Analyzing StackOverflow Users' Programming Language Leanings

AlexDomo writes to point out this statistical breakdown of the programming languages represented at StackOverflow. "Suprisingly, JavaScript turned out to be the most 'over-represented' language on StackOverflow, by quite a long way at 294% [where "a representation of 100% means that the SO tag count is aligned exactly with the TIOBE language index"]. Could this also be because programming JavaScript is generally quite difficult and will result in people seeking help more often? Following this was C# (which I had expected to be number 1), at 153%. After this, PHP, Ruby and Python were basically fairly balanced at around 100%. The most 'under-represented' major language would definitely be C at 11%. Three other major languages which seemed to be a bit under-represented, below 50%, were C++, Java and Objective-C. For details of the method used and the full results, refer to the original article." One of the attached comments makes an interesting point about the difficulty in divining meaning from such statistics, though.

Obvious

[whisper_jeff]

The reason Javascript is the most popular is obvious (to me at least): the web is based primarily on three languages - HTML, CSS, and Javascript. With those three, one can do most of what they want with a website. More advanced languages are for more advanced applications. Now, when some geek-lite decides they want to make a website, as many people now toy with, they are going to learn what? The advanced languages or HTML, CSS, and Javascript?

Javascript is the most common not because it's the most difficult. It's the most common because it's the most sought after. Supply - Demand.

Seems obvious to me.

Javascript has always been a copy & paste lang

[jrumney]

I wouldn't say Javascript is a particularly difficult language to program, but there is a huge variation in the skill sets of people developing in it, with a heavy bias towards those who couldn't write an original line of code to save their ass. This is the type of programmer who will flood message boards with requests for help with trivial little problems.

conclusions

[bigdavex]

JavaScript is something a newbie might want to try out. Newbies ask more questions.

I don't think that's a reflection on the difficulty of JavaScript.

The tech support effect

[goombah99]

At my institution through the 90s and early 2000s we had to have many more Windows tech support "firemen" than apple support techs. Indeed there basically were no virus and networking and printier driver conflict fires to put out. You didn't have to worry about interrupt conflicts between PC cards. No fires.

The result was every time there was an major IT decision, the windows support techs would out vote the apple support techs. Lots of windows only software became standards and at one point there was a push just go windows only.

All because there were more problems and thus more support techs.

I would imagine that more mature languages have fewer people looking for clever tricks on this web site.

a mirror of stack overflow users, nothing else

[sick_soul]

"Suprisingly, JavaScript turned out to be the most 'over-represented' language on StackOverflow, [...]
Could this also be because programming JavaScript is generally quite difficult and will result in people seeking help more often?

I think that JavaScript is also used by people that do not understand it very well, and they are more likely to resort to the kind of help that this website provides.

Following this was C# (which I had expected to be number 1), at 153%. After this, PHP, Ruby and Python were basically fairly balanced at around 100%. The most 'under-represented' major language would definitely be C at 11%.

I am a C programmer and do not need help from this "stack overflow" web site.
My references are the C programming language standards and the single UNIX specification.

Re:JavaScript... or HTML DOM?

[justforgetme]

I'd like to rephrase Your point a bit:
Javascript is in the #1 spot because the process of learning js is much more fragmented and because the language usually is utilized inside a browser environment, which complicates the language's behavior even more.

A lot of people are learning to write js via copy paste tutorials which are distributed via many blogs and forums. Also a lot of people (eg: web designers) get to grips with the language by putting ready to use modules into their HTML pages. Now learning through the Internet is very much feasible, I'm not saying that. The problem from learning in this fashion is that your knowledge is very much fragmented, having usually no specific understanding of the program structure you should target and therefore ending up debugging very obscure problems.

Javascript is unique in this (followed maybe by php) because for most other languages you have to set up an environment, get to grips with a compiler etc. This usually is seen as an obstacle but because of those prerequisites people usually take learning those other languages much more seriously, reading much more documentation (hardcopy or online).

So I guess that it really isn't such a big newsitem.

Re:Good programmers don't use StackOverflow.

[mikael_j]

Virtually all of the questions asked there can be answered by doing the following:
1) Reading the documentation of the programming language, library or software in question.
2) Having even a basic level of skill with the technology in question.

A big problem with this is that when "the library" is "All of the .NET framework" just going through the docs isn't always as easy as it seems. And even if you do find what you think is the right parts of it to use you can find yourself confused right up to the point where you ask a question on StackOverflow and someone helpfully points out that .NET actually has multiple implementations of what you want to do and that the obvious one is rarely the right one. Not to mention actual honest-to-god bugs and implementation quirks that aren't mentioned in the official docs (sure, you can search all of MSDN and hope to stumble across some MS advisory that explains a workaround but even then you might find it is overly specific, if you find it at all).

As for JavaScript there are definitely a lot of beginners out there trying to use it. There is also the issue of JavaScript being frequently used with (X)HTML, CSS and some web service that it fetches data from. Couple this with a lot of the information about JavaScript out there being wrong or outdated and it isn't really that strange that a lot of developers who would normally mainly work in say, Java, C# or Python, find themselves confused and facing conflicting information on how to solve a seemingly strange problem. JavaScript as implemented by various browsers also has a few oddities (both in terms of differing implementations and plain WTFs that are bound to baffle developers unfamiliar with it).

Re:Good programmers don't use StackOverflow.

[GGardner]

Virtually all of the questions asked there can be answered by doing the following: 1) Reading the documentation of the programming language, library or software in question.

This is one reason there are so many JavaScript (perhaps actually DOM) questions -- where is the documentation to answer questions like "how do I do x, across every major browser versions which didn't really follow standards well"? If I'm programming in, say, Java or C++ with some framework where I control more of the environment, I can go to one place to answer questions, but there's no one definitive source for these cross browser problems.