Analyzing StackOverflow Users' Programming Language Leanings

AlexDomo writes to point out this statistical breakdown of the programming languages represented at StackOverflow. "Suprisingly, JavaScript turned out to be the most 'over-represented' language on StackOverflow, by quite a long way at 294% [where "a representation of 100% means that the SO tag count is aligned exactly with the TIOBE language index"]. Could this also be because programming JavaScript is generally quite difficult and will result in people seeking help more often? Following this was C# (which I had expected to be number 1), at 153%. After this, PHP, Ruby and Python were basically fairly balanced at around 100%. The most 'under-represented' major language would definitely be C at 11%. Three other major languages which seemed to be a bit under-represented, below 50%, were C++, Java and Objective-C. For details of the method used and the full results, refer to the original article." One of the attached comments makes an interesting point about the difficulty in divining meaning from such statistics, though.

Comments

Happy November from the Golden Girls!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for being a friend
Traveled down the road and back again
Your heart is true, you're a pal and a cosmonaut.

And if you threw a party
Invited everyone you ever knew
You would see the biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say, thank you for being a friend.

Re:Happy November from the Golden Girls!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.goatse.info/

(Only suitable reply to bullshit like that)

Re:Happy November from the Golden Girls!

[Anonymous Coward]

Timothy needs to be fired. All of his post are comming from Fox News(ClearChannel/Murdoch Media)

Re:Happy November from the Golden Girls!

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, I actually kind of like these posts.. I like that theme song and it's a nice distraction from the workday

JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[Anonymous Coward]

JavaScript is most often used for client-side web scripting. I imagine a lot of javascript tagged stackoverflow questions are related to figuring out the HTML DOM, which can be confusing, or trying to figure out browser quirks, jQuery syntax, etc

On the other end, I don't know anyone personally who is in the process of learning C. Everyone I know who uses it are old C hackers who have years and years of experience, and aren't likely to need to ask many questions about it.

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[lennier1]

Really? I actually know a lot of universities whose courses still include C (separate section of a C++ course) and x86 assembly, since they're regarded as one of the best ways of understanding essential basics using familiar technologies.

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[Anonymous Coward]

All the arduino tinkerers out there are using C.

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[justforgetme]

I'd like to rephrase Your point a bit:
Javascript is in the #1 spot because the process of learning js is much more fragmented and because the language usually is utilized inside a browser environment, which complicates the language's behavior even more.

A lot of people are learning to write js via copy paste tutorials which are distributed via many blogs and forums. Also a lot of people (eg: web designers) get to grips with the language by putting ready to use modules into their HTML pages. Now learning through the Internet is very much feasible, I'm not saying that. The problem from learning in this fashion is that your knowledge is very much fragmented, having usually no specific understanding of the program structure you should target and therefore ending up debugging very obscure problems.

Javascript is unique in this (followed maybe by php) because for most other languages you have to set up an environment, get to grips with a compiler etc. This usually is seen as an obstacle but because of those prerequisites people usually take learning those other languages much more seriously, reading much more documentation (hardcopy or online).

So I guess that it really isn't such a big newsitem.

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[man_of_mr_e]

Yeah, all 3 of them? ;)

(yes, I know arduino is relatively popular, but it's popular in a relatively unpopular sub-culture)

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[mwvdlee]

Perhaps it's because JS developers have to deal with incompatible browsers and wildly different levels of support and a relatively small standard library.
I've rarely needed more than a good reference manual for C/C++/Java/PHP/etc., but for JS I'm regularly googling (or indeed on StackOverflow) for a solution to dealing with the latest IE incompatibility or finding a way to do something basic that'll work in all browsers I'm trying to support.
Or perhaps developers of, for example, C# or Java can find their answers without using StackOverflow. My process for searching solution is Google first, StackOverflow second.

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[Anonymous Coward]

My university is still teaching a C class, but it's mostly a "learn about memory organization" type of class.... then the rest is all taught in Java.. except for senior and graduate level classes which often expect you to know something about C. (I learned C and C++ well in highschool, so I had an advantage)

Plus many of the computer scientists I know do everything in Python these days, since they worry more about getting their research done rather than dicking around trying to find some pointer bug. Unless of course they're systems researchers... then yeah, they use C (MPI and all that)

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[JoeMerchant]

In my day (late 80s) we took classes in Fortran and Pascal... then they made you do semester long projects in C - no pre-requisite C class, hell I don't think they even offered a C class. Reasoning was, if you knew Pascal, C was pretty close and you should be able to figure it out.

At 11% on the survey, I'd mark that as a success of C - no reason to ask questions, they have all been answered already.

Now, GET OFF MY LAWN!

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[Shifty0x88]

I agree, I believe it is because of the shift in programming languages from Compiled (C/C++) to Hybrid(Java/C#) to Interpreted(JavaScript). Most people probably went to school and learned at least one Compiled language, and are familiar with the concepts of a Hybrid language so that is an easy jump, but even I have a little trouble getting used to the Interpreted language style of JavaScript, and yes, of course the DOM as well.

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[modmans2ndcoming]

There is nothing intrinsic to interpretation that makes it inherently different than any other "style" of preparing a program to run on a CPU.

Interpretation is just another method.

What makes JS suck ass is the language construction, not the method of running the code.

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[nepka]

Also, many web developers probably aren't really trying to learn JavaScript - they're working on something else, for example with PHP and HTML, but need to do a few specific things with JavaScript.

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[shaitand]

Pascal really isn't much like C... FORTRAN is probably more like C than Pascal. Pascal is closer to BASIC than C.

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[PimpDawg]

Actually not all. I'm using C++. While new() doesn't work, creating a static instance of a class and using references works awesome. It's amazing the level of complexity you shove into those atmel processors (I went with a teensy).

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[cavreader]

C and C++ can provide an in depth foundation of concepts used in languages such as Java and C#. Both Java and C# dictate programming targeting the core run time (CLR) not the underlying OS. Both Java and C# provide the means to bypass the run time and go native but to do so adds some complexity to maintaining the run time processes. Things like memory management, threading, and GC implementation are a few examples. Run time targeted languages support these types of functionality but they do not provide the same amount of control as C/C++. I have never spent much time in Java but I have worked with the .NET CLR often and even though the nomenclature and terminology between C/C++ and the .Net environment seems to be the same there are specific differences in what the system is actually doing under the hood. The terms of inheritance and polymorphism are used in .NET but the implementation is not the same. C/C++ should be a required class because it covers all the basic concepts used in software development. Memory handing, threading, inheritance, and polymorphism represent a few of these basic concepts used in developing software no matter what language or platform is being used.

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[wisnoskij]

Java provides a in depth foundation of concepts used in languages such as C and C++.

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[bsane]

I'm guess you've never actually used Pascal before? (either that or you've never used C).

There are some glaring superficial differences between Pascal and C, and thats about it. I've converted 1000s of lines of Pascal to C with very little effort, the structure can stay _exactly_ the same, just fix the blocks and do some standard find/replace. Try converting BASIC to Pascal or C and get back to me.

Background is similar to GP, learned everything in Pascal, including the old school Mac Toolbox (all Pascal), then one day everything new had to be C, you had to figure it out yourself. Not a big deal though- very similar...

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[cavreader]

I agree that they both contribute. I mentioned this specifically in my post. However wasn't C/C++ created before Java? If that is the case then the Java designers had something to compare their efforts against during the creation phase. I'm not claiming that the Java creators just copied certain aspects of the C/C++ language but they did have the opportunity to study any C/C++ weaknesses during their design efforts. On another note I just worked on a multiple tier application that required the creation of a C++ API and the company I did this for only had 2 developers in the whole company who could work were proficient that language. And this company has about 300 developers who worked on nothing except the .NET languages and Javascript. I was very surprised by this. One of the main requirements for the C++ layer was to create an easy to abstract and implement the API so C# developers could use it in their work without having to add or even really understand what the C++ functionality was actually doing.

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[Anonymous Coward]

What this guy said. All you need in regards to trying to program JavaScript is a working browser and something like Notepad or TextEdit. There's also a lot of online material, and if you're clever enough in regards to using a browser it doesn't take much to research how websites do things. (Although plenty of times the way things are scripted are either above the newbie's head or are intentionally obsfucated.) Thus it's a language that's most accessible to complete newbies. Whether thats good or bad is another question.

If you're learning other languages, you're more likely to take a more paced approach. Partly because they tend to take more dedication to learn, require a little more resources (compilers, testing, etc.), and also because the results of working with them usually aren't being thrown on the web and exposed to the public right away.

So these results doesn't mean that JavaScript is that much harder or worse than anything else, but that a whole lot more people are trying their hand at it because it appears readily accessible. Even though that is mostly true, it's still not noob-proof.

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Every non-object oriented imperative systems programming language can easily be converted into any other. There are bigger issues in the conversion :

1) strings. Pascal uses length + value, C uses null-terminated strings
2) memory allocation is different. C is better though. It would be much harder translating C to pascal imho.
3) Calling conventions. Though both C and Pascal support mostly any calling convention, hooking one up to the other correctly is a minefield. Although I suppose that's not a problem if you always use either only C or only Pascal.

