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REPOST: Re: Python Popularity, python at sourceforge

Roeland Rengelink r.b.rigilink at chello.nl
Sun Dec 30 20:07:02 EST 2001 
Bill Tate wrote:
> 
> Roeland Rengelink <r.b.rigilink at chello.nl> wrote in message news:<mailman.1009628733.25391.python-list at python.org>...
> > Hi,
> >
[snip]
> >
> > Alas, the numbers are far more ambigious than I'd hoped. To summarize:
> >
> > 1. Python is the smallest of the 6 languages discussed here.
> > 2. Python is currently growing slower than PHP and Java, but faster
> >    than C and Perl.
> >    - Python has only been gaining on Perl for the last 6 months
> >    - the difference in growth w.r.t PHP and Java may be getting smaller
> > 3. Java is more cross-platform than Python. Perl, C, C++ are less.
> > 4. There is no clear evidence for Python's ease of development.
> >
> 
> You raise some interesting numbers, but I'm not sure I share some of
> your conclusions.  The basis for your conclusions appear to be derived
> in large part from projects on sourceforge.  While I don't disagree
> that the numbers could suggest something consistent with your
> conclusions, there's a couple of things worth noting.
> 

Well, _only_ from sourceforge projects actually ;) 

What I tried to do was to take a theory (Python is growing rapidly, is
cross-platform, is easy-to-use) and test the prediction that these
properties would be reflected in sourceforge statistics.

So I tried to look for evidence in the sourceforge statistics for
Python's rising popularity, cross-platform usability and ease of usage.
What I found was some evidence for the rising popularity and
cross-platform usability. As far as ease-of-use is concerned, I see that
I was a little careless in my wording. My reasoning went as follows:
Given that Python's obvious qualities as a RAD language, do we see those
qualities reflected in sourceforge statistics. I could think of two
possible predictions. 1) Python's qualities lead to a higher percentage
of finished projects. Or 2) Python's qualities lead to more rapid
(active) development. I don't think I found clear evidence to support
either of these two predictions. However, these predictions were very
naive. Hence, my failure to confirm them does not imply that Python is
not easy to use. 

(But wouldn't it have been fun, if I'd found that Python projects are
more likely to reach a mature status)

> First, maturity of the language.  Are the number of projects on
> sourceforge more indicative of the maturity (or lack thereof) of a
> language as opposed to inferring popularity or growth of the language.
>  C is still hugely popular on Unix and Linux, but I wouldn't
> necessarily infer that the number of projects on sourceforge for C as
> being indicative of either its usage or popularity.  For python, there
> is a huge, pre-existing standard library, much of which perhaps
> doesn't require a dedicated sourceforge project.
> 

That's why I tried to focus in the relative rate of growth of the
languages. It is a fact that the number of PHP projects at sourceforge
is growing more rapidly than the number of Python projects. One could of
course argue that Python is more mature and therefore doesn't need as
many projects as PHP. But I think it is more likely that, currently, the
number of PHP users/developers is growing more rapidly than the number
of Python users.

> Second, python developers routinely make use of extensions to existing
> C and C++ libraries.  Many of these extensions do not require a
> specific project on sourceforge.  They are distributed through various
> means and not necessarily through sourceforge.
> 

If one assumes that a fixed percentage of development in a given
language takes place on sourceforge (not necessarily the same
percentages for each language), then sourceforge statistics provide a
measure of the rate of growth of language usage. If one furthermore
assumes that these percentages are roughly the same for all languages
then sourceforge satistics also provide a measure of relative popularity
of these languages. If you mean to say that these percentages are
probably not the same I would agree with you.

> Third, project numbers do not necessarily equate to developer usage or
> preference of a particular language.  Perhaps in concert with other
> measures (newsgroup/discussion group activity), something can be
> inferred about these numbers.
> 

Well, I'm assuming that, in their free time, developers will choose
what, to them, is the most appropriate tool for their project. Most
appropriate may of course mean 'most fun' or 'best' or 'known' or
whatever. However, I would think that if developer preference was
reflected in anything, then it would it would be in the choice they make
on how to spend their free time.

> Fourth - does the number of actual projects convey the degree of
> cross-platform support that already exists?
> 

These are project that claim to be cross-platform, which doesn't mean
that they are projects to support cross-platformness. So the percentage
of projects that claim to be cross-platform may in fact be indicative of
the cross-platform support that does exist. I find that that percentage
is higher for Java projects than for Python, and higher for Python than
for Perl. This confirms the generally held believe that Java is more
cross-platform than Python, which in turn is more cross-platform than
Perl.

> Lastly, your numbers I believe omitted RUBY.  Ruby appears to be
> gaining in popularity and the number of projects is increasing.  Would
> your conclusions be the same (in terms of rate of growth rather than
> totals) had they incorporated into your numbers?
> 

There are currently only 81 Ruby projects at sourceforge. I think that
that's too small a number to make reasonable comparisons to other
languages.

> WRT Exploding popularity - Regardless of what may or may not be
> happening, I'll take moderate and un-hyped growth anyday.
> 

I agree very much. What I found interesting about the thread though, was
that it was taken for granted that Python is growing rapidly in
popularity, raising the question of why Python is not used more in
commercial enterprise. Some suggested that this might be the result of
some conservatism in business that is the result of interference from
clueless managers. My suggestion would be that Python is not growing
nearly as rapidly as some might think and/or that commercial enterprises
may not necessarily be more conservative than open source developers.

> Ease of Usage - Personally, I don't think we need numbers from
> Sourceforge to reach a conclusion here.  I don't think there is an
> question on Python's ease of use.  Its almost pro forma language that
> appears at the beginning of any sentence that starts with "What's
> Python?"

I agree, see the beginning of this post.

Thanks for your comments,

Roeland
-- 
r.b.rigilink at chello.nl

"Half of what I say is nonsense. Unfortunately I don't know which half"

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