This month, Tiobe rates Lisp/Scheme as having a rating of .770% giving
them an `A' (mainstream language) rating.
August .688
September .718 (aggregated with Dylan on this month only)
October .665
November .770
Joe Marshall wrote:
> This month, Tiobe rates Lisp/Scheme as having a rating of .770% giving
> them an `A' (mainstream language) rating.
Darn, guess I'll have to switch to a less popular language :/
--
Alex
On Fri, 04 Nov 2005 03:04:01 +0100, Alex Shinn <·········@gmail.com> wrote:
> Joe Marshall wrote:
>> This month, Tiobe rates Lisp/Scheme as having a rating of .770% giving
>> them an `A' (mainstream language) rating.
>
> Darn, guess I'll have to switch to a less popular language :/
>
well, OCalm is still up for grabs :)
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
Joe Marshall wrote:
> This month, Tiobe rates Lisp/Scheme as having a rating of .770% giving
> them an `A' (mainstream language) rating.
Is this really a '.770%'? That doesn't sound that high, right? :)
"ivant" <········@gmail.com> writes:
> Joe Marshall wrote:
>> This month, Tiobe rates Lisp/Scheme as having a rating of .770% giving
>> them an `A' (mainstream language) rating.
>
> Is this really a '.770%'? That doesn't sound that high, right? :)
Oh, yes, absolutely; it does sound high, to anyone who has succombed
to the incessant trolling on this newsgroup and believes the lie
of Lisp being dead, not relevant, or not mainstream. Even those of
us who know better get frustrated with all of the misinformation
and cynicism which constantly bombards us.
An analogy is a depressed individual with a low self-esteem. Many times
the cycle starts with some real physical handicap, but many times, even
after the handicap is removed, such individuals retain the low
self-esteem. Why is that? It is because of the conversations in their
mind, both from external sources, (from an abuser: "you are worthless,
no good") and internal (from their own internal conversations: "I am
worthless - I have no right to be happy"). Since nobody's perfect,
many will obsess over their imperfections as easy proof of their
uselessness, thus skewing their self-image to the point of caricature.
Often it is because of an impossible standard that is set before them,
either internally or externally - women especially have this problem
often, due to the impossible standards set for their external appearance
(ironically, the very models we see on TV are themselves depressed
or at least unhappy with themselves, because they can't look like
they do on TV).
Come-on, Lisp community - let's rise up from our depression. Even with
facts staring at us, we can't believe them? Are they automatically
suspect? Doctored up by some pro-Lisp group within Tiobe? We in
a supposedly scientific-minded community are ironically unscientific
in that we tend to reject data that doesn't fit our self-image, rather
than accepting the data and trying to understand why it is our perception
that it wrong. The scientific method includes as its last step in the
loop the modification of the hypothesis, not the modification or rejection
of data to fit the hypothesis...
--
Duane Rettig ·····@franz.com Franz Inc. http://www.franz.com/
555 12th St., Suite 1450 http://www.555citycenter.com/
Oakland, Ca. 94607 Phone: (510) 452-2000; Fax: (510) 452-0182
Duane Rettig <·····@franz.com> writes:
> "ivant" <········@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Joe Marshall wrote:
>>> This month, Tiobe rates Lisp/Scheme as having a rating of .770% giving
>>> them an `A' (mainstream language) rating.
>>
>> Is this really a '.770%'? That doesn't sound that high, right? :)
[ rant elided ... ]
Oops. Brain fart. I first didn't notice the strange number,
and then that lead me to misread your message as saying "that
sounds high, doesn't it".
Apologies, "ivant".
But to any who might think that the number (whatever the scale
and curve is correctly stated) is in fact too high, be aware that
there is a recanted rant waiting for you from me...
--
Duane Rettig ·····@franz.com Franz Inc. http://www.franz.com/
555 12th St., Suite 1450 http://www.555citycenter.com/
Oakland, Ca. 94607 Phone: (510) 452-2000; Fax: (510) 452-0182
Duane Rettig wrote:
> Duane Rettig <·····@franz.com> writes:
>
> > "ivant" <········@gmail.com> writes:
> >
> >> Joe Marshall wrote:
> >>> This month, Tiobe rates Lisp/Scheme as having a rating of .770% giving
> >>> them an `A' (mainstream language) rating.
