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Actually C# is a great platform for RAD. Just because it's MS doesn't mean it is always shitty or evil. It isn't on the 5th place of most used languages because it sucks.... Lots of pro's are using it and many a serious C++ picks C# for fast prototyping and development. It's all about knowing what tool to use for what task. http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html

You have no idea how ignorant you are. Check out the TIOBE index, Python is currently #8 and has never been lower than #13. Pascal is currently #16, and hasn't ever been higher than #14. Python's actually more popular than Javascript, and quite useful for real world programming. You can easily find software made in Python for a variety of uses. There's also a couple good web frameworks for it - Django & Cherrypy. Cherrypy even supports Python3.

Good old C did manage to dethrone Java as the programming language with the most "skilled engineers world-wide" recently, but Java is still #2.

If the 2nd most popular language is indeed in "extremely short stock of skill", please let me take this opportunity to let everyone know that I can provide skilled Java work at reasonable rates (well... reasonable considering it's scarcity).

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

How many FOSS software is Java? Like 1%?

Six years ago, the figure was 18%, and that was before Android came out. More recent figures pin Java around 16%, but they're not specific to free software. In the more recent figures, much of the decline of some languages is due to the rise of Objective-C, but Objective-C is strongly associated with iOS-exclusive projects, which are incompatible with copyleft. Eliminating iOS-exclusive projects would only raise Java's popularity. Who has more recent figures specific to free software?

Mod parent up. "The popular search engines Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, Amazon, YouTube and Baidu are used to calculate the ratings." That's rather lame. Exactly how do they search for "C", anyway? Do Sesame Street episodes brought to you by the letter C count?

TIOBE is good for generating bullshit headlines and boastful articles about misleading statistics.

The definition is pretty simple. They search for: +"<language> programming", then they try to look for false positives to get a "confidence" factor, and then use that to scale the resulting number of hits. They also include some search term qualifiers for certain languages, but I didn't see any listed for C.

This is really, really poor for a language with many false positives like C, because there are so many false positive results returned, but they are only looking at the first 100 results. The first results will have the fewest number of false positives, while the later results will almost all be false positives. What they are doing is assuming a linear relationship where instead it is most likely an exponential dropoff.

The fact that C is now on top is almost for sure due to the rise of false postives due to Objective-C gaining popularity.

There is an even bigger problem... I'll just quote the definition of the index:

The ratings are calculated by counting hits of the most popular search engines.
The search query that is used is
+"<language> programming"

At this point I stopped caring and so would anyone else. If they had put this definition near to their ‘data’ we probably wouldn't even be talking about this.

From their own description:

The TIOBE Programming Community index is an indicator of the popularity of programming languages... ...Observe that the TIOBE index is not about the best programming language or the language in which most lines of code have been written.

emphasis in the original

I think it's fair to say that if you take TIOBE for what it's worth, there's a lot to learn about how programming languages wax and wane in popularity over the years. Surely that's worth something.

I count about 100 more possible headlines of the form "A overtakes B". Must we see them all here?

Although this complaint is merely a cry for PHP to receive fixes in its code, I have read on the web that a major issue with PHP has to relate to hashes. According to LWN.net, a denial of service can occur when the hash functions are put into excess which will cause the system to become unresponsive and cause denial of service.

Yes, I do agree with my peers. The largest benefit to PHP is its C-like syntax, and TIOBE.com lists C as the top language followed closely by Java, C++ and then Objective-C, which is C with Smalltalk.

Sorry, Perl fanboys, but Perl is dead. Not only has it been eclipsed in the web domain by PHP, J2EE, ASP.Net, Ruby on Rails, and others, but in the scripting domain it has been overtaken by Python.

TIOBE Index seems to disagree: Java, C#, PHP, Python, Ruby all down.

Perl right there at 9, same as it ever was: a good tool for people that want to get work done and not chase the hot flavor of the month.

"Such variable results suggest that TIOBE's sampling method isn't all that reliable or accurate to begin with, but I think we all have a pretty good idea what languages people are really using and for what."

They state their methodology on their own site and it's a complete joke, it goes something like this:

A language has to be both Turing complete and have an article on Wikipedia to be considered.

Data is then gathered by simply searching the top 8 searchable sites on the net and results are weighted by order, which from their own page gives:

Google: 30%
Blogger: 30%
Wikipedia: 15%
YouTube: 9%
Baidu: 6%
Yahoo!: 3%
Bing: 3%
Amazon: 3%

The figure used from the search results is simply the number of page hits, so articles on blogger such as "Objective C is a terrible language and I'll never use it" would have a 30% weighting towards a hit for Objective C being more popular for example.

