Google Trends shows most language searches declining

2 points by snowbird122 18y ago ↗ HN

I'm always curious about what languages are gaining or losing popularity. I queried google trends and got some surprising results. Just about every language appears to be declining. I'd be interested in hearing some possible explanations.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=ruby%2C+python%2C+.net%2C+perl%2C+lisp http://www.google.com/trends?q=java%2C+c%23%2C+c%2B%2B%2C+html%2C+javascript&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

7 comments

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enonko 18y ago ↗

AFAIK Google trends normalizes to total search volume. Therefore, it probably means that more and more people who use Google don't care about programming languages.

noodle 18y ago ↗

its not necessarily that the languages are declining, its that google is becoming more mainstream. the amount of language searches could be increasing, just increasing at a slower rate than non-language searches.

"Google Trends analyzes a portion of Google web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you enter, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. We then show you a graph with the results -- our search-volume graph -- plotted on a linear scale."

snowbird122 18y ago ↗

Thanks. That does explain it. Now for the better question: Is there an impartial source to quantitatively show what languages are gaining/losing popularity?

I found this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/3952/ref=pd_ts_b_...

and this older link: http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/08/programming-langua...

redorb 18y ago ↗

how about - using google code to establish a base.

etal 18y ago ↗

Here's one I like:

http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index....

The index checks three search engines for references to each of 100 programming languages and tracks the number of hits. So, it's a measure of buzz. Popularity could mean a lot of things, but buzz/hype is probably the easiest one to gauge.

rouli 18y ago ↗

Wow, they really like .net in India

flashgordon 18y ago ↗

I am not surprised. After all .net IS a very enterprise language, so youd expect to see it in every certification-cafe on every street-corner!