> >>
> >> Is this really a '.770%'? That doesn't sound that high, right? :)
>
> [ rant elided ... ]
>
> Oops. Brain fart. I first didn't notice the strange number,
> and then that lead me to misread your message as saying "that
> sounds high, doesn't it".
>
> Apologies, "ivant".
>
No problem. Actually as Joe Marshall explains later it makes sense and
0.770% is a high number. I just thought that he added the % by
mistake, because it wasn't there for the previous months numbers.
I should have googled for the statistics and their explanation, though.
Pascal Bourguignon <····@mouse-potato.com> writes:
> Duane Rettig <·····@franz.com> writes:
>> Come-on, Lisp community - let's rise up from our depression. Even with
>> facts staring at us, we can't believe them? Are they automatically
>> suspect? Doctored up by some pro-Lisp group within Tiobe? We in
>> a supposedly scientific-minded community are ironically unscientific
>> in that we tend to reject data that doesn't fit our self-image, rather
>> than accepting the data and trying to understand why it is our perception
>> that it wrong. The scientific method includes as its last step in the
>> loop the modification of the hypothesis, not the modification or rejection
>> of data to fit the hypothesis...
>
> I'd belive it you you published numbers such as: last month Franz sold
> 100,000 licenses of ACL, and if statistics on downloading of free CL
> implementations showed ~1,000,000 downloads to different IPs. Right?
> Lets have hard facts!
Like yours, Pascal? Where do you get your numbers from? And how many
programmers do you think there are in the world today? As many as there
are computers out there? As many as half? [or do you actually think
there are a significant fraction of one percent of computer owners that
are programmers?]
Note: I'm not interested in the definition of a programmer; though
others might be - what I'm after is some thoughtful insights about
reasonable numbers. Back to my analogy: when I ask a woman why she
wants to weigh 110 pounds (50 kg) she inevitably points to a movie
or TV star who seems to weigh that - but if I ask her to name friends
that also weigh that she has trouble finding more than one or two.
Her perception of what constitutes an average weight might be
influenced by the amount of time she spends in front of the TV set.
Of course, we programmers don't have that problem; we tend to spend
a large amount of time in front of another kind of monitor, where a
large percentage of our world consists of programmers. :-)
--
Duane Rettig ·····@franz.com Franz Inc. http://www.franz.com/
555 12th St., Suite 1450 http://www.555citycenter.com/
Oakland, Ca. 94607 Phone: (510) 452-2000; Fax: (510) 452-0182
Duane Rettig <·····@franz.com> wrote on Fri, 04 Nov 2005:
> the lie of Lisp being dead, not relevant, or not mainstream. Even those of
> us who know better get frustrated with all of the misinformation and
> cynicism which constantly bombards us.
> Even with facts staring at us, we can't believe them?
You seem to be happy that Lisp now gets an "A" rating, which is indeed cool.
But if you look just one layer deeper at the data
http://www.tiobe.com/index.htm?tiobe_index
the languages that Lisp "competes" with are vastly more popular.
Lisp has a ".770%" rating, and comes in at #14. The #1 language, Java,
is at 22%, C is 18%, C++ and PHP are both 10%, Perl at 7%, etc. Even
python, which arguably attracts similar styles of programmers as Lisp,
is 2.7%, many times the 0.77% rating of Lisp. I understand that the
Tiobe folks use the "Status: A" marker to suggest that Lisp is a
"mainstream" language, but I'm not so sure the data justifies that conclusion.
Furthermore, if you check out the languages Lisp just beats, you'll see
Cobol, Ada, Pascal, Fortran, etc. Most people here probably view those
(perhaps inaccurately) as dead, legacy languages, not as thriving, dynamic
language communities with a bright future.
I think (Common) Lisp has a lot of great things going for it, but it certainly
doesn't seem to be taking the world by storm. Another way to look at it is
that new languages get invented all the time, and some of them skyrocket to
significant popularity. In a few short years, the successful ones easily
eclipse the threshold that Lisp (especially just Common Lisp alone) has
achieved. For example: PHP, C#, Perl, Python, Javascript. After all these
years, the level of popularity that Lisp has achieved is a mere stepping stone
for these new languages on their way up.