But if this wasn't bad enough the queries they use then have arbitrary exceptions and groupings, they list these on their site and it doesn't take more than a second to see how some of the groupings and exceptions are far from incomplete or blatantly flawed.

Then to make things worse they also apply a completely arbitrary, human decided confidence factor to each language, so say they assume searches for C++ are only 90% accurate they apply a 90% accuracy factor. They list the confidence factors on their site but don't explain the methodology for choosing them. Again it doesn't take a second to see how flawed their confidence factors are.

Their methodology description is here:

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

The fact they're a company that needs to make money, and the fact their methodology is so fundamentally flawed and so terribly arbitrary means that if anyone takes anything from TIOBE has to be pretty damn retarded.

The fact that the 2nd - 4th place weighted sites they use (Blogger, Wikipedia, YouTube) are entirely based on user generated content and account for 54% of their weighting, with Google if you're good at SEO taking that up to 84% of the weighting means that it should be pretty easy for a single motivated individual to troll TIOBE's rankings. A few extra blogger accounts and postings coupled with a few insertions into Wikipedia whose search includes discussions not just democratically decided valid content and a few YouTube videos is probably enough to completely sway some of the languages standings quite dramatically I suspect. If anyone is bored then it may be a worthwhile experiment - see if you can pump some arbitrary language you've never even heard of into the top 20 or something!

I've said it before a thousand times but it often gets drowned out in the ever growing amounts of idiocy that are poisoning Slashdot but if you want a more realistic picture of languages that are popular - particularly in terms of what you should learn from a career point of view, then you're far better off just searching job sites, or using sites like Stack Overflow, just don't be suprised when what people are REALLY using is completely different to what TIOBE likes to pretend people are using. Hint: Employers are far and away still looking more for Java, C#, C++, and PHP developers than anything else - iOS development might be growing but it's still only a small fragment of the amount of development going on out there - server side stuff, web stuff, business desktop front ends, university teaching, open source - the fraction of this sort of development being done in Objective C is negligible and this accounts for far and away the majority of development that's done in the world.

I work fo

Given that Python and Ruby are 8th and 11th respectively on the Tiobe index with a combined rating of 5%, it's more like the Special Olympics. (yes, mod me troll)

You should use the TIOBE index http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html

The community is very big. Have you seen StackOverflow? The most popular languages there are .NET ones.

Only that you have more questions for a language, does not mean it's more popular. If you want popularity, then I guess Tiobe is a much better source. With C# at place 5. (down from 4.), overturned by Objective-C.

It is my understanding that they simply search for "X programming" for all X values in the set of programming languages. Thus the self-consistency claim. You are saying that they change that?

Yes, they do. Read the definition page. There's even a current example on the main page, under "This Month's Changes in the Index":

"Andrew Gerrand suggested to add "golang" to the Go programming language. This month Go gained 10 positions from #72 to #62."

Am I the only one surprised at the sudden spike in VB.NET's standings? http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/paperinfo/tpci/Visual_Basic__NET.html Don't get me wrong, I love VB.NET and would probably be working on it today if my employer didn't prefer C#, but that spike baffles me,

You can't infer anything from this list, the metrics it uses are less than useless and time and time again it appears on Slashdot, and time and time again people make invalid assumptions from it.

This page explains how they've compiled the list:

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

If a language doesn't have an entry on Wikipedia, then it's not considered.

The whole methodology is a complete train wreck. They just search the top 9 Alexa sites that have a search box, and weight based on the size of the site. Not only does this mean important programming sites like Stack Overflow are completely ignored, are largely ignored but the whole methodology has more flaws than you can count. One prominent example is it means that if a language is well documented and/or easy to use and people don't need peer-support so much, then it'll likely get less hits than a language that has fuck all documentation and so the net is full of sites explaining how to do this, that, and the other. It also means older languages, for which more sites on the net exist will always retain greater popularity. Note that they also manually tweak the results anyway with an arbitrary confidence factor per language.

I've long said that personally I believe the best metric if you're interested in this sort of thing is to simply search tech job sites, for various areas and just have a look at what sort of languages companies are recruiting for. If you do that - gather a picture of what companies are really interested in by looking at what they're recruiting for you'll find a completely different picture to that that this pointless TIOBE index gives. Suddenly for example, PHP, C#, and Javascript fly up the charts, whilst C drops quite markedly.

