2010 Google Trends for python, ruby, and php | Hacker News Reader

2010 Google Trends for python, ruby, and php

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22 pointssmharris6521 comments

The graphs change a lot searching for "PHP array" VS "Python array" VS "Ruby array":

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=31&q=python%2...

Possibly comparing a search that is about what a real user could type into the search engine is more accurate, and filters out other stuff like all the search for "Python" as animal.

Edit: btw using "hash" instead of "array" changes the results a lot: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=31&q=python%2...

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=31&q=python%2... - in Python "arrays" are called lists...

Thanks amix, not in Ruby so the final link could be this:

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=31&q=python%2...

Actually, since a PHP array is more like a combination of a python list and a python dictionary or a ruby hash and a ruby array, this is the best comparison: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=31&q=python%2...

Much of PHP's popularity comes from countries where the other two aren't even known, like Bangladesh. Limiting the search to either San Francisco or Boston gives the most useful results: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=31&q=python%2...

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=31&q=python%2... -- In python, "hashes" are called dictionaries

There is already a filter on the search that limits the results to programming queries, but I don't know the algorithm.

I tested by comparing the results for "ruby" and "rails". The curves were virtually identical, which would be impossible if there were very much noise in the results for either term.

using "ruby on rails" massively changes the results: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=31&q=python%2...

Try this example:

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=31&q=ruby%2Cr...

There's still a strong correlation among the three queries.

Pointless graph. Ignores the way people look for info on their language. PHP is well documented so PHP users just go to php.net and know the docs will be there. I like the feel of Python and Ruby more than PHP but you don't have to look at Google Trends to know that PHP is far, far more popular than Python and Ruby combined.

Actually, looking at the Regional Interest section, it looks like a much tighter cluster in the US than most other countries (with Python in the lead.) It's possible that PHP is just far more popular outside the US, and you can learn that from Google Trends.

Python is well documented so Python users just go to http://docs.python.org/ . Don't know about Ruby, but I suspect you could make that argument about any language.

Yes Python also has great docs. Ruby not so much. There's a command line tool for viewing Ruby docs called ri that I imagine many Rubyists use more than ruby-lang.org.

(Ruby's docs improved when Programming Ruby was first written but since then I haven't noticed any significant effort to further improve them. I reach for one of my Programming Ruby books or PDFs before going to http://ruby-lang.org , might just be me but I doubt it!)

"ruby on rails" vs "django" has a much different take:

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=31&q=django%2...

I always wondered why Python consistently ranks higher than Ruby outside of the webapp sphere. Could it be the scientific/academic community's interest in Python's superior number crunching?

Libraries.

If the numbers in these charts are relative to the total number searches on Google, then it could just mean that the ratio of programming searches to non-programming searches is decreasing, (i.e. if more non-programmers are using Google, or if people don't use their phones to search for programming-related concepts on Google.)

I think you're absolutely right. I've been thinking the same ever since I started to look at programming language usage on google trends and found that almost all of them are going down most of the time.

I learned from this that Cuba is creating a secret army of rubyless programmers that it will at some point unleash upon the world.

See this "TIOBE Programming Community Index for December 2009": http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index....

It ranks the top 20 languages. Subtitle: "December Headline: All time highs for C#, Objective-C and ActionScript"

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=31&q=python%2...

"foo developer"

Look at how Java is in decline. Also, check the map to see where most queries for Java and PHP come from.

Peter Norvig points out elsewhere that some apparent "declines" can be explained away by a growing population of non-technical web searchers.

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