Perl holds its own against Python Ruby et al

There does not appear to be any downturn in Perl popularity year on as a programming language according to

Position
Mar 2008 Position
Mar 2007 Programming Language Ratings
Mar 2008 Delta
Mar 2007 Status

1 1 Java 20.651% +2.61%   A

2 2 C 15.593% -0.04%   A

3 5 (Visual) Basic 10.795% +2.65%   A

4 4 PHP 10.138% +0.68%   A

5 3 C++ 9.776% -1.33%   A

6 6 Perl 5.781% -0.64%   A

7 7 Python 4.593% +0.70%   A

8 9 C# 4.143% +0.78%   A

9 12 Delphi 2.697% +0.94%   A

10 10 Ruby 2.661% -0.11%   A

11 8 JavaScript 2.462% -1.02%   A

12 14 D 1.107% -0.16%   A

13 13 PL/SQL 0.747% -0.80%   A

14 11 SAS 0.630% -1.22%   A-

15 18 COBOL 0.615% -0.03%   A-

16 21 Pascal 0.554% -0.01%   B

17 17 Ada 0.485% -0.17%   B

18 16 Lisp/Scheme 0.434% -0.29%   B

19 19 FoxPro/xBase 0.423% -0.18%   B

20 25 Lua 0.385% -0.01%   B

Comment on Perl holds its own against Python Ruby et al

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Re: Perl holds its own against Python Ruby et al by Anonymous Monk on Mar 07, 2008 at 04:02 UTC
If the same rate continues, python will pass perl next year. Also considering how much perl work is maintainance, and how much python work is new...	[reply]
Re^2: Perl holds its own against Python Ruby et al by perrin (Chancellor) on Mar 07, 2008 at 08:55 UTC
You mean that Python code is unmaintainable? It's a write-only language?	[reply]
Re^3: Perl holds its own against Python Ruby et al by Anonymous Monk on Mar 14, 2008 at 00:15 UTC
I assume that you are not joking. I will clarify my original point any way: perl's current usage is largely because of all the existing code - you have to maintain them; while python is new, and its usage is largely new development. I believe that this is nothing but fair assessment. Based on this, one has to expect perl to go down with increasing rate, because each year a percentage of those existing apps will be retired - migrated to python or whatever. While at the same time, this is not an issue to python, at least not evident yet.	[reply]
Re^4: Perl holds its own against Python Ruby et al by perrin (Chancellor) on Mar 14, 2008 at 03:13 UTC
Re: Perl holds its own against Python Ruby et al by Anonymous Monk on Mar 07, 2008 at 03:59 UTC
To be precise, not enough downturn to change its rank. To say there is no down turn, I guess that you have to take another look at the numbers.	[reply]
Re: Perl holds its own against Python Ruby et al by sir_lichtkind (Friar) on Mar 07, 2008 at 10:30 UTC
things based on netsearch are always not most accurate. But maybe i could brag here with the fact that i chatted a bit with mr jansen and after my suggestion he added, pug, rakudo and pge to perl rating. Kephra, a beautiful Perl Editor sits at http://kephra.sourceforge.net	[reply]
Re: Perl holds its own against Python Ruby et al by ack (Deacon) on Mar 11, 2008 at 20:06 UTC
Anyone know why Perl is declining while Python is increasing? Anonymous Monk's note that if the current rate of change continues, Python will move in front of Perl. I'm only vaguely familiar with Python; what about it makes it increasingly popular? ack Albuquerque, NM	[reply]
Re^2: Perl holds its own against Python Ruby et al by eyepopslikeamosquito (Archbishop) on Mar 12, 2008 at 00:47 UTC
I'm only vaguely familiar with Python; what about it makes it increasingly popular? Some non-technical, "political" reasons I can think of are: Google apparently prefer Python to Perl as a development language. The Google App Engine currently only supports Python. They also hired Guido van Rossum and Alex Martelli. Microsoft seem more interested in Python than Perl as a .NET language. High profile Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth supports Python and apparently wants to move towards making Python the de-facto programming language on the Ubuntu Linux desktop. The one laptop per child project chose Python. Update (2023): Now that Guido has left Google for Microsoft will we see Python adoption rising at Microsoft and falling at Google?	[reply]
Re^3: Perl holds its own against Python Ruby et al by ack (Deacon) on Mar 12, 2008 at 06:09 UTC
So what's making Perl decline? Ship-jumpers, bad press (e.g., press that compares Python to Perl and asserts that Python is better)? Gavin's "political" reasons definitely would suggest a lot of power...sufficient to drive the changes, IMO. I'm still curious about the language reasons(i.e., technical reasons) from the Monk's who are more versed in Python that I am. I tried to learn it about 2 years ago...but got bored and kept wanting to get back to my beloved Perl. I'm definitely settling into the 'old dog' stage of my career (and life, probably). ack Albuquerque, NM	[reply]
Re^4: Perl holds its own against Python Ruby et al by eyepopslikeamosquito (Archbishop) on Mar 12, 2008 at 11:43 UTC
Re^5: Perl holds its own against Python Ruby et al by ack (Deacon) on Mar 13, 2008 at 04:05 UTC


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