I agree we in the Lisp community shouldn't be overly cynical, but at the same
time we shouldn't oversell the case. Lisp is more than a niche language, but
only slightly more. It's still a long way from penetrating too far into the
mindshare of the community of all programmers.
-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ ···@geddis.org
Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
Don Geddis <···@geddis.org> writes:
> Duane Rettig <·····@franz.com> wrote on Fri, 04 Nov 2005:
>> the lie of Lisp being dead, not relevant, or not mainstream. Even those of
>> us who know better get frustrated with all of the misinformation and
>> cynicism which constantly bombards us.
>> Even with facts staring at us, we can't believe them?
>
> You seem to be happy that Lisp now gets an "A" rating, which is indeed cool.
Of course I'm happy. I've been with Lisp through good times and bad
times, and starting back in on some good times again. I've bet my
whole career on it.
> But if you look just one layer deeper at the data
> http://www.tiobe.com/index.htm?tiobe_index
> the languages that Lisp "competes" with are vastly more popular.
> Lisp has a ".770%" rating, and comes in at #14. The #1 language, Java,
> is at 22%, C is 18%, C++ and PHP are both 10%, Perl at 7%, etc. Even
> python, which arguably attracts similar styles of programmers as Lisp,
> is 2.7%, many times the 0.77% rating of Lisp. I understand that the
> Tiobe folks use the "Status: A" marker to suggest that Lisp is a
> "mainstream" language, but I'm not so sure the data justifies that conclusion.
If I had a million dollars, would you call me rich?
What if we both compared ourselves to the net worth of Bill Gates?
Would that make me less likely to call myself rich?
> Furthermore, if you check out the languages Lisp just beats, you'll see
> Cobol, Ada, Pascal, Fortran, etc. Most people here probably view those
> (perhaps inaccurately) as dead, legacy languages, not as thriving, dynamic
> language communities with a bright future.
Right, and it is unfortunate that we did not have such statistics over
the previous 10 years to see what shape Lisp was. You remember those times,
Don; what do you think Tiobe would have said about Lisp in 1995? Now those
were tough times. Companies folded back then.
> I think (Common) Lisp has a lot of great things going for it, but it certainly
> doesn't seem to be taking the world by storm. Another way to look at it is
> that new languages get invented all the time, and some of them skyrocket to
> significant popularity. In a few short years, the successful ones easily
> eclipse the threshold that Lisp (especially just Common Lisp alone) has
> achieved. For example: PHP, C#, Perl, Python, Javascript. After all these
> years, the level of popularity that Lisp has achieved is a mere stepping stone
> for these new languages on their way up.
>
> I agree we in the Lisp community shouldn't be overly cynical, but at the same
> time we shouldn't oversell the case. Lisp is more than a niche language, but
> only slightly more. It's still a long way from penetrating too far into the
> mindshare of the community of all programmers.
I'm not as concerned about Lisp's current position as I am about its
direction. And what excites me about the Tiobe numbers is precisely that
they seem to be real, and that we finally have something that can be
measured, however imperfectly, and to those who demand "show me the
numbers", we can say "there they are"...
What I remember most vividly from that 1995 era was when a then-board-member
at Franz and I were arguing about trying to change the name of Lisp, and he
told me that no language had ever died and then come back to life again.
Well...
--
Duane Rettig ·····@franz.com Franz Inc. http://www.franz.com/
555 12th St., Suite 1450 http://www.555citycenter.com/
Oakland, Ca. 94607 Phone: (510) 452-2000; Fax: (510) 452-0182
Duane Rettig <·····@franz.com> wrote on Sat, 05 Nov 2005:
> I've been with Lisp through good times and bad times, and starting back in
> on some good times again.
> Right, and it is unfortunate that we did not have such statistics over
> the previous 10 years to see what shape Lisp was. You remember those times,
> Don; what do you think Tiobe would have said about Lisp in 1995? Now those
> were tough times. Companies folded back then.
> I'm not as concerned about Lisp's current position as I am about its
> direction.
Ah. I had misunderstood your excitement. I agree with you completely:
the Lisp community is in far better shape today than it was in 1995.
And the direction indeed seems to be quite positive, with more excitement
and energy each year than the year before.
> arguing about trying to change the name of Lisp, and he told me that no
> language had ever died and then come back to life again.
(Common) Lisp may well be a unique case. It was so well designed that
subsequent languages are not improvements. Lisp "died" for reasons other than
its technical design, which may be different from any previous language death.
