GitHub, the worldwide repository for software projects, is out with its latest statistics for 2017.
A lot of fluff in this post, but the chart that I liked was the one showing the most popular languages in GitHub:
A few random thoughts on this chart:
- Amazing to see Javascript so dominate. With Javascript frameworks all the rage, it would be interesting to see this split out by framework. Interesting that TypeScript is still pretty small, considering Angular in most cases should use Typescript, so I would expect to see Typescript grow faster than Javascript.
- Python #2? For years few people in the business world have taken python seriously (famous quote by Stack Overflow founder Jeff Atwood on PHP: “PHP isn’t so much a language as a random collection of arbitrary stuff, a virtual explosion at the keyword and function factory,”).
- C++ ahead of C#? This leads me to believe this chart may not be an accurate representation of language popularity. I find it hard to believe the C++ community is bigger than C#. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, VB doesn’t even make the list.
- Ruby at #4. I don’t know Ruby, but I keep hearing really good things about it. If I was going to start in on learning a new programming language, I would want to look at Ruby. I am attracted to opinionated languages, and Ruby on Rails has a reputation for being so. Another great example of opinionated software was Microsoft Access – by doing what it was designed to do you could crank out forms faster than anything – as long as you didnt deviate from what it did well.
Reading GitHub’s post makes you realize how much GitHub is responsible for the growth in open source software. It is also perhaps the best collaborative public programming platform out there. Having a community where developers can easily share code and contribute is one reason for the speed at which new software applications come to market. We all borrow code from someone. And perhaps thats the way it should be.