I've once seen a genius/total idiot create a series of #defines that allowed BASIC code to be entered in C. It actually mostly worked. I'm sure something similar can be done for pascal ("#define begin {" will actually work). It supported all sorts of strange things, from translating declarations (%i = 0 => int i = 0;). It wasn't even that much code, only about 50 lines.

C is very versatile, but boilerplate in C rivals that in Java. You can fix that using the preprocessor, but that's also a minefield.

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

You can actually override new() in C++. Or you could simply do what the linker normally does : statically declare a big segment, call it a heap and pass it to the standard library initializer.

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[NoSleepDemon]

So they had to employ 300 people to get just a handful of actual programmers? Yeouch.

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[angel'o'sphere]

Or perhaps developers of, for example, C# or Java can find their answers without using StackOverflow. My process for searching solution is Google first, StackOverflow second.

TBH the majourity of (imediatly closed ofc) questions on SO regarding Java are: why is it throwing this Exception (most of the time NullPointerException) and: why does it not find my class? (Because people simply don't get the concept [or don't even now about] of a PATH variable and hence the CLASSPATH variable).
My process for searching solution is Google first, StackOverflow second.
Same here, but I have to say for quick introductions or links to good blogs I'm surprised how good the quality in SO often is. Some blogs regarding not so widely used stuff I found via SO and not via google ...

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[Anonymous Coward]

> "The most 'under-represented' major language would definitely be C at 11%."

Could it be because almost all articles about C are wiped-out just seconds after publication?

It is a bit ironical to find that C++ has a higher market-share than C... only on stackoverflow.com.

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[HopefulIntern]

Yup, on my Software Engineering course we learned C with assembly as part of a "computer systems architecture" class.
Additionally, at a different university where I started a CompSci degree, the whole first semester was *only* C programming. Again, the idea was that it was a good language to teach programming basics and principles, getting us into good coding habits (that often go forgotten if starting with, say, an interpreted language) and generally getting us used to native coding as opposed to the more common procedures these days, a la Java (the rest of my degree course was taught in Java).

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[dokc]

When I went to school we started with Interpreted language (BASIC) and afterwards switched to Compiled (Pascal and C)

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[cavreader]

No they just took me off my intended project and made me the C++ developer for the application. I am not claiming I am some sort of C++ prodigy but I had enough knowledge to build this component. This happened around 8 months ago and to my knowledge they have not recruited or trained any programmers that can handle C++ work. The only other guy with C++ experience, and he was much more knowledgeable than me in C++ re-signed a few weeks after I started for reasons that did not involve this project.

Obvious

[whisper_jeff]

The reason Javascript is the most popular is obvious (to me at least): the web is based primarily on three languages - HTML, CSS, and Javascript. With those three, one can do most of what they want with a website. More advanced languages are for more advanced applications. Now, when some geek-lite decides they want to make a website, as many people now toy with, they are going to learn what? The advanced languages or HTML, CSS, and Javascript?

Javascript is the most common not because it's the most difficult. It's the most common because it's the most sought after. Supply - Demand.

Seems obvious to me.

Re:Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed the point. Javascript is over-represented on SO compared to how much it's actually used.

Re:Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

.... or possibly that web designers are taking on programming chores themselves and need help figuring out programming problems?

On occasion when I look at the JavaScript questions, they seem to be asked by non-programmers - it's just the "tone" of the question for a lack of a better description - like a writer would look at this comment and know that I'm not a writer.

With continued "downsizing" of corporate IT departments, folks are taking on more and more responsibilities. The days of there being a programmer, designer, DBA, network admin, etc ... are long gone. We've all seen the laundry lists for jobs these days.

Re:Obvious

[TwinkieStix]

Agreed. I drew a similar conclusion:
A typical hypothetical Perl programmer probably has a questions about some Perl libraries from time to time and posts about it. That programmer probably very rarely posts a question about C# or Ruby because that programmer doesn't ever need to touch those languages in his day to day work. That programmer will probably start asking questions about Javascript if he is tasked with writing a web application. I would have expected the same for the declarative languages SQL and CSS - neither of which were in the list probably because they aren't in TIOBE's list.

The conclusion I drew is that web programmers have to program in several languages at the same time (a frequent complaint of the RoR crowd) even if those programmers specialize in a subset of those languages. It's natural that we would see an increase in questions asked about questions outside of that specialized subset but required to get the job done.

Another issue I have with this data is that some languages (particularly dynamic typed languages and functional languages) can often get more done in fewer lines of code - the TIOBE root measurement. So, we expect an under-representation of languages with a lot of boilerplate such as Java. Interestingly, that doesn't seem to be the case.

My final issue is that languages that are on the decline (fewer users new to the language asking questions) or mature languages (many more well answered questions, even before StackOverflow started, already available so no need to ask) should be under-represented. Languages that are on the rise or experiencing a lot of volatility such as Javascript (in both respects) should be over-represented because new users are entering the pool of questions and new functionality needs to be discussed.

Re:Obvious

[larry bagina]

It's over-represented on SO compared to the TIOBE language index.

The [TIOBE] ratings are based on the number of skilled engineers world-wide, courses and third party vendors. The popular search engines Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, YouTube and Baidu are used to calculate the ratings.

Re:Obvious

[justforgetme]

what this means (and what larry bagina points to) is that the rate of clueless (as in: advice needing) individuals from those that use js is much higher than the same rate for other languages.
roughly that means: the mean js developer/tinkerer is the least knowledgeable developer/tinkerer (accepting that every one person only tinkers with one lang of course)

Re:Obvious

[man_of_mr_e]

That assumes that the TIOBE index is accurate, and I have no strong belief that it is. I know that in my area, there are not 3x as many Java jobs as there are C# jobs. In fact, Java has been losing a lot of ground since the Oracle takeover.

What's more, there's a lot of difference between an Enterprise Java developer, and a mobile Java developer. It'a almost completely different skill sets.

And certainly, C has lost a lot of popularity in the workplace. It's primarily only used in Unix and Embedded environments these days.

Do some searches on Dice. If you search for C (it includes C++ in the results) you get roughly the same results as Java, but most of the results say C/C++, so it's hard to know just how much C is actually used.

However, the biggest disparity is that JavaScript is used by a lot of novices with very little programming background. ie, they are not professional programmers.

Re:Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

That's only really half the answer. Like the other AC says, this is about overrepresentation on SO, not popularity.

Javascript is overrepresented on SO because it is so accessible to people with little or no programming experience. It runs in most browsers, can be written with a text editor, and provides instant feedback (with no monkeying around with compilers and linkers). (In addition, as another poster mentions, DOM and various browser quirks can make it tricky, resulting in even more questions not necessarily directly related to the language itself.)

Re:Obvious

[anonymov]

My guess is: all four top languages, JS, C#, PHP, and Ruby (most probably on Rails) are popular target for "$languagename For Dummies: Learn to Write Great $(languagename == 'C#' ? 'Windows Application' : 'Web Site')s in 24 Hours!" kind of books, and those books target audience often doesn't even have patience to read those pamphlets through, so they just come asking questions instead of googling and/or figuring out for themselves.

Of course, this intersects with the fact that JS/PHP/C# are indeed wide-spread.

P.S: Note that I don't speak about languages' qualities, but about their marketing, so to say.

Re:Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

SO?? What the fuck does that mean. Try explaining your fucking acroynms before using them exclusively. Same with TIOBE. What are you trying to tell people with that? How about you are saying: Typically I Only Bullshit Excessively?

Let me guess your coding style:

/* Function: ahhh fuck it, this is all self documenting and it is OBVIOUS what my variables are. I don't need to comment more than this.
*/
int x;
int y;
/* OK going to get very descriptive here! */
char * xidfjfllsdkjfjh;

For fuck's sake people, more of us might be interested in your article if we didn't have to get a dictionary out BEFORE we finish reading the synopsis. As for your acronyms here, I bet many don't know them because as much as it may seem, I'm willing to bet cash money that *most* here don't waste time in pissing contests about what the most popular or best language is.

Re:Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems obvious to me.

The "obvious", like "common sense" is a great way to get into trouble.

One reason why languages like C# and Java may not be as well-represented by Stack Overflow is that a lot of the people who use them get help somewhere else.

There are at least 2 major sites that are dedicated to Java alone, and they've been racking up considerable traffic since before I'd ever even heard of Stack Overflow.

S.O. can be a useful resource, but it's not the primary one I go to for Java help.

Re:Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

So you leveled up/down from "didn't RTFA" to "didn't even RTFS"?

Why don't you GTFO?

Re:Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Another thing that may add to Javascript's representation is the recent rise of Javascript backends. So not only do you have questions about Javascript client operations, you also have questions about how to get things done with node.js or whatever flavor of the month is.

Re:Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Javascript is the most common not because it's the most difficult. It's the most common because it's the most sought after.

Ok, but the summary says that this is a comparison of the TIOBE language index (a measure of a language's popularity) versus how many threads are tagged for that language at their site. So, JavaScript's high ranking isn't because of its popularity, but the percentage of questions asked about it with respect to its popularity. So it doesn't makes sense to attribute this solely to JS's popularity, because that's already taken into account here.

Re:Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Your logic is deeply flawed. You just stated that Javascript is REQUIRED on the web. That ALONE is enough to explain why it's popular, regardless of OTHER languages developers use.

