Visual Basic is growing faster in popularity than any other language!
Or, at least, the TI0BE Software survey says it is!
According to their website, "The TIOBE Programming Community index gives an indication of the popularity of programming languages." They use a formula based on how often a language is used in search engine queries and they calculate their index once a month. According to the July 2006 survey, Visual Basic gained more than any other language, jumping three places in popularity.
But the bad news is that we're still behind Java and C in the overall rankings.
Ah well, there's always next month.
There is some wisdom to be gained from the long term trend chart available at TIOBE too. According to that chart, the popularity of Visual Basic has been gaining pretty steadily since late in 2005. That's about when VB.NET 2005 became available along with the other Framework 2.0 technologies.
That makes sense to me!
VB is #3,
but VB.NET is #19¡ (and down 3 positions)
I like very much VB.NET. Sadly I am surprised.
Good Point! However …
It’s necessary to dig into their detailed methodology to figure out why this is the case. I maintain that “VB.NET” didn’t really plunge like this after all. Here’s why.
First, they break VB.NET away from VB because “it differs too much from classic Visual Basic versions.” That’s a point I have made here on a number of occasions. I have said that the only reason they still call it “Visual Basic” is to take advantage of the popularity of VB 6 for marketing reasons. In fact, VB.NET is a whole new language.
And I agree with you. I like VB.NET a lot more too.
But “truth” actually lies in the real world, not in TIOBE’s definitions. If you check their detailed methodology, you discover that:
————————
The search query that is used is
+”<language> programming”
————————
If you execute this search query, you discover that the actual hits retrieved are mostly VB.NET hits anyway. Whether TIOBE or I regard VB.NET as different from VB or not, the world’s web sites regard them as being the same. So their “Visual Basic” popularity index actually applies to VB.NET after all. In fact, the main conclusion that can be drawn from the declining VB.NET index is that fewer and fewer sites are bothering to distinguish between them.
About Visual Basic is a great example, in fact. This site is becoming “mostly” VB.NET but we don’t make that distinction in our name.
Very flaky methodology. Perhaps VB’s used more by newbies than any other language?
LOLOCAUST@NUBS… I PWN@DA PROGRAM
Mr. Masterer, a guest of the site from Ontario, Canada, is suggesting that the calculations used caused a “holocaust of laughter” (LOLOCAUST) and claims ownership of programming.
This must be what passes for English where he or she lives.