The only thing this chart is good for is trying to argue some point from a biased standpoint if the chart just happens to coincide with the language argument your having. Beyond that it's of little value for anything, as it certainly doesn't really bear much resemblance to what's going on in the industry for the most part.

I have no doubt C++ is rising against with it's latest release being pretty cool, but I think it's got an awful lot of ground before it's back on top, and as for plain old C? I don't think anyone in the industry in their right mind would genuinely believe C has been anywhere near the top for probably over a decade now. If it was C++ sure you might be able to argue it, but, C? seriously? It's been almost entirely relegated to the realm of embedded programming and really little else and even there isn't the only player in town. Don't get me wrong - I love C, it was my first language so I'll always have a special appreciation for it, but these stats are just retarded.

The interesting one is Objective-C has nearly overtaken C++. It'll probably be passed in the next couple of months.

In fact if the trend continues, Objective-C will be the most popular language in about 3 years.

http://www.tiobe.com/content/paperinfo/tpci/images/tpci_trends.png

Here is their detailed method. It's far simpler than it claims to be, basically just summing up the search results for a particular language. I couldn't find any mention of the "number of skilled engineers world-wide, courses and third party vendors". Also, there are some shortcomings such as excluding AJAX hits from Javascript and Rails hits from Ruby, the reasoning behind that not being convincing. Still, this list is similar to other comparisons using search results, and i don't think we will invent a method better than that soon.

Python was ahead of C# , what's listed in the summary is the 2008 index, the 2012 index has C# about three and a half points ahead of python.

Ruby is a hype machine, you can tell by the huge spikes and valleys when you see its popularity graphed out individually over the years. It's seemed to have relegated itself now to about a point and a half now.

http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/paperinfo/tpci/Ruby.html

Survives in odd corners, eg some embedded applications

Looks like the computing world is composed mainly of odd corners, otherwise how could such a peripheral language be the most popular in the programming community?

According to the language rankings by TIOBE, Java is still very much in the lead, with only C as a "competitor" (although I think the practical usages of both languages are disjoint enough to not worry about competition). Everything else is training behind by a fair margin.

Anyways, it's just too opinionated, from his 4 examples - PHP, JS, Python, Ruby - only PHP and JS are really widespread, with Ruby still rather rare and Python somewhere inbetween.

And then there's this pearl:

From TIOBE http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html :
6. PHP
8. Python
10. Javascript
12. Ruby

From LangPop http://langpop.com/ :
4. PHP
5. Javascript
6. Python
10. Ruby

Just for the record. Certainly they are all very popular languages.

Even on scales of visibility Perl is still in the top 10 and pretty much stays about there for as long as I've checked the Tiobe Index.

Perl is like a shovel. There may be fancy post hole drills pneumatic jackhammers out there that get all the page views at Home Depot. But there will always be the shovel; because it gets the job done simply and have more uses than you think.

... java is history, so to say.

No, it's not. And the reason it's not is because it's already entrenched. Hell, just last week it was reported that Java was still the #1 language being used; it's certainly not disappearing anytime soon. Oracle will get it right, or face hundreds of pissed off businesses and governments.

this?

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

http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/the-top-10-programming-languages

"With Android, most non-game development is done in Java. A language many people know. With iOS, development is done in Objective C, a language that is not used outside of Apple-world anywhere near as much as Java. Objective C seems obscure to me"

The more and more people who take up iPhone programming, the less and less obscure Objective C grows. This argument is beginning to wear thin, especially with numbers like this:
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html

"I have some written code at one time or another in C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, Common Lisp, Basic, PHP and probably some languages I'm forgetting, but have never had cause to use Objective C."

Then learning another language should honestly not be that big of a deal. Java was based on Obj-C. It's not like they're worlds apart. They're pretty much the same once you get used to the brackets. Memory is even automatically managed these days. (And if you already know C, you really should not be complaining at all.)

It's notable that the Tiobe Index has just one 21st century language among the top ten (C#, 2001). http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html

Apple is also making a LOT of enemies.

Lets see now. Consumers love Apple. Media companies, Carriers, OEMs. They all want to work with Apple. Developers are flocking to Apple. ( http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/paperinfo/tpci/Objective-C.html)

Who are these enemies you speak of? Competitors and freetards on Slashdot. That's about it.

MS did the same once and those who thought that in business their is no room for hard feelings and rancor were ignoring moves by old MS rivals that didn't benefit the rivals as much as screw MS over.