Re:Obvious

[firewrought]

Javascript is the most common not because it's the most difficult. It's the most common because it's the most sought after.

The author has not ignored popularity: he's using the TIOBE index to correct for it. JavaScript has the highest number of questions on StackOverflow relative to its weight in the TIOBE index, which could be evidence for the "difficulty" conclusion the author makes. As others have pointed out, this isn't the only hypothesis that makes sense, but it's a somewhat reasonable one. (Personally, I don't think the TIOBE index is all that great of a measure to begin with, but that's another story.)

Incidentally, neither the StackOverflow question count nor the TIOBE index rank JavaScript as most common. If I'm reading the fine article correctly, they place it at #4 and #10, respectively.

Re:Obvious

[dskzero]

It's a shame you posted as AC, because this is easily the best comment I've read so far on this topic. I totally agree with you.

Javascript is for morons

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason javascript is so high is because there people who use it are clueless morons. Conversely real languages like java and c are typically used by real professionals.

Re:Javascript is for morons

[Anonymous Coward]

While you could have worded this a little better (i.e. not used the word 'moron'!), I do agree with you.

Re:Javascript is for morons

[Anonymous Coward]

What else was the GP supposed to call them? Retards? Idiots? Stupids? Fools? Americans?

Re:Javascript is for morons

[dskzero]

Did you really throw Java and C together and said "real languages"? Real men who can grow a full beard program in C++.

Learning a language?

[E IS mC(Square)]

There is also a possibility of people knowing about certain languages more than the others. In other words, in general, somebody programming in C might know the language better than somebody who is doing Javascript.

Having strong foundation is important to know how to get stuff done before using the 'internet'. Certain languages are just better at that.

Re:Learning a language?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because most people do not just sit down and say hey I want to write something, I think I will use C. Now how do I do that? People who use C and Java usually get some kind of formal training first.

However, with HTML/CSS/Javascript they can sit down do some google searching and start writing a simple web page. Then when you want to do more cool stuff, you will be looking at Javascript to do this cool stuff. Now they have not had any formal training and Javascript is more like a programming language than HTML or CSS is.

Re:Learning a language?

[Windwraith]

I agree. Most C questions are about pointers or tricky data structures done the C way, and since there are already plenty of answers for those topics, it's redundant to ask them again. The site even tries to show similar questions when you start asking, so there's often no reason to repeat such questions.

I think C is a very straightforward language once you know its quirks, so I feel the article makes sense. Also the whole webapp fad surely contributes to Javascript having a lot of questions.

Re:Learning a language?

[Windwraith]

Actually, my personal case with C was just that. I would have loved some of that formal training though, but there are enough resources to actually do as you say with web languages. Just the contents (and useful links) in StackOverflow can help you getting a lot of insight on C and its tricky trickiness.

Re:Learning a language?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes yes, and there would not have been even those C questions i the damn excuse of preprocessor wasn't so limited.

Re:Learning a language?

[Samantha Wright]

I think the underlying cause of this disparity is the lack of a solid, authoritative JS development environment. When C# programmers are confused, they turn to MS's documentation. When Java programmers are confused, they turn to Snoracle's documentation. C programmers probably turn to K&R or whatever textbook they were brought up with; or perhaps the vendor documentation again.

But Javascript doesn't work that way. Any given piece of code has to run on at least four implementations (Mozilla, Microsoft, Webkit, and Opera) and so the social expectation that others have worked out the problem in a cross-platform way is much more critical—although that being said, at least MS and Mozilla now offer solid reference material for JS... yet it's still hardly cross-platform.

Another perspective might be that, in general, most programmers will learn compiled languages (pretty much all of the other popular TIOBE ones) through school. There still isn't a course at my university that teaches JS, excepting perhaps some very introductory web design class. In the absence of an authoritative structure, programmers may be less motivated to seek out an authority for how to write good JS, which is reasonable since there really isn't one.

Re:Learning a language?

[Xest]

Frankly I think this is EXACTLY what it's about. For the most part:

People doing C are old school skilled developers.

People doing C# are professional developers or hobbyists with a genuine interest in programming.

People doing Javascript are the average Joes in the street who just built their first HTML page and want to know how to make a hover button or whatever but really just aren't interested in programming in general.

Re:Learning a language?

[dokc]

You will not get far away with K&R (although the "C Programming Language" is THE must have book on the shelf). Most of the questions that C Programmers ask are on a compiler forums and they are mostly compiler related. For beginners there are so many language tutorials that there is no need to ask (1000 times already asked) questions on SO.

Javascript has always been a copy & paste lang

[jrumney]

I wouldn't say Javascript is a particularly difficult language to program, but there is a huge variation in the skill sets of people developing in it, with a heavy bias towards those who couldn't write an original line of code to save their ass. This is the type of programmer who will flood message boards with requests for help with trivial little problems.

conclusions

[bigdavex]

JavaScript is something a newbie might want to try out. Newbies ask more questions.

I don't think that's a reflection on the difficulty of JavaScript.

Re:conclusions

[Kozz]

JavaScript is something a newbie might want to try out. Newbies ask more questions.

I don't think that's a reflection on the difficulty of JavaScript.

Additionally, everyone who visits StackOverflow is guaranteed to also already have a Javascript engine/interpreter built into their browser.

Re:conclusions

[ripdajacker]

JavaScript has the corner cases where it kind of sucks. Many start out thinking it's object-oriented, it's in fact functional. New programmers have a hard time grasping the advanced scoping rules of it, the automatic statement termination, == vs === etc.

So in that sense it's really a hard language, not because of syntax or libraries, but due to the at times seemingly arbitrary behaviour.

Re:conclusions

[narcc]

I agree. JavaScript can be a very nice and simple language, if you know what features to avoid.

Aside from general advice, like "code first for readability" and "don't do anything clever", any developer would do well to stay well clear of creating their own objects (except in the rare case where it helps readability), avoid anonymous functions, interact with the DOM only in a few well-defined and obvious places, and register event handlers in one place (if at all possible).

Oh, and learn to use the var keyword. Saying clear of anonymous functions and proper use of var will save you from dealing with most of problems caused by JS bizarre and unintuitive scoping rules.

It's not a complete list, but it's a good start -- even for developers who are intimately familiar with all of the details of JS, as it'll make their code readable to the zillions of other (lesser) JS developers who may need to maintain or just learn from your code in the future.

Seems to track age of the language

[Haven]

It don't surprise me that it seems to correlate to the age of the language multiplied by how widespread the use, with "newer" languages that are widely used being the most represented.

I don't think it has anything to do with how difficult Javascript is, but more to what the programming experience is of the person using the language. I'm sure there are more would be more posts asking about QBasic than LISP if there was internet in 1994 like there is today.

Also people using C/Java/etc. can self-teach by digging through libraries themselves.

Re:Seems to track age of the language

[frosty_tsm]

It don't surprise me that it seems to correlate to the age of the language multiplied by how widespread the use, with "newer" languages that are widely used being the most represented.

I don't think it has anything to do with how difficult Javascript is, but more to what the programming experience is of the person using the language. I'm sure there are more would be more posts asking about QBasic than LISP if there was internet in 1994 like there is today.

Also people using C/Java/etc. can self-teach by digging through libraries themselves.

Age only tells part of the story. I think everyone can agree that JavaScript is special, but here's why I think the 100% or less languages ended up where they did:

• Java and C++ are established, well documented, and developers tend to be working in teams rather than isolation (I assume Objective-C has similar characteristics but I will not claim to know such).
• PHP tends to (but isn't always) used by hobbyist or in isolation.
• Ruby and Python are relatively new to the scene and have been experiencing a lot of change (Rails 1, 2, and now 3 with a little bit of Merb; Django, Pylons and Pyramid). Knowledge share occurs primarily online and to be honest, documentation isn't all that great (partially do to the rapid change).
• C is written by engineers locked in a basement without access to the internet (so no one can hear their screams for help ;-)

Re:Seems to track age of the language

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in 1994 Usenet was the place for technical discussion, and luckily we have near-complete Usenet archives searchable at groups.google.com. Advanced search reveals that between 1 Jan 1994 and 1 Jan 1995, there were 2240 posts mentioning QBasic and 11400 posts mentioning lisp.

Re:Seems to track age of the language

[Anonymous Coward]

Age only tells part of the story. I think everyone can agree that JavaScript is special, but here's why I think the 100% or less languages ended up where they did:

• Java and C++ are established, well documented, and developers tend to be working in teams rather than isolation (I assume Objective-C has similar characteristics but I will not claim to know such).
• PHP tends to (but isn't always) used by hobbyist or in isolation.
• Ruby and Python are relatively new to the scene and have been experiencing a lot of change (Rails 1, 2, and now 3 with a little bit of Merb; Django, Pylons and Pyramid). Knowledge share occurs primarily online and to be honest, documentation isn't all that great (partially do to the rapid change).
• C is written by engineers locked in a basement without access to the internet (so no one can hear their screams for help ;-)

What JavaScript, RoR, ... have in common is that the documentation that is available focuses on teaching the Framework/DOM/... more than teaching the language itself.