-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ ···@geddis.org
It's easy to sit there and say you'd like to have more money. And I guess
that's what I like about it. It's easy. Just sitting there, rocking back and
forth, wanting that money. -- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey
Don Geddis <···@geddis.org> writes:
>
> Furthermore, if you check out the languages Lisp just beats, you'll see
> Cobol, Ada, Pascal, Fortran, etc. Most people here probably view those
> (perhaps inaccurately) as dead, legacy languages, not as thriving, dynamic
> language communities with a bright future.
>
I think it is important to keep in mind what the Tiobe page meassures,
which is google hits for the programming language. That is not how much
the language is used by either existing systems in production or those
being written today. It is not really how popular the language is either,
although it certainly helps.
While lisp beats those languages on this index, I would guess that there
is both more software in production in each of these languages and even more
new software written in them than in lisp, but since they are considered
old-fashioned by most programmers, they are less written about on web
pages. Although a lot of people dislike or is ignorant about lisp, those
who like the language are writing a lot about it, but are not necessarily
writing or maintaining lisp programs at work.
For Fortran and COBOL, you have the opposite effect. You have many people
programming in these languages that wish they could do something else.
Both Fortran and COBOL should probably be on top 5 if you meassure amount
of code in production, but is on 20th and 15th respectively. The most
important component of this index is probably hype, with some elements
of usage, mostly for new programs.
--
Gisle Sælensminde, Phd student, Scientific programmer
Computational biology unit, BCCS, University of Bergen, Norway,
Email: ·····@cbu.uib.no
If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter. (Blaise Pascal)
matteo d'addio 81 wrote:
>>Is this really a '.770%'? That doesn't sound that high, right? :)
>
>
> The maximum is 1, isn't it?
Not if you know what % stands for, but math is not Joe's strong point,
he translated .770 to .770%:
> This month, Tiobe rates Lisp/Scheme as having a rating of .770% giving
> them an `A' (mainstream language) rating.
>
> August .688
> September .718 (aggregated with Dylan on this month only)
> October .665
> November .770
OTOH, I cannot say for sure what those numbers mean, so I hesitate to
say the right translation is 77% or guess at what 1 might be.
k
Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> writes:
> matteo d'addio 81 wrote:
>>>Is this really a '.770%'? That doesn't sound that high, right? :)
It could be worse. Ruby has a rating of .434% and OCaml comes in at
.067%
>> The maximum is 1, isn't it?
No, the maximum would be 100%, but that would mean that *no* other
languages generated Google hits. Tiobe tracks 100 languages, so if
language choice were completely random, each language would get a 1%
share.
> Not if you know what % stands for, but math is not Joe's strong point,
> he translated .770 to .770%:
Why do you think I did that?
If you go to the page ( http://www.tiobe.com/tiobe_index/index.htm )
you will see the published data.
>> This month, Tiobe rates Lisp/Scheme as having a rating of .770% giving
>> them an `A' (mainstream language) rating.
>> August .688
>> September .718 (aggregated with Dylan on this month only)
>> October .665 November .770
>
> OTOH, I cannot say for sure what those numbers mean, so I hesitate to
> say the right translation is 77% or guess at what 1 might be.
>
> k
Joe Marshall ha scritto:
> If you go to the page ( http://www.tiobe.com/tiobe_index/index.htm )
> you will see the published data.
Wow COBOL has an A too!
matteo
Joe Marshall wrote:
> Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> writes:
>
>
>>matteo d'addio 81 wrote:
>>
>>>>Is this really a '.770%'? That doesn't sound that high, right? :)
>
>
> It could be worse. Ruby has a rating of .434% and OCaml comes in at
> .067%
>
>
>>>The maximum is 1, isn't it?
>
>
> No, the maximum would be 100%, but that would mean that *no* other
> languages generated Google hits. Tiobe tracks 100 languages, so if
> language choice were completely random, each language would get a 1%
> share.
>
>
>>Not if you know what % stands for, but math is not Joe's strong point,
>>he translated .770 to .770%:
>
>
> Why do you think I did that?
Doh!
--
Kenny
Why Lisp? http://wiki.alu.org/RtL_Highlight_Film
"I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state
I finally won out over it."
Elwood P. Dowd, "Harvey", 1950