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Comment by pcarbonn | Hacker News Reader

Alternative ranking : the [PYPL index](http://pypl.github.io/PYPL.html)

Disclosure: I maintain it.

I just can't take TIOBE seriously, I don't think Kotlin is as popular as the Logo educational programming language and Rust dropping 20 positions despite adding a new keyword to it is also interesting. And Typescript isn't even measured. Yours is much more believable, but I don't see C++ there. Is this a bug or a feature? EDIT: I saw the clarification in the other comment but maybe C/C++ would be better then?

It depends what you are looking for in a rating. If you are making a new programming language and want to know which concepts and syntaxes are familiar to people, than TIOBE is probably not that far off. PYPL on the other hand seems to show how many people want to try the language, not necessarily trying or sticking with it, but more like a measure of its visibility on the market. Both are useful metrics and help to paint a better overall picture.

Kotlin is now the preferred programming language for Android development.

Another alternative ranking:

https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2018/03/07/language-rankings-1-1...

In your wordcloud graphic "Java" is twice as big as "Python"; however, in the rankings they are almost identical (Java=22.7%, Python=21.69%)

No C++ in Top 10?

> The index is currently limited to 22 languages. You can still analyze the popularity of your favorite language and compare it to others, using Google Trends. C++ has the same popularity as C on Google trends: to avoid duplication, it is not included in the PYPL index.

Hence, to avoid confusion, the table should be updated as "C and C++" (or worse, "C/C++").

That said, any index which conflates C and C++ cannot be taken seriously.

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