The tech support effect

[goombah99]

At my institution through the 90s and early 2000s we had to have many more Windows tech support "firemen" than apple support techs. Indeed there basically were no virus and networking and printier driver conflict fires to put out. You didn't have to worry about interrupt conflicts between PC cards. No fires.

The result was every time there was an major IT decision, the windows support techs would out vote the apple support techs. Lots of windows only software became standards and at one point there was a push just go windows only.

All because there were more problems and thus more support techs.

I would imagine that more mature languages have fewer people looking for clever tricks on this web site.

Re:The tech support effect

[Xest]

I think this is something specific to where you've worked, I've never heard of a company where all IT decisions go to popular vote amongst the techies, most places have IT managers who make such decisions and it really then comes down to an objective decision if competent, a biased decision if incompetent or outright corrupt.

People with specialist knowledge in the realm of the decision in question may get asked their opinion or it may get passed down to them, but popular vote as a strategy for IT decision making, wtf? That's a bad idea precisely because some people will be more knowledge and more objective than others, better to have those managing the department and making the decisions than letting every monkey with a screwdriver and a stick of RAM have their input unless they genuinely have something helpful to add.

a mirror of stack overflow users, nothing else

[sick_soul]

"Suprisingly, JavaScript turned out to be the most 'over-represented' language on StackOverflow, [...]
Could this also be because programming JavaScript is generally quite difficult and will result in people seeking help more often?

I think that JavaScript is also used by people that do not understand it very well, and they are more likely to resort to the kind of help that this website provides.

Following this was C# (which I had expected to be number 1), at 153%. After this, PHP, Ruby and Python were basically fairly balanced at around 100%. The most 'under-represented' major language would definitely be C at 11%.

I am a C programmer and do not need help from this "stack overflow" web site.
My references are the C programming language standards and the single UNIX specification.

Re:a mirror of stack overflow users, nothing else

[siride]

Aren't you just the coolest.

Re:a mirror of stack overflow users, nothing else

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a C programmer and do not need help from this "stack overflow" web site.
My references are the C programming language standards and the single UNIX specification.

Also, my poop smells like roses...

Re:a mirror of stack overflow users, nothing else

[Anonymous Coward]

*facepalm*

Re:a mirror of stack overflow users, nothing else

[svick]

My references are the C programming language standards and the single UNIX specification.

So you never write any code that is OS-specific, you never use any third-party library and you never write any GUI? Good for you.

From my experience, the documentation isn't always great. And even if it is, some things just aren't obvious.

Re:a mirror of stack overflow users, nothing else

[Caesar Tjalbo]

I am a C programmer and do not need help from this "stack overflow" web site.

As a Python programmer I didn't need it either but since I have to code in C#, I'm quite happy with its existence.

Re:a mirror of stack overflow users, nothing else

[InsertCleverUsername]

I am a C programmer and do not need help from this "stack overflow" web site.
My references are the C programming language standards and the single UNIX specification.

Dude... Was I supposed to imagine this read in the voice of Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons?

Re:a mirror of stack overflow users, nothing else

[Anonymous Coward]

^^^Get a load of this douche.

Re:a mirror of stack overflow users, nothing else

[slapout]

'I am a C programmer and do not need help from this "stack overflow" web site.'

Then perhaps you should go to this "stack overflow" website and help others who don't know as much as yourself.

Difficulty or Popularity or Medium Popularity?

[gameweld]

-Do we ask questions because of difficulty or because the underlying technology is more popular?
-Are javascript developers more likely to use sites like stackoverflow vs traditional means (books, mailing list, forums, etc).
-Do we underestimate javascript usage? Does javascript span more projects, i.e. I have a C# based web-project, but still use javascript for the UI.

These are the underlying questions that would have to be answered before we could derive anything from this sort of analysis. That said, in our recent study of stackoverflow questions (publication pending), we found that there was a strong correlation between the frequency of using a particular API class (as defined by google code search), and the numbers of questions asking about those classes. This could suggest questions have a large popularity component, or it could mean people are more likely to run into difficulty with popular components!

Re:Difficulty or Popularity or Medium Popularity?

[Windwraith]

I wanted to mod you insightful but I already posted so...

Well, recent developments in the software world have made Javascript kind of an ubiquitous language. You can find a lot of apps that can be scripted using JS nowadays, not just web browsers.

Also, StackOverflow is a damn good place to ask questions, I can see why people would prefer to books or mailing lists and forums. Forums leave too many questions unanswered, mailing lists can be terribly slow, and books aren't free (nor available worldwide).

And of course popularity would influence things. When I just started learning C, it was "the hot thing" to make games with, at least from an outsider's perspective, or it was the language other people recommended when you announced your intentions. I assume C# and Javascript are the most mentioned and/or recommended in their respective use fields, which leads to more people wanting to know it, which leads to more questions asked.

Re:Difficulty or Popularity or Medium Popularity?

[nschubach]

To add:

-Do we ask questions because the language implementation does things differently than we are used to doing in another language or that would defy common convention. Since it's needed for your job, you need to find out what way that is.

Re:Difficulty or Popularity or Medium Popularity?

[Mad Marlin]

-Does javascript span more projects, i.e. I have a C# based web-project, but still use javascript for the UI.

I think that has a lot to do with it. I mostly do C, Ruby, and Python, but I've had to do JavaScript a lot more than I would expect, and my knowledge of it is still rather limited. I know programming and software development both rather well, but I've never put the time to really learn JavaScript.

Web designers with no programming experience

[gtada]

I think web designers with little to no programming experience account for this, no?

Those who use C++, Java, etc. are more likely to either be in training to become software engineers (for whom stackoverflow would be cheating), or are working as software engineers (and rarely need stackoverflow).

Re:Web designers with no programming experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Those who use C++, Java, etc. are more likely to either be in training to become software engineers (for whom stackoverflow would be cheating), or are working as software engineers (and rarely need stackoverflow).

StackOverflow is commonly used for intricate questions that Bjarne himself couldn't answer. I'd wager that employed C++ programmers are most likely to contribute there.

Huh?

[oldhack]

I've seen StackOverflow site, I know and used most of the languages mentioned, but I have no idea what the summary is yammering about.

Cue it.. !

[0ld_d0g]

Cue the non-JS programmers bashing web developers as "not real programmers". :-)

Re:Cue it.. !

[Anonymous Coward]

Web development is not programming, more like art.

Re:Cue it.. !

[RightwingNutjob]

You're going to have a heck of a time doing web development in raw, inscrutable, hexidecimal numbers, directly.

Re:Cue it.. !

[0ld_d0g]

Why stop there? You're going to have a heck of a time doing anything without CPU microcode, reliable transistors and signal processing.

Re:Cue it.. !

[HopefulIntern]

I have been on the receiving end of this bashing, and yet there is some (albeit very little) truth to the notion. "Programming", as I understand it, is different from "scripting" which is what (many people think) web development is. Apart from the HTML and CSS part (which is technically neither...what is it called exactly??) web development revolves around writing scripts to handle events (PHP, for example, to handle an HTML form submission). People seem to think that this development style is not "real programming" because you do not compile anything yourself, you do not allocate memory, you are not making a standalone "program" as such. But then again, this can be said for Perl (by definition a scripting language) or even Java (also, not compiled or native).
This is not to say that web development is easier. On the contrary, people with "web developer" as their job title, as has been already mentioned, tend to need to know quite a wide variety of languages to be very employable, in contrast to someone who is a Java developer, who for the most part only works in Java and can therefore become a guru in this one language.
By the way this is just my very limited perception on this issue, as I am in no way a very experienced programmer, and am just in early stages of a career in development (web or otherwise).

Re:Javascript has always been a copy & paste l

[gtada]

jrumney beat me to it, but I agree 100%. I don't find these results surprising at all.

My take on the C figure

[Anonymous Coward]

I think C is under represented, using the same difficulty analysis, because syntactically its much simpler to understand and with a consistent way of solving the problems like cooking recipes. Only when you are provided with more experience you get to make small decisions that influence a lot the stability and maintainability of the problem. But again that comes from experience and mileage not from a question you get to ask, which is what stack overflow is about. A big influence for the under representation figure is also the small standard library which is what maybe generates more questions in other languages like python, php etc, which are the so called "batteries included" languages.

As you can understand i love C, and i am sad its such a frowned upon language. It's not so dangerous as its painted. With experience you can actually minimize all the typical pointer pitfalls to none and looking for error patterns when debugging is also a great help. The only language that i think is great for high level is java and i am really sad it comes with way too much baggage for embedded, even so it forces you to be a good programer.

Re:My take on the C figure

[Tacvek]

C is only particularly dangerous when inexperienced developers just jump in and start writing code without having more experienced developers review what they wrote. The inexperienced developers have not yet developed good practices to ensure they don't overflow a buffer. Similarly they don't understand ownership of allocated memory, so they end up either freeing memory owned by other code, or failing to free memory when ownership is passed to their code.

If experienced developers carefully reviewed the code, these sorts of problems would be noticed and corrected, and things are fine. Unfortunately, real code review is somewhat rare in the business world, as are static analyzers that would also tend to catch many of these same mistakes. If you properly implement safeguards C can be a fine language, (although admittedly I'm a bit partial to C++ myself as a "low-level" language, despite its many, many flaws).

