Comment by SlySherZ | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SlySherZ | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

The graphs about languages seem very weird. Let's take a look at the "Which languages do developers prefer by age?":

Python: 84.6%

C: 54.0%

C++: 48.2%

Java: 48.2%

JavaScript: 47.6%

...

Ruby: 21.0%

Why is Python so far ahead of everything else? Why is Ruby, which is all about programmer happiness so far down?

It seems people actually like JavaScript. Wait, people do actually like C++?!?

Also if you take a look at Go by age, for example, it goes from 53.6% (35-44) up to 67.8% (45-54) and back down to 7.6% (55+). I don't see a reason for such a huge preference variation. There's also a few 0.0% with 55+ years.

It seems there weren't enough answers for this to be anywhere near conclusive.

You're almost certainly right that their sample sizes are too small, especially in the upper age brackets. I suspect it's hard to find a lot of 55+ year old programmers who are willing to do silly things like take a HackerRank poll. Given the industry stats, it's fairly hard to find 55+ year old programmers, period.

> people actually like JavaScript. Wait, people do actually like C++?!?

Yep to both. I actually don't mind the latest versions of JavaScript. I don't like C++ at all, but have done professional work in it alongside people who thought it was a great language.

> Why is Ruby, which is all about programmer happiness so far down?

Programmer happiness is subjective (as evidenced by my previous remark and by the love/hate you see expressed for JavaScript, Go, Clojure, etc). Personally, I'm not a Ruby fan. I don't like the syntax. I vastly prefer composable functions to Ruby's "blocks". I find that most Ruby code I've worked with is too heavy on OOP abstractions and would be much clearer if expressed functionally. I could go on, but the point is, it's subjective.

I also had issues with this graph. Reading the top, it's the percent approval of that language minus the percent disapproval of that language within that age group. Then, it's split on age group with the tabs up top.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com