MS hasn't been coasting for the last decade because it has enemies. It's because because it's only managed to be successful in one new market since they established the Windows and Office monopolies in the 1990s. That one new market being games consoles.

Yes! Just like Go, which is clearly not just the thirty-second most popular language.

Ruby has been in decline. Interestingly, so have PHP and Python. At it's peak in 2009, Ruby barely exceed's Python's current usage.

Ruby: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/paperinfo/tpci/Ruby.html

Python: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/paperinfo/tpci/PHP.html

PHP: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/paperinfo/tpci/Python.html .

Ruby has been in decline. Interestingly, so have PHP and Python. At it's peak in 2009, Ruby barely exceed's Python's current usage.

Ruby: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/paperinfo/tpci/Ruby.html

Python: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/paperinfo/tpci/PHP.html

PHP: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/paperinfo/tpci/Python.html .

Ruby has been in decline. Interestingly, so have PHP and Python. At it's peak in 2009, Ruby barely exceed's Python's current usage.

Ruby: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/paperinfo/tpci/Ruby.html

Python: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/paperinfo/tpci/PHP.html

PHP: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/paperinfo/tpci/Python.html .

Please check your facts by looking at the following data:
* http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html
* http://langpop.com/

Hahahahahahahaha. TIOBE and langpop are not "facts" or "data". They are fun exercises in trying to extract information from search results, but the idea that they are remotely reliable is simply ludicrous.

It is a fact that Java is one of the most widely-used languages around today. Nearly all the software on the smartphone in my pocket was written in Java, for example! But don't go trusting the likes of TIOBE just because they got one thing right.

Also expect a the annual few-percent rise in Java usage in the New Year as new teams are formed and projects are kicked off. Java doesn't get much good press anymore because it is as reliable and ubiquitous as electrical infrastructure (although the Slashdotters after 'Teh New Shiny' and 'More Esoteric Featurz == betterer' would have you believe otherwise, althoguh they usually have never used their darling trend-language on huge multi-year projects with large teams).

For me, the remarkable thing is that while Paul Graham wondered aloud about the hundred year language, the one we'd be using a century from now, he completely overlooked C and how long it had already remained not just relevant, but dominant. C was released in 1973, meaning it's nearly at the end of its fourth decade, and it's number 2 (and gaining!) on this month's TIOBE chart (from their summary: "Java lost almost 1% of its popularity in September. If this trend continues, C will be number one again next month."). Put another way, C is 38% of the way to a century of dominance, and there currently few if any signs of its imminent abandonment.

ESR once referred to C's "austere elegance" as something C++ lacks, and I think that neatly pins down what I like about C. I've personally been reintroduced to C over the last few years by the lower-level Mac and iOS frameworks (notably Core Audio), and it's truly nice for doing things like signal processing, where the formality and fussiness of higher-level languages and frameworks would just get in the way.

Also, trashing Steve Jobs doesn't help celebrate Dennis Ritchie's accomplishments, so can we drop that from the thread?

Among the major computer languages PHP is Danish with a Canadian citizenship, Python is Dutch, LUA is Brazilian and Ruby is Japanese despite its English name.

Even C++ would be Danish but Stroustrup was working at the Bell Labs when he invented it, furthermore it's an enhancement of C so let's say that the language comes from the US.

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

The demise of native programming has been greatly exaggerated.

You're correct that .NET has not made a dent in the shrink wrapped software market. However, by that metric you could also say that was true of Python, Java, any language that is not C or C++. Where .NET has made a huge impact is in server side development (e.g. ASP.NET) and products for the "enterprise". Additionally, .NET has been seeing an upward trend, see http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/paperinfo/tpci/C_.html and is the 5th most popular programming language on the TIOBE index so .NET is not going away any time soon.

Have Java detractors ever visited sites that make the opposite case? Of course not - this is called natural human bias. Here is an unbiased source of information: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html Even giving +/- 5 % to account for errors, Java leaves all other languages but C in the dust... ...choke choke. Heck give 10% points to others on the graph and subtract 10% from Java. That might help...

I think you are being a bit too defensive.

Not really, just replying to a comment. Or are all /. users defensive?

Being creative to solve a problem is great, but being creative has nothing to do with learning the basics. I don't believe that creativity matters when learning how to implement a linked list, writing a binary search, OOP concepts, and other CS topics, any more than I think that creativity has to do with learning how to factor polynomials. Creativity is absolutely a great attribute in any field, including software development, but I was referring to learning.

