Are C and C++ Losing Ground?

Pickens writes "Dr. Dobbs has an interesting interview with Paul Jansen, the managing director of TIOBE Software, about the Programming Community Index, which measures the popularity of programming languages by monitoring their web presence. Since the TIOBE index has been published now for more than 6 years, it gives an interesting picture about trends in the usage of programming languages. Jansen says not much has affected the top ten programming languages in the last five years, with only Python entering the top 10 (replacing COBOL), but C and C++ are definitely losing ground. 'Languages without automated garbage collection are getting out of fashion,' says Jansen. 'The chance of running into all kinds of memory problems is gradually outweighing the performance penalty you have to pay for garbage collection.'"

Comments

C/C++ is dying!

[KillerCow]

But does Netcraft confirm it?

Re:C/C++ is dying!

[Tackhead]

But does Netcraft confirm it?

No, but Stroustrup himself is reputed to have apologized for C++ as far back as 1998.

"It was only supposed to be a joke, I never thought people would take the book seriously."
- From the lost tapes of the legendary IEEE interview of 1998 :)

Re:C/C++ is dying!

[LabRat007]

For those of you who can't open the page...

1. Java
2. C
4. PHP
5. C++
6. Perl
7. Python
8. C#
9. Ruby
10.Delphi

Please note, there is no language in the 3rd position this year. Seriously.

Re:C/C++ is dying!

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps, but when the guy with the Musket has the most kills, you better damn well give him the respect he deserves.

Re:C/C++ is dying!

[Bozdune]

VB not a programming language?

Yes, because:

1) Only noobs and losers use VB.
2) It's not object-oriented and I took an OO class and they said everything should be OO or it sucks, so VB sucks.
3) I have to create global variables sometimes and I was taught that I should never use global variables for anything because they're bad.
4) Only noobs and losers use VB.
5) VB lets me create classes but they don't work the way classes are supposed to so I hate them.
6) I don't like VB controls, they're ugly, I like to make little hexagonal corners and stuff and piss away weeks of development on cute little clickable thingies.
7) Only noobs and losers use VB.
8) I don't like VB because writing Windows applications should be really hard.
9) "Hello, world" only takes one line, and that can't be right, because I learned in Java class that it should take pages and pages of setup code and stuff.
10) Only noobs and losers use VB.
11) Some idiot can build a simple windows app in about 30 seconds and it's not fair, that same app took me two weeks in C++ class.
12) The dweebs in Accounting are building VB apps and they shouldn't be programming, they don't know what they're doing.
13) Only noobs and losers use VB.
14) I heard Ruby is where it's at, I only want Ruby jobs now because it's kewl.
15) I heard that VB is wicked slow, but then I found out it compiles and stuff which totally isn't fair.
16) Only noobs and losers use VB.

Re:C/C++ is dying!

[smellotron]

If they really are dying... I'd say only one thing:

FINALLY!

There is no finally! That's what destructors and the RAII idiom are for, duh.

Re:C/C++ is dying!

[jd]

Answer to Coldfusion's longevity - MySpace.

Ok, build crossroads at the bottom of a deep oceanic trench, bury ColdFusion as specified there along with MySpace, plate the bottom of the trench with Osmium before filling it with molten rock from the planet Mercury. You gotta take these menaces seriously.

Re:C/C++ is dying!

[The Master Control P]

I know that I'm not the only one who read that link as "Dalek Scientific."

Which would be the most goddamn awesome name for a scientific supply company ever.

Visual Basic at #3?

[eldavojohn]

I can handle C and C++ losing ground.

But did anyone else find Visual Basic rising two spots to #3 past PHP & C++ to be a sure sign of the apocalypse?

(Visual) Basic 11.699% +3.42% A Could someone reassure me that's a mistake before I go home to sit down with a bottle of Jack Daniels and a revolver with a single bullet in it?

Re:Visual Basic at #3?

[Hoplite3]

Not a mistake. But if I could make a suggestion, it would be to upgrade your burbon to Booker's. You won't need that money later.

Re:Visual Basic at #3?

[Chris Burke]

Single, not silver.

Gah, damnit!

I guess now you know why I'm such a terrible werewolf hunter that I have to try to do it by tricking them into committing suicide over the internet.

Re:Visual Basic at #3?

[VGPowerlord]

Elton John is a werewolf?!

Re:Visual Basic at #3?

[metamatic]

I wish people would stop banging on about C's memory problems. C has *no* memory management problem. It has no memory management at all [...]

And Heather Mills has no left leg problems, right?

Wow

[ucblockhead]

Down 0.77% in a year? Alert the presses!

Almost as bad as Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky calling them "dead languages" on their new podcast.

Re:not so..

[Anonymous Coward]

Coming from someone who can't handle the concept of a contraction, it doesn't carry the weight you think it does.

Re:Always be there

[rishistar]

C/C++ will always be there. Semi-Colon. There fixed that for you.

Absolutely

[DoofusOfDeath]

Are C and C++ Losing Ground?

Yes, but on the bright side, they lose ground about 1.5x faster than Java in most applications.

Re:Always be there

[wkring]

Cobol projects go on the Share tape.

Re:That's what's missing from my angry-old-man ran

[Jehosephat2k]

All you young bucks, let me tell you somethig. Back in the good ol' days when I was a programmer, we didn't have all these fancy "windows" and "icons". All we had were 1's and 0's. And sometimes we didn't have any 1's. Once I wrote a database using only 0's. And we liked it.

Re:not so..

[RiotingPacifist]

The day the linux kernel is coded in anything other than C, is the day i after i install duke nukem forever on hurd.

Re:Fortran!

[Digi-John]

FORTRAN is fast as hell and lots of scientists know it already, so yeah, it's still got a lot of use over here in scientific computing. Software packages like LINPACK have been tweaked for decades to get really high performance. The thing is, people in scientific computing are less likely to sit around blogging and posting on /. (I'm an exception, it seems) so their languages (FORTRAN and C, maybe some C++) don't get as much coverage as stuff like Ruby on Rails where you get 5 million postings on Digg every day from some web-tard who just figured out how to make his blog even more disgusting.

Re:Managed code is the way to go

[Chris Burke]

That was a rhetorical question, by the way. Of course, because we both know the answer is emacs.

C isn't dead...

[Tumbleweed]

...it just smells that way.

Re:Hammers and screwdrivers

[Chris Burke]

In summary: A hammer is best when your problem is a nail, and a screwdriver is best when your problem is a screw.

I also find screwdrivers to be a very good solution when my problem is sobriety, and maybe Vitamin C deficiency.

Re:Yes it is

[Weaselmancer]

Best laugh of the day - thank you. =)

Hey, you've given me an idea though. You know what would be even faster? Now...don't stop me until you hear me out, okay?

If Java is faster than C, we should rewrite the Java VM...in Java! Interpreted code running in an interpreter...that is *also* interpreted!

Just think of the speed increase! It would be like using uranium to fuel the space shuttle! Awesome multiplied by awesome.

Re:Always be there

[Zironic]

Are you trying to claim that the authors of the MenuetOS are in their right minds?

Re:not so..

[porkchop_d_clown]

Let me know when you're finished with that Linux replacement.

Re:That's a broken way to think of it

[xenocide2]

Ah, well there's no use trying to use C++ as an embedded language / assembler. One look at template inheritance and you shall melt like the Nazi's in Indiana Jones.