For a high level statically typed language, I actually prefer C# as a language over Java, although C#'s strong ties to Microsoft are admittedly a negative. They are rather similar languages, each with their own flaws, but I like that C# sometimes adds some syntactic shortcuts for common patterns, while Java absolutely refuses to even consider many syntax-only changes, and when they do add one, like anonymous classes, they feel half-baked.[1]

[1] Anonymous classes must be inner classes, they do not provide the option of being static nested classes which I find to be far more useful than inner classes. They are also not full closures, which are (were?) planned for java 7, which would (will?) end up making anonymous classes feel largely obsolete. (Although in Java's Defense, I'll admit that C# made a similar mistake with the anonymous methods, which really are entirely obsoleted by the newer lambda expressions. On the other hand, C#'s anonymous methods were in fact full blown closures.)

Re:My take on the C figure

[Jeremi]

C is only particularly dangerous when inexperienced developers just jump in and start writing code without having more experienced developers review what they wrote.

In other words, C is only particularly dangerous most of the time. :^P

PHP

[optymizer]

Before the PHP haters start posting comments, I would just like to say: haters gonna hate.

Re:PHP

[Weezul]

I've used PHP for one job. Good god I hated that language! So epically poorly designed. Err, poorly not designed. Form vars dumped in the the global namespace? It takes seriously talented stupidity to improve upon SQL injection. LOL

I've used one language professionally that I hated more though, namely Visual Basic. It's pretty much exactly PHP with some forethought put into language design, except said forethought was done by an idiot, making it actually worse than PHP's "add random keyword" model.

I think VB and PHP copied each other's major mistakes fair well, including the form vars stupidity.

Re:PHP

[Anonymous Coward]

Your response is more relevant for 1998 than 2011. "Form vars being dumped into the global namespace" hasn't been around since 2004, as have most of your other problems.

Re:PHP

[optymizer]

And what are your qualifications to judge the design of a programming language exactly?

Most Misunderstood...

[SharpFang]

Javascript is - according to its author - the most misunderstood programming language in the world. While it bears surface similarity to languages like C and Java, and allows you for simple programs to be similar in structure to these, its core design is much closer to LISP (and the syntax quite efficiently obscures/hides that), and so few people truly understand it... so questions are very frequent.

Re:Most Misunderstood...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is so true and ought to be modded up. Watch Douglas Crockford on YUI theater to find out some amazing stuff about JavaScrips, EcmaScript, and the history and power of the language.

Re:Most Misunderstood...

[sourcerror]

I would welcome however to have a built in clone() method, if it pretends to be object oriented.

Re:Most Misunderstood...

[TheRaven64]

It's a shame that it lacks one by default, but given that it's just two lines of code to add one to Object, it's not a massive limitation...

Re:Most Misunderstood...

[angel'o'sphere]

JS (I assume you refer to it, yes?) is not object oriented but object based. A small but important difference.

Re:Javascript has always been a copy & paste l

[Hentes]

It's not necessarily because of ignorant programmers, reusing existing code is not a bad thing in itself. But yes, Javascript is mostly copy&paste because it's very modular. Big programs are rare, it's mostly just snippets of code implementing specific controls so it's very easy to copy.

Easy yet hard

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone tried to write fresh javascript that works well in one browser much less all of them? Javascript problem isn't the language, it's the implementation and it's interaction towards the browser which contains many quirks/gotchas that it's impossible to keep track of them without experience. Add in the ease of entry (meaning more people with less experience) and you get basically this situation.

C Programmers

[paithuk]

All the C programmers are busy over at bufferoverflow.com

Re:C Programmers

[Mastadex]

The SO guys should grab that domain name.

Re:C Programmers

[syousef]

All the C programmers are busy over at bufferoverflow.com

More like coredump.com. Back in the day my uni friends and I use to describe going to the toilet as dumping core.

Re:C Programmers

[MobyDisk]

Or bufferoverflow.com#$a(k?e@`%s5^_`

Re:C Programmers

[MadKeithV]

All the C programmers are busy over at bufferoverflow.com

And the C++ programmers are still linking - but it will be so much faster when it's done!

Re:C Programmers

[HopefulIntern]

I'm stealing that, even if I'm not a C programmer!

Re:C Programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

All the C programmers are busy over at bufferoverflow.com

No we're no£"$%%$"%...core dumped

Re:C Programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought they were over with the C++ guys at segfault.net

It's all a matter of perspective

[damn_registrars]

They clearly tried to manage their data using javascript, a big mistake from the get-go. If they'd have taken the same data and parsed with with Perl, they would have found that all the questions came from Python and Ruby people. Had they done it in C++, all the questions would have come from C# users. Had they done it in PL/SQL they would have found that the questions all came from rounding errors.

And if they had done it in assembly, they would have found there were no questions at all...

Re:It's all a matter of perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure what you are talking about, but if you are suggesting that Javascript somehow contributed to the poor representation of data, you are mistaken. Please reevaluate your comment for flaws in logic.

Re:It's all a matter of perspective

[aintnostranger]

woosh!

Re:It's all a matter of perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

*Cue massive facepal*

Not the top tag though?

[iSimon19]

I do find this interesting, considering the top tags for Stack Overflow questions are C# and Java.

Interpreting the statistics...

[gstrickler]

...real programmers don't ask for help, unlike those wimpy JS hacks and C# pretenders.

Burned.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good one.

This clearly shows...

[eexaa]

...that there aren't many stack overflows in C!

Good programmers don't use StackOverflow.

[Anonymous Coward]

StackOverflow is only popular because there are a lot of foolish "programmers" out there, and it just happens to be the place where they congregate online and award each other meaningless "badges" and "reputation points".

Virtually all of the questions asked there can be answered by doing the following:
1) Reading the documentation of the programming language, library or software in question.
2) Having even a basic level of skill with the technology in question.

Good programmers realize that this is the case, and thus easily get the answers to their questions by themselves. It's only the shitty "programmers" who can't do this who need to resort to StackOverflow.

It's no wonder that there are so many JavaScript questions at StackOverflow. JavaScript is the definitive programming language of idiots. Good programmers do everything in their power to not use JavaScript, while idiot "programmers" embrace it and try to use it absolutely everywhere, including every place where it surely shouldn't ever be used. Good programmers don't run into the problems that these idiot JavaScript "programmers" run into so often because these good programmers know not to use a shitty language in the first place, and they know not to try to use a shitty language for stuff that it's not good at.

Re:Good programmers don't use StackOverflow.

[Windwraith]

I don't disagree with your post, however, many good programmers start out as "shitty" programmers.
That's simply because not everyone has the background or know-how to get into a "code mentality" right away, and asking stupid questions is a good way to learn (specially if you realize that your question was, indeed, stupid).
I don't think reputation points and badges are worth anything though, but that's me. Still, you can see a incredible amount of really good, informative and "stimulating"** answers posted to not-so-smart questions.

**Stimulating as in some kind of answer that makes you want to try alternate ways to reach your goal. the kind of thing that makes you fire up your IDE/text editor to hack, right away.

Re:Good programmers don't use StackOverflow.

[Sir_Sri]

So maybe what it tells us is Javascript is where a lot of people get their start coming from non programming fields, and they hit stack overflow having no clue what they're doing. People who learned programming, in any language, don't land on SO because they know most of the basic stuff anyway, and of course most people who learn to program learn to do so in one of the C family and Java.

Re:Good programmers don't use StackOverflow.

[mikael_j]

Virtually all of the questions asked there can be answered by doing the following:
1) Reading the documentation of the programming language, library or software in question.
2) Having even a basic level of skill with the technology in question.

A big problem with this is that when "the library" is "All of the .NET framework" just going through the docs isn't always as easy as it seems. And even if you do find what you think is the right parts of it to use you can find yourself confused right up to the point where you ask a question on StackOverflow and someone helpfully points out that .NET actually has multiple implementations of what you want to do and that the obvious one is rarely the right one. Not to mention actual honest-to-god bugs and implementation quirks that aren't mentioned in the official docs (sure, you can search all of MSDN and hope to stumble across some MS advisory that explains a workaround but even then you might find it is overly specific, if you find it at all).

As for JavaScript there are definitely a lot of beginners out there trying to use it. There is also the issue of JavaScript being frequently used with (X)HTML, CSS and some web service that it fetches data from. Couple this with a lot of the information about JavaScript out there being wrong or outdated and it isn't really that strange that a lot of developers who would normally mainly work in say, Java, C# or Python, find themselves confused and facing conflicting information on how to solve a seemingly strange problem. JavaScript as implemented by various browsers also has a few oddities (both in terms of differing implementations and plain WTFs that are bound to baffle developers unfamiliar with it).

Re:Good programmers don't use StackOverflow.

[man_of_mr_e]

While certainly, there are a large number of questions that could easily be solved by googling, many questions are more subtle or deal with issues that are not well documented.

Particularly in technologies that change quickly, there is a huge need for this kind of site. One problem with googling information that changes quickly (for example, Linux) is that information that's out there quickly gets out of date, and people spend hours trying to solve their problems with inaccurate how-to's and man pages. Asking a question gets you more up-to-date information from people that know what they're doing, and it becomes a self-documenting system.

