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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Python sits firmly in top place in the newest annual ranking of popular programming languages by IEEE Spectrum.
The ranking and others like it are meant to help developers understand the popularity of languages in a world where no one really knows what programmers are using on their laptops.
IEEE Spectrum has placed Python in first spot since 2017, and last year it was just ahead of C++. The top language is given a score of 100, and all languages with lower scores are scaled in relation to it. C++ last year scored 99.7, followed by Java at 97.5, and C with 96.7.
Today, in the IEEE Spectrum's sixth annual ranking, Python's 100 is a long way ahead of runner-up Java's 96.3 score, while C is in third place with 94.4. C++ has slipped to fourth with 87.5, while in fifth is specialist statistical computing language R with a score of 81.5.
The magazine for engineering members of IEEE, the world's biggest engineering and applied-science organization, attributes Python's popularity to the vast number of specialized libraries it has, especially for developers building artificial-intelligence applications.
[...] They go on to note that Facebook, which was originally built with PHP, launched its alternative to PHP, Hack, in 2014 and since then JavaScript, TypeScript and Python have become the most popular languages for web development.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday September 16 2019, @03:21PM (2 children)
Was it? I mean, it's a strongly-typed language, but so is C++.
I was under the impression the main selling point of Java was its cross-platform-ness, back in the days where that wasn't a thing anybody really did, short of writing compilers for every platform they wanted it on.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 18 2019, @02:55PM (1 child)
My perl program is more cross platform in practice than it would be if I wrote it in java.
If I use perl for my program the end user/customer does not need to install anything else. Whereas if I used java they'd need to install a compatible java runtime.
Perl comes built in on most platforms AND for Windows you can use stuff like PAR to pack it so the end user does not have to install perl.
Unfortunately in recent times I think folks like Redhat and Apple are now removing it as a default, so I may eventually need to resort to PAR for those too...
That'll increase my work a bit but even so in practice getting the end users/customers to install the correct java runtimes will still be more pain and/or work.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday September 18 2019, @06:08PM
Yes, now it's a lot easier. But back in the mid-90s it was a different ballgame.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"