Problem solving is the cornerstone of Comp. Sci. and that requires creative thinking and coming up with different ways to do something. Just learning what stuff is, like integers or linked lists, isn't enough. OOP is definitely something that requires creative thinking to be able to properly design a program. Being creative and learning goes hand in hand in Comp. Sci., just don't mistake it with the "creative writing" sort of creative because that's different.

I take it from your examples that you are a web developer.

So what? You can talk to any programmer, call them a web developer and half the time you would be right. But you would be mistaken in thinking that's all I do if that's what you're implying. However, I need to pay the bills, so that's what my profession is and I love it! It's not like web developers do anything much different than what's on the desktop, most of the code we write runs on the server anyway, but we just happen to be skilled in client side technologies as well. I take it from your comment that your not a web developer? I could be wrong.

Java is the absolute top language today. It is used in enterprise applications, server applications, and Android mobile applications, to name a few examples. It certainly won't be that way forever, and I have no idea how long it will be this way, but it is the most used language today. Google it. (here's the first hit from my google search: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html ) And as far as runtime environments go, that is a problem that all teaching environment languages suffer from. Even JavaScript can function differently on different browsers.

P.S. I don't think Java is the best language, the end-all language, etc. And yes, this is all opinion in the way of how to best teach programming and computer science concepts, but it is not an opinion when stating that Java is or isn't a dead language; factually it isn't.

A little hyperbole spices up a comment. A language never really "dies", but it does lose relevance over time to the point where it might as well be dead to many developers. COBOL is still around, mostly because it would be too expensive and risky to roll over to something else, and there's a similar case with Java. 10 years ago, I wouldn't be saying these things about Java at all and it would have been my first choice for any project. However, times change and newer languages are on the rise to take Java's place. Java's popularity on that list of yours is just a residual effect of its past industry penetration, same as with C (disclaimer: C is still very, very relevant, and one of my absolute favorite languages). There will still be plenty of jobs for these languages as systems currently using them will need to be maintained for some time. Java is factually dead to me and many others since, like me, many can largely ignore it and not suffer from it. Sure, Java is on Android, a modified version of it at least, but the platform has enough of it's own issues (e.g. fragmentation) that it's struggling to keep up with iOS and Objective C (yes, Objective C is #6 and increasing on that list of yours even though it's only relevance is on Apple hardware).

I think you are being a bit too defensive. Being creative to solve a problem is great, but being creative has nothing to do with learning the basics. I don't believe that creativity matters when learning how to implement a linked list, writing a binary search, OOP concepts, and other CS topics, any more than I think that creativity has to do with learning how to factor polynomials. Creativity is absolutely a great attribute in any field, including software development, but I was referring to learning. If it matters, I was a TA in CS classes which used many languages, including pseudo-code, LISP, SmallTalk, and Java.

I would have taken your examples more seriously if you hadn't said Java has no real world relevance and is a dead language. I take it from your examples that you are a web developer. Java is the absolute top language today. It is used in enterprise applications, server applications, and Android mobile applications, to name a few examples. It certainly won't be that way forever, and I have no idea how long it will be this way, but it is the most used language today. Google it. (here's the first hit from my google search: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html ) And as far as runtime environments go, that is a problem that all teaching environment languages suffer from. Even JavaScript can function differently on different browsers.

P.S. I don't think Java is the best language, the end-all language, etc. And yes, this is all opinion in the way of how to best teach programming and computer science concepts, but it is not an opinion when stating that Java is or isn't a dead language; factually it isn't.

Your app can't have been doing very much. Just routine form stuff I guess. Yeah, I also wrote WinForms apps starting back around the same time you did. It was ok for simple stuff, but a bitch to extend (just like your beloved SWT). Turns out that the Java Swing apps I was also writing at the time (although they were dog slow back then, thanks to the slow JVMs of that time) still also work - on all platforms too.

> Such people, when they refuse to move on with the times at all (rather than merely being conservative, but still moving ahead), are generally called "luddites". Luckily for us, the majority of people in the industry aren't luddites, which is why we have real and significant advancement in both programming languages and frameworks.

Nope. Such people use it because it still works (like C!) and the added complexity doesn't add much, especially like when in C# they add and deprecate features based on the fashion du-jour. Incidentally, you are living in a bubble. The numbers speak against you, please check out http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html for a more realistic appraisal of what is going on globally.