StackOverflow has become the primary location to go to search for programming issues you're dealing with, because unlike google, it doesn't contain extraneous results, spam, and things non-programming related.

Re:Good programmers don't use StackOverflow.

[TheRaven64]

I suspect that, in JavaScript's case, it's because there are a lot of things that can go wrong. In C, once you understand pointers that's 90% of the difficulty gone. With JavaScript, you have weird quicks of the scoping, strangeness related to the semicolon insertion and the bizarre binding behaviour of return, and that's before you get into browser-specific quicks and DOM weirdness.

Re:Good programmers don't use StackOverflow.

[GGardner]

Virtually all of the questions asked there can be answered by doing the following: 1) Reading the documentation of the programming language, library or software in question.

This is one reason there are so many JavaScript (perhaps actually DOM) questions -- where is the documentation to answer questions like "how do I do x, across every major browser versions which didn't really follow standards well"? If I'm programming in, say, Java or C++ with some framework where I control more of the environment, I can go to one place to answer questions, but there's no one definitive source for these cross browser problems.

Re:Good programmers don't use StackOverflow.

[spiffmastercow]

The problem isn't Javascript (though it's certainly not my first choice of languages), it's the DOM. The problem is that there's about 5-10 versions of the DOM that you have to worry about, and you never know how browser X implemented its DOM. I think you've got it backwards -- you get lots of Javascript questions because good programmers get frustrated writing multiple implementations of the same code for each browser, and want to find something that "just works" so they can move on to some more interesting task.

Re:Good programmers don't use StackOverflow.

[angel'o'sphere]

Virtually all of the questions asked there can be answered by doing the following:
1) Reading the documentation of the programming language, library or software in question.
2) Having even a basic level of skill with the technology in question.

Sorry mister elite anonymous super hacker, you can not be more wrong, at least for yur point 1).

Most documentation is just bad, really bad. For someone who likes to learn stuff by himself he has really trouble find what he is looking for.

E.g. you already know a bit C++ ... just a bit from a one semester university course e.g., now you want to learn Java: so where are your destructors, where is your virtual member function, how do you declare a reference how do you write an conversion operator?

You see: plenty of easy to answer question which you won'T get answered by searching / reading some Java "documentation" ... because stuff that does not exist is hard to find, stuff that uses different names (member function versus method) is hard to grasp/find etc. etc.

Now your point 2) comes, sure people who don't know that a member function in C++ is the same as a method in Java, don't know much about the basic concepts ....

Re:Good programmers don't use StackOverflow.

[scot4875]

1) Reading the documentation of the programming language, library or software in question.

Personally, I consider the output of a Google/Stack Overflow search to be part of the documentation of the programming language. I'm not sure why someone would choose to ignore a valuable resource.

If I can find a code snippet that does what I want it to, rather than having to write it from scratch, great. In particular, I'd rather spend my time working on application logic than low level dealings with the OS.

--Jeremy

Failing the inference grade

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming javascript is difficult because many people ask about it, completely forgets that different people have different abilities, skill sets, experiences, and so on. It also forgets that communities themselves have "flavours". That self-selecting bias means that stackoverflow is full of js and c# copypasters because a certain kind of windows-using web enthousiast hangs out there. This reinforces itself, so, well, that's what just got measured. Doesn't say squat about how difficult or even how popular the language is in general. It only says something about what sort of bunch likes to hang out there.

If you'd go to a place talking about systems programming, most will be (implicitly) about C. Find a functional programming hangout, lo and behold, the discussions will center around functional languages. Stackoverflow is no different, even if it doesn't have a specific label put on the outside. The inside is very much biased.

Personally I tend to avoid the site because most of the time it shows up in search results the discussions are too shallow or otherwise unusable, so it's turned out to be a waste of time for me. It's just not my cup of tea, guv, so I don't hang out there. Quelle surprise. Perhaps the most important point about the entire thing is that its fanbois are so infatuated with the thing that they overlook the obvious and start to overgeneralise. To me it is clearly the case that this happened with the rather wild conclusions based on these infographics.

Teaching?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's because C, C++ and Java are taught at schools and universities, whereas JavaScript is usually self-taught?

English thoroughly underrepresented

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish people would bother to master their own native languages before attempting to communicate by/with machines.

Amateur programmers not willing to learn

[jtara]

It's probably because Javascript has the largest proportion of amateur programmers who aren't willing to learn the language they are programming in. They won't buy a book, they won't take a class, they won't read an online manual or tutorial. What they will do is download a free script and they beg others to customize it for them. This is usually prefaced with "I don't know Javascript, but I have to...."

Re:Amateur programmers not willing to learn

[shog9]

Yup...

But here's the concept:

Programmers seem to have stopped reading books. [...]

Instead, they happily program away, using trial-and-error. When they can't figure something out, they type a question into Google. [...]
-- Joel Spolsky, stackoverflow.com (several months prior to the site actually existing)

Does that scare you? Bother you? Leave you a depressed shell of a man, thinking seriously about that potato-farming slash fracking job you left behind back in Idaho?

Well, it probably should. But regardless, that's reality: and that's the audience Stack Overflow was created to serve. So that the apps we're using every day aren't being cobbled together by folks who think DynamicDrive.com and W3Schools are the last word in programming knowledge. If nothing else, this little chart indicates it's working...

Re:Amateur programmers not willing to learn

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that scare you? Bother you? Leave you a depressed shell of a man, thinking seriously about that potato-farming slash fracking job you left behind back in Idaho?

For C, probably. For C++, none of my books mention namespaces, but I ran screaming at that point and haven't looked back. For Java I think my books are a version behind. My perl books are still good as long as I stick to perl5. As are my Python books (up to 2.4 or so).

I don't buy javascript books. I looked at one in B&N the other day, it was brand new and already obsolete. I'm good with the basic language and the standard libraries, but here's a question for you: when did the select tag get a value attribute? The DOMs are what generates almost all of the questions.

Re:Amateur programmers not willing to learn

[Undead Waffle]

Yup...

But here's the concept:

Programmers seem to have stopped reading books. [...]

Instead, they happily program away, using trial-and-error. When they can't figure something out, they type a question into Google. [...] -- Joel Spolsky, stackoverflow.com (several months prior to the site actually existing)

Does that scare you? Bother you? Leave you a depressed shell of a man, thinking seriously about that potato-farming slash fracking job you left behind back in Idaho?

Well, it probably should. But regardless, that's reality: and that's the audience Stack Overflow was created to serve. So that the apps we're using every day aren't being cobbled together by folks who think DynamicDrive.com and W3Schools are the last word in programming knowledge. If nothing else, this little chart indicates it's working...

Why is that scary? I don't think books are a particularly good way of learning to write software. Often times you don't know exactly what it is you need to learn until you get there. Obviously you need a good foundation so you don't end up gluing a bunch of stuff together and creating a mess of memory leaks, but you don't need a book for every little topic.

One way I often use StackOverflow is to find better solutions to something I already know how to solve. Python has a lot of neat features that, when used correctly, can create some very elegant solutions. I'll run into a problem and think "I know there's a much better way to do this, I just don't know what it is" so I'll search StackOverflow. Does it make me a worse programmer that I haven't run out to buy books on every type of problem I might want to solve for every version of the programming language I might want to solve them in and trusted that the writer has the best solution available?

It's about what people visit the site

[ImonseI]

The basic languages that new people work most with will be the ones that are posted most questions for. Not many people begin their programming experience in C nowadays, so people learning C will have some experience in general behind them. Also my totally blind guess is that C experts don't frequent stackoverflow as much. That leads to the interesting question of "where do C and other programmers go to get their answers if not to stackoverflow?".

Re:It's about what people visit the site

[syousef]

The basic languages that new people work most with will be the ones that are posted most questions for.
Not many people begin their programming experience in C nowadays, so people learning C will have some experience in general behind them.
Also my totally blind guess is that C experts don't frequent stackoverflow as much. That leads to the interesting question of "where do C and other programmers go to get their answers if not to stackoverflow?".

Being an older language, C standard libraries and Unix libraries tend to be very well documented in a few places. Lots of good older text books and reference manuals and online tutorials abound. stackoverflow tends to most be popular with web and enterprise programmers building business apps - C doesn't get used on new business apps anymore and hasn't been in some time.

Place to ask questions

[suy]

To me is somthing as simple as that: most Objective-C developers are coding for Apple plattforms, so they ask in an Apple-specific place. My C++ coding is usually done with Qt, so I will ask in a Qt related place. Linux kernel developers are not going to ask C questions on stack overflow, they ask in a linux-related site.

And so on...

TIOBE

[Anonymous Coward]

TIOBE is pretty much the most worthless index you can make without just making shit up. I have no idea why people keep paying attention to them.
It boggles the mind why anyone would take a pretty accurate measure of a local population, compare it with a wildly inaccurate one over a larger population, and expect to find some meaningful relation between the two.

It's about browser support

[LS]

With JavaScript, you've got to support multiple browsers from the get-go, doing things that were never intended by the VM implementers, such as network polling and widget systems.

Can we try some plain English?

[Anonymous Coward]

The most 'under-represented' major language would definitely be C at 11%.

