

[dangus]

PHP’s decline is fairly slight, so far. Therefore, Python’s growth has been more at the expense of Perl than PHP. But if PHP’s decline continues and/or accelerates (as I believe it will), it will be because of Python. Ironically, C# is probably helping PHP’s shelf life, because C# is a great back-end language, but not as widely used for serving web pages. And with ASP a joke...

I’m rather amazed that there is little movement in Javascript, with client-side programming such an emerging technology.

Some visible issues with the PyPL Index: You can see in a single month a sharp drop (about 2.5-3%) in the popularity of C, matching a simultaneous pop (1.5-2%) in the popularity of C#. I don’t believe any change was made that suddenly and that isolated from any larger trend; to me, it seems one key element of the index was changed, and the entire effect was reported at once.

[dangus]

Visual Basic is dead. Perl is dead. C# is vanquishing its older sibling, C++. PHP is a long way from dying, but it’s obsolescence is becoming apparent. Ruby is hip again, but has lost too much ground against Python. JavaScript is only a client-side scripting language; although there would seem to be loads of room for growth, it’s not going to consume competitor’s turf.

Your choices are C/C#, Java and Python. But since Python is built on C, choosing Python makes some stuff way easier, but limits you from certain types of programming.

[Gideon7]

Much of the comparison is apples and oranges. Perl is used mainly as a quickie scripting languge for sysadmins, while C++ is used for heavy lifting and enterprise-grade apps.

Python is one of the few computer languages that works well in both realms. It is used in huge enterprise frameworks (like Zope) and yet “2+2” is also a valid Python program that you can put into a .py file and run.

[Gideon7]

I would have liked to have seen PowerShell included on this graph. Although it is a bit wordy it runs rings around Perl and shells like bash.

PowerShell also scales up — Microsoft put a thousand PS modules in Windows Server 2012, some of them pretty big.