Well, I don't have the grey beard yet but I do have the salary (and the PhD in Astrophysics, incidentally). I realise that good design seeks to remove complexity, not introduce it arbitrarily because it piques the interest of an otherwise bored developer eg. those that change languages like they change their underwear in the misguided belief that a handle of extra language constructs will make up for a breath of solution-space libraries - which is where real gains productivity are achieved. Unfortunately many people don't understand great design (in any area) is generally about removing unnecessary complexity whenever they see it. As Einstein is often (mis-)quoted, "As simple as possible, but no simpler". Java is like C, it kicks ass because the language just enough to get the job done (and the real work is done by the libraries).

Incidentally, if you don't think platform independence matters from a business perspective then you won't even see the opportunities you've missed (I guess mere employees don't even looking at this aspect). Check out this interview where Austin Meyer of X-Plane fame personally made $3.5 million in one month because he chose OpenGL over DirectX (I already know what technology you'd advocate, but then you'd miss the $3,5 million personally in your pocket if you did): http://techhaze.com/2010/03/interview-with-x-plane-creator-austin-meyer/

Thanks for the excellent insight.

However, isn't Perl dying rapidly? Isn't Python the new Perl?

Remember all the jokes about Perl being a write-only language? The libraries are wonderful, but the language is discouraging.

java is accounting for more and more flaws including multiplatform trojans that Run Anywhere.

How is this any different than Windows being ubiquitous so in effect, trojans "Run Anywhere". Except where Windows isn't ubiquitous. In those places, the trojans don't run at all. And even the java trojans, for instance, the one that kept us all entertained a couple of weeks ago, only ran on Windows.

Once they have incentive, I see no reason they will not expand to include everyone, nevermind java, just plain attacking based on user agent..

Nobody says they won't but their job will be much harder.

Also, what happens to the market when you need...

You do what people always do when faced with choice. You weigh the advantages and disadvantages then hand your money over. That decision is made millions of times daily for mobile phone/tablet operating systems and the consumers benefit from massive levels of innovation and development. Wish we could get some of that on the desktop.

And why phyton isn't that popular either, what if it got standardized.

Python is One of the Most Popular Programming Languages

Python is #7 on the TIOBE rankings:

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

#6 is ObjectiveC, which also has no official standard from any standards organization.

Whether you like it or not, de facto standards do exist and do work as standards.

Frozen or not..

Python is definitely not frozen. It is growing and evolving, with an active community headed by a guy who is called the "Benevolent Dictator for Life" (the title is a joke but actually pretty accurate). ObjectiveC is not frozen either; it is pretty much owned by Apple at this point.

A standardization body, will not be subject to sudden ideas of it's maker.

WebM is frozen . Just like H.264 is also frozen . There are no "sudden ideas" for either of these two.

So, in summary:

0) de facto standards can work as well as standards that came out of standards organizations

1) it is possible for things like Python and ObjectiveC to grow and evolve and improve without an official standards organization

2) standards organizations are completely irrelevant to both H.264 and WebM because they are frozen standards

I think I'm done explaining this. If you don't get it yet, you aren't going to. If you are a troll just seeing how much of my time you can waste, congratulations on your success.

steveha

why don't they use jruby
http://www.jruby.org/
or jython ?
http://www.jython.org/
inventing yet another languge when there so many to choose from doesn't seems to be too smart
i can give only one failure go language that is now falling from top 10 if you watch tiobe
http://www.tiobe.com/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html
also another failure is Groovy used with grails:
"Other interesting moves in the TIOBE index this month can be found outside the top 20. This is due to the fact that the index uses 7 different search engines as of this month. Some promising languages lost many positions. Most striking examples of this are NXT-G (down from 19 to 54) and Groovy (from 25 to 65)."

I concur with your anecdotal evidence with my own observations and I share your opinions. But it seems like its moot compared to some of the hard data I've seen in the past.. It may be trending down, but it's not down yet.

I believe it is also a regional thing, C# seems to dominate the Mid-Western US with Java domination on the US coasts. With C++ being, well, elsewhere out of my ethnocentric regionalisms. Again, just my own personal anecdotal evidence.

Disregarding the bullshit figures you cite, the fact that it has C/PHP/VB/Obj-C/Perl/Delphi in high positions is evidence of only one thing: that the merits of a programming language in no way determines its popularity. Proclaiming that your language is widely used is much like proudly stating your passion for mainstream radio pop-music. Its utterance achieves nothing, and only makes people look at you as if you are a fool.