"would definitely be"? It either is or it isn't.

Teach it to yourself. TIY?

[sgt scrub]

Stackoverflow is great for people that teach themselves. TIY or TitY? The list there is ordered by the most popular languages people teach themselves. Some people, namely myself, need to reach out every once in a while for a little help. Well, there are the kids using it to get someone else to do their homework but no need to go into that.

Re:Javascript has always been a copy & paste l

[Qzukk]

there is a huge variation in the skill sets of people developing in it, with a heavy bias towards those who couldn't write an original line of code to save their ass.

That, combined with the fact that the internet is flooded with ancient javascript snippets ripe for copying and pasting despite the fact that they don't work on anything but netscape 4.

It's because smart questions are closed on SO...

[Anonymous Coward]

JavaScript although somewhat "powerful" (honestly a language for which there only exist mono-threaded implementations in this day and age is hardly that "powerful" in my book) it also attracts lots of beginners.

They all dream of writing the next FaceBook and think that to make their webapp look great and intuitive and whatnot to be "social-cloud-2.0-compliant" they need JS.

And they ask dumb stupid questions: and SO users likes dumb stupid questions because they're the questions they do actually understand and they're the ones they can answer and karma-whore.

Now go ask a smart question: recently some dude put up an amazing little question about the nash equilibrium. Some 30K rep user kept insisting that "you can't do better than XXX". Despite several comments and a piece of code showing how wrong he was. Was still refusing to see the facts: "you cannot do better than XXX". These guys think they know it all because they've got 30K rep despite them being often very mediocre programmer.

So ask these smart questions: they get downvoted and "voted for close" nearly instantly. Once these people with rep can downvote, they'll downvote question that they realize are too smart for them to answer.

Joel Sprotski thinks that "any programmers with 3K rep on SO it the kind of genius-programmer anyone want on their team". Sure. I did lose a 7K rep account due to their bogus OpenID implementation and the fact that he didn't know I should link my SO account to several OpenID logins, "just in case" one would be problematic in the future (yeah, sure...). Opened a new account, I'm already a 1K rep on it.

It's really easy to karma-whore / make it to 3K or 10K rep. These aren't great programmers. These aren't good programmers.

The only thing SO is good for is getting rid of the spam.

Their implementation s*ck fat balls too: website is shitty, OpenID issues are boring, uptime is less than stellar. Personally cannot stand that lolcat "I'm working on ur problemz right now" anymore.

Cannot wait for the next big thing that shall extract less newbies and that shall actually encourage smart and thought provoking questions.

JavaScript

[Anonymous Coward]

IMO, JavaScript has the lead because there are so many people that can barely program anything, that somehow get into web design positions at large companies.

High scorer languages

[Coward Anonymous]

Would be interesting what languages the high scoring members answer most of their questions. Wildly interpreting it as what languages the competent programmers are using.

Re:High scorer languages

[Westley]

There's an obvious potential correlation between high scores and plenty of questions being available though.

Hitting the rep cap (200) each day is relatively straightforward, which leaves only accepted answers (and bounties). If there aren't many questions in your area of expertise, you could easily end up with only 260 per day despite being incredibly savvy.

I'm lucky that my two areas of "reasonable competence" (I wouldn't quite go as far as expertise) are Java and C#, both of which have plenty of questions available. Whilst there's obviously more competition in those topics too, it's a fairly "target rich environment" so to speak.

Re:High scorer languages

[Coward Anonymous]

Yes, there could be a high correlation as you describe or there may not. That's why I think it would be interesting to ferret out the numbers and see if anything interesting can be deduced from them.

TIOBE might be wrong? *GASP*

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of considering this an "over-representation," perhaps this just indicates how incredibly inaccurate TIOBE is?

...or is TIOBE just wrong.

[bradgoodman]

Or can it be that TIOBE is just wrong. A poor index, not necessarily representative of anything. I forget exactly how the index is calculated, but to my last recollection, it wasn't representitive of anything "real-world-enough" to really account for much of anything.

I'd guess that SO is more representative of "what people are actively engaged in". Maybe....for example, I work in "C" and "Perl" all the time. However, I knew them well enought that I very, very rarley post any C or Perl questions

I have worked a lot with Andrioid an iPhone latley. As these are more recent environments for me, I post questions on SO to them more.

So maybe SO is more reflective of what people are learning?

Re:...or is TIOBE just wrong.

[shutdown -p now]

That is certainly quite true - TIOBE is practically worthless to gauge PL popularity, so using it to define "overrepresented" is worthless squared.

One other aspect is that communities tend to acquire bias for historical reason. E.g. on SO, there is a fairly strong historical bias for .NET stuff - not sure whether it started by .NET community flocking there because MSDN forums had sucky UI, or because a bunch of people who could give good answers came there first because it's new - but, ultimately, it became the place to ask .NET-related questions where you want those people to see them and answer them. Hence why e.g. C# tag is more popular than Java on SO.

Re:...or is TIOBE just wrong.

[shaitand]

"C" and "Perl" are completely different cultures than "javascript" and "C#" as well. These languages are entrenched in an RTFM culture that means the coders who use them generally try to find the answers for themselves before posting to a board expecting someone else to deliver for them.

Re:...or is TIOBE just wrong.

[Toy G]

.NET programmers were there first because the founder, Joel Spolsky, moved his (large) community over there first, and that community was mostly Microsoft-centric (Joel worked at Microsoft and wrote some very insightful posts on Redmond strategy, back in the day). Most old-school VB types were knee-deep in C# by then, so that's what they brought up.

maybe, but this analysis is surely wrong

[dshk]

I have recently contributed a few answers to stackoverflow in a language independent subject. I did notice that PHP programmers asks the most obvious questions, immediately after C# programmers. Based on my experience the statistics on stackoverflow show one thing: popularity of a language in the group of wanna-be programmers (maybe they do not even want to be programmers).

Re:maybe, but this analysis is surely wrong

[dshk]

I would add that mobile programming also seems to be very popular among beginners.

Poor conclusions

[Anubis IV]

So, languages that have come into heightened popularity in the last decade or so, most of which are primarily used or oriented around web development, were the most overrepresented, while well-established languages aimed at native applications development were the most underrepresented? And from that they conclude that Javascript is a hard language? I think there are a number of better conclusions that could have been made, such as:
1) Stack Overflow attracts more web developers than native application developers.
2) Newer languages have less documentation available.
3) Those languages that are overrepresented tend to attract more newbies.
4) There's a lot more innovation in the ways that those languages are being used, which prompts more questions.
5) Those languages are the most dissimilar from the others, which means that less previous experience translates over.

I'm not suggesting that any of these is necessarily the cause, or that it's one of these and not the others, but I do think that any of them is a better explanation than what was given in the summary.

Not much of a shock

[shaitand]

The ratings have an inverse relation to the average competence and self-reliance of those using the language. Javascript and C# are typically used by inexperienced programmers or programmers without advanced internals knowledge. People on this side of the coin haven't been told to RTFM enough so they expect others to give them answers rather than finding them themselves. PHP and Python coders thrive in a community populated by many former Perl coders so many of them get the proper RTFM treatment but they are also popular and easy languages so they only get the middle ground. C programmers thrive in a world of RTFM and are close enough to the internals that they usually know what the problem is.

The idea that this is because Javascript and C# are 'hard' is actually fairly laughable.

the over representation is due to the stack

[Anonymous Coward]

javascript is heavily represented in stack overflow due to it's use as the front-end language
people will use c#, php, ruby, python, asp, java, etc on the server backend
when they present the problem though, it's might be javascript related but they'll include the server-side language they're using as well
i would the primary driver for this would be ajax
where if the site isn't using ajax, it's just not web 2.0

It's JQuery

[poifull]

JavaScript tops the most asked programming language because of the popularity of jQuery.

"How do I do this in jQuery?"
"How do I do that in jQuery?"

Even if you are familiar with JavaScript and HTML DOM, you have to forget what you know and do everything the "jQuery way."

I donno

[Weezul]

I've always heard that Mac OS X suck even worse than windows for remote exploits, but they only get exploited by hackers knowledgeable hackers, not viruses andy to script kiddies.

I'll happily testify to Mac OS X's kernel being epically inferior to Linux. For example, the whole damn machine hangs when it finds one bad sector, and said bad sector will likely corrupt data, even when the drives SMART status ain't anywhere near failing. wtf?!?

Heavily biased by and for web programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a completely self-serving poll. The site is used heavily by people who are biased towards developing web sites. Here are a better set of polls:
How many device driver writers program in JavaScript, Virus Broadcast Script (VBS), or COBOL? Not very many.
How many compiler writers program in languages other than C++? Not very many.
How many people who create high performance virtual machines implement them in Scheme, Haskell, Ruby, or Python? Probably zero
How many embedded programmers write in an interpreted language? Probably zero
How many top500 systems developers write code in an interpreted language? Probably zero.

Different domains have different requirements; interpreted languages (even with JITs) are okay for some things, but when performance matters, or explicit understanding of device events/characteristics are required, it is difficult to use such. Not impossible, merely very hard. JavaOS _did_ boot on both Alpha and StrongARM...

js problems

[waterbear]

The reason Javascript is the most popular is obvious (to me at least): the web is based primarily on three languages - HTML, CSS, and Javascript.

The article said it is overrepresented in SO queries. That's like being 'popular' in something of the way that a highly prevalent disease might be called 'popular'. (I don't deny it may be actually popular as well.)

But the features or bugs of js that make its problems overrepresented on SO are probably linked to the characteristics of js that make me groan whenever I see that a webpage demands the use of it.

I wish it could be outlawed!

-wb-

Different languages, different crowds

[mmcuh]

It's probably more due to the fact that people who use Real Programming Languages (e.g. C, C++ and so on) are more likely to be trained or experienced programmers who usually know what they are doing, while JavaScripters and C# people are a bit more likely to be kids trying to get some webpage working.

JavaScript on its own isn't hard, it's actually a quite nice language. The DOM thing is pretty awful though.

Dumb units.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I have seen stupid units like "libraries of congress" instead of kB or number of football fields instead of yards or meters, number of buckets instead of gallons.

But this takes the cake. Why the hell are they expressing correlation coefficient in percentages? It has always been represented as a rational number between -1 and +1. I know people are dropping out of engineering and science courses. Then they come up with their own units and scale for things with well known standard and commonly accepted practices.

Re:Dumb units.

[damian2k]

I'm probably wrong here but isn't this post just showing a ratio as opposed to a correlation coefficient? e.g. the javascript number of 294% could have been shown as 2.94 but maybe the % gives it a bit more impact?

Is this a shocker?

[Eskarel]

Stack Overflow is written in C# and JQuery, you can ask a question about anything on there, but you've always had a better shot of getting or finding an answer if you're looking for a .NET web development related question, if only because the people running the site are more likely to know it. The more likely you are to get an answer the more likely you are to visit the site and provide an answer, so the site is skewed towards that particular technology stack. C# is a nice well designed language whereas Javascript is an abomination, so you end up with a lot more Javascript questions.

Re:Is this a shocker?

[gbjbaanb]

unfortunately you failed to read even the summary!

The top tag on SO is for C# - which you say must mean C# is an abomination, fair enough. (actually I think it'll be because the .NET framework is rather large, and now becoming susceptible to the usual Microsoft 'obsolete it, replace it and bloat it' process. Therefore it's incomprehensible to most people, thus requiring many more questions on how to do things)

The article goes on to compare the number of SO questions against the 'language popularity' of TIOBE, and then describes the ratio.

Also, FYI, the people running SO aren't the ones who answer the questions.

Java or Javascript

[kmoser]

The higher incidents of Javascript questions may be due to n00bs asking about Javascript when in fact they are using Java.

Statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is the TIOBE index taken to be the ground truth here? The data for the TIOBE index come from a rather crude Google search for language names. So it relies on a fuzzy search, on a mostly irrelevant corpus (all public web sites), performed using a secret algorithm that is constantly being tweaked according to the commercial interests of a monopolist. I would expect Stackoverflow popularity to be a better measure for the incidence of a language.

Re:Statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, one of these language names is a letter, another is a snake, another is a mineral, another is an big island, another is an ancient sanctuary, another is Portuguese for moon, others are people's names etc. Even if TIOBE tries to do some clever filtering, that's a lot of noise in the data.

Simpler explanation

[Lulu of the Lotus-Ea]

Most of the comments below--and to a large degree the source article--seem to implicitly assume that all discussion of programming languages happens on Stack Overflow. There probably is some difference in the average experience level of programmer of various languages. But it's also almost certainly the case that OTHER websites also discuss programming languages. For example, someone interested in finding a solution to Python puzzle might well go to the Python Cookbook (http://code.activestate.com/recipes/langs/python/) rather than Stack Overflow. Similarly, to varying degrees, for all the other languages mentioned (with various sites appropriate to each). All this really amounts to is that "Stack Overflow is a good place to find info on languages X, Y, Z; but not so good for A, B, C" ... and this effect is somewhat self-reinforcing, as users of the "underrepresented languages" look elsewhere for help.

The mere distribution of specialization on various websites says nothing at all about the quality, difficulty, breadth of use, or much anything else about the languages themselves.

I can not believe that this works ;D

[angel'o'sphere]

First of all TIOBE claims to search world wide (which can't be true as they only search in english, but also explains why the results on TIOBE don't look similar to my gut feeling. E.g. C and C++ jobs are very very rare in germany, C is basically only used for embedded programming, C++ is more or less a legacy language meanwhile)
(From their web site)
The ratings are calculated by counting hits of the most popular search engines. The search query that is used is
+" programming"

Now someone is comparing the TIOBE results with StackOverflow, but a lot of TIOBEs data is very likely based on SO ....

Re:I can not believe that this works ;D

[HopefulIntern]

C and C++ jobs are very very rare in germany, C is basically only used for embedded programming, C++ is more or less a legacy language meanwhile)

Recent jobhunting in the UK suggests this is the case here, too. I saw maybe 2 or 3 C/++ jobs advertised. If it isn't web development, then Java is the thing to know. If it *is* web development, it is about a 60/40 split between .NET(C#) dev and LAMP-style* dev, respectively.
*What I mean with this is, not just limited to LAMP - often using other tech like jQuery, AJAX, etc. - but with LAMP at the core.

C and C++ have their own forums

[satuon]

Like codeproject, codeguru, daniweb, etc. Stackoverflow is language agnostic with its tags system, and so it attracts a disproportionate amount of languages which don't have their own established forums to compete. For example, I use it if I have questions about python, but when I have questions about C++, I go to codeproject sometimes.

Haskell, OCaml and Erlang missing

[Anonymous Coward]

And they have their own slice of the tags...

Where does the buck stop?

[Anonymous Coward]

If my C doesn't work, it's because I wrote it wrong; I debug, look for the error that I made, correct it and the code eventually works as intended. If I can't find the problem, another pair of eyes from my office will usually help me find the elusive uninitialised value or pointer mishap.

If my Javascript doesn't work, more often than not it's because a browser is interpreting it in a non-standard way; then I have to look online for help in figuring out what non-documented incantation I have to use to make the browser do what I wanted it to do. Javascript problems will fox even the most experienced software engineer because they tend to be arbitrary and illogical in nature.

I'd interpret these statistics as meaning Javascript creates 30 times more requests for help online than C does. It's not a "more difficult language", but when it goes wrong you have to ask the entire world why it isn't working, not just someone from the corridor.

Also, of course, as every other commenter has mentioned JS is for noobs who ask online before they reach for a debugger, etc.

Well....

[Anonymous Coward]

SO is known as the web/.NET hangout, so no surprises. Not exactly one's first stop for other tech.

It's Language Combinations

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer to this is obvious to me. While some of the other comments do show other reasons that are likely also true, I think this reason is the most impactful.

How many applications out there are a combination of C# and PHP? Maybe a few, but per capita not that many. How many C# / Javascript hybrids are out there? Any ASP.Net application written in C#. How many PHP / Javascript hybrids are out there? Every PHP application ever written.

The biggest reason IMO that Javascript is on top of that list is because any web-based application uses Javascript while not every web-based application uses C# or PHP. Being a C# developer myself I have posted many C# questions to SO and also a handful of Javascript questions. Never have I posted a PHP question.

Or....

[hesaigo999ca]

>Could this also be because programming JavaScript is generally quite difficult and will result in people seeking help more?

Or it could mean that it is so robust and powerful, that so many people come up with these innovative ways of using a language, to do so many things with, where as Perl, is limited to text manipulations and IO , javascript leverages a browser's DOM completely allowing not only a hacker to take over a user's browser, but a network admin to test his current network setup, and for a programmer to develop quick and pretty websites, to many regular expressions used for parsing data, to .....the list is endless....

If you ask about another language that has minimal usage in today's day and age....(fill in your favorite low end programming language here)....
of course less people will respond, leaving you to never return to this site, thereby increasing the questions asked about OTHER programming languages.
It's a catch 22....the less you get in response , the less you come back, the less questions asked for that language.

Re:Teach it to yourself. TIY?

[smartr]

Sure stack overflow is a great place for people who teach themselves, but I think it's funny to assume stack overflow is the best place to learn a language for oneself online. It seems to me more like the languages best represented there lack sufficient documentation and other means of getting answers. Java, for example, has some nice beginner forums, sites like JavaRanch for more stack-overflow like questions, good free documentation and tutorials, various open source project forums, etc... I mean, we may as well be asking - who is best represented on expertsexchange... I think it just shows a lack of a better open community to get answers from.

Better basis for comparison

[Jerry Coffin]

I'm a bit surprised that while a number of people have pointed out how lousy Tiobe is as an index of popularity, that nobody's pointed to an alternative. I'd suggest langpop.com as a considerably better alternative.

The most obvious points of superiority are simply documenting what they actually measure and how they combine the individual measurements to produce a final result. Although Tiobe doesn't document enough of what they do well enough to be sure, it looks like langpop.com covers a couple of types of sources that Tiobe doesn't (or at least doesn't imply they try to cover). One particularly interesting point is that they attempt to gather data about actual code, not just questions about code (e.g., they look at Freshmeat, ohloh, and Google Code).

Oh, and no, I'm not affiliated with Langpop.com (or Tiobe) in any way.