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Programming Education Open Source

TIOBE Suddenly Ranks 'Scratch' as the 20th Most Popular Programming Language (jaxenter.com) 57

Posted by EditorDavid from the Scratch-that dept.
Python knocked C++ out of the top 3 on TIOBE's index of the most popular programming languages this month, while C# rose into the #5 position, overtaking Visual Basic.

But the biggest surprise was when last month's #26 most popular programming language suddenly jumped six spots into the #20 position, writes the CEO of TIOBE Software. "At first sight this might seem a bit strange for a programming language that is designed to teach children how to program." But if you take into account that there are in total more than 50 million projects "written" in Scratch and each month 1 million new Scratch projects are added, it can't be denied any more that Scratch is popular...

Since computers are getting more and more an integral part of life, it is actually quite logical that languages to teach children programming are getting popular.
TIOBE notes that Scratch is sponsored by major tech companies like Google and Intel (as well as the Cartoon Network and LEGO Foundation). But Jaxenter also applauds how the Scratch interface lets users remix or comment on existing projects in addition to sharing their own: The community not only introduces children to teamwork, creative problem solving, logical thinking, and collaboration, but it also introduces concepts such as open source communities and code review. They will learn concepts that might later become useful in Agile software development and DevOps.
TIOBE bases its rankings on the number of search engine results for courses, third party vendors, and programmers -- making the programming news site DevClass wonders if the spike came from "school aged children...stuck at home while schools are closed."

TIOBE still shows Java as the #1 most popular programming language (followed by C, Python, and C++). And this month's index also shows PHP rising into the #9 position -- overtaking SQL.

And COBOL is now #26 on the list, making it more popular than Rust.
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TIOBE Suddenly Ranks 'Scratch' as the 20th Most Popular Programming Language More

TIOBE Suddenly Ranks 'Scratch' as the 20th Most Popular Programming Language

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  • Enough already (Score:3)

    by AlanObject ( 3603453 ) on Saturday April 11, 2020 @10:36AM (#59932526)

    This is almost as exciting as presidential candidate polls 24 months before the election.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday April 11, 2020 @10:37AM (#59932528)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 )

      its Java with more stuff

      Ah, the approach of designing a language by piling feature on top of feature, instead of removing the weaknesses and restrictions that make additional features appear necessary.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by iGN97 ( 83927 )

        C# isn't a bad language, but this is my opinion.

        I have written stuff in a lot of them, and C# is probably my favorite if you look at all the marks it checks.

        If you look at Dart, it is pretty much C#, only slightly altered. And I like Dart.

        I would agree that F# is a "better language", but C# is good enough. Again, good is the enemy of great. This is why Kotlin is replacing Java at a higher speed. Java isn't really good.

        C# does a good job at keeping up with F# in a way that is interesting.

        Just my two cents.

        • It is just a C# pressed into a Haskell/OCaml mold, to result in something that does not qualify for either category, and only exists, like C#, to trap people into .NET.
          Lock-in. Local wannabe monopolism.

          Just use the .NET-free equivalent.
          And don't fall for the Mono fallacy.

        • I don't think it's a bad language, but describing it as "Java with more stuff" seemed...a bit unfortunate. As if starting with Java and adding more stuff were somehow desirable for some weird reason.

        • If you look at Dart, it is Java, just slightly altered ...

    • It's "TIOBE" again.

      Please add "TIOBE" to your junk filter.

    • It's where its creator pushes you to.

      (Mono exists exclusively, to provide an argument against this argument. Not to be actually viable.)

      • Let compare C# and java from the creator where they pushed you... - Java is proprietary and sue company trying to just emulate the language via same function signatures - C# is 100% open source both language, library and compiler. Microsoft helped other company implementing C# and never sue anyone using it in any way.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Does the "more stuff" include utf8 strings? Native variables (integer and float, possibly boolean)? Global constants defined at init time? Safe data sharing between threads? (I.e., you can define a function as returning a final value, which is calculated within the function and can then be shared safely. There are other approaches, but that's the one I need.) Decent OS independent screen drawing tools? (I mean programmatic ones, not GUI ones.)

      If so, then I might be interested. Last time I looked I c

  • It ain't true.

  • Sorry kids (Score:3)

    by moxrespawn ( 6714000 ) on Saturday April 11, 2020 @10:48AM (#59932560)

    They will learn concepts that might later become useful in Agile software development and DevOps.

    Then, later, they learn to their dismay that Agile is the concentration camp playbook with better marketing.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • They can be deferred or the sprint, quite often, can be extended, depending on your goal.

        The goal is to peer-pressure engineers into...

        1. Doing the impossible, predicting software development time, but instead of analysis process time being done to even have a possibility of accuracy, demanding the engineer do it in 15 seconds after the acceptance criteria is stated, accepting responsibilty it in front his peers, who likewise are so compelled.

        2. Steamrolling the engineer with unalterable (except by specia

        • Probably more to discuss here. Rouse and report to roll call... er, stand up.

      • I've seen agile applied to RTL logic design in silicon. It did not end well.
        Some things need careful planning and execution and are hard to iterate.

      • 1. We can write software without figuring out what we want. We will iterate there.
        This has nothing to do with agile. That approach is called "exploitative prototyping".

        The main stream agile methods like Scrum and XP (Extrem Programming) require that requirements for the current sprint and if possible for more sprints: are well defined. (How else would you develop something that is about to get shipped?)

  • In 60 Years... (Score:5, Funny)

    by BeerFartMoron ( 624900 ) on Saturday April 11, 2020 @10:55AM (#59932588)

    In 60 years, New Jersey will be begging for Scratch programmers to prop up its faltering unemployment insurance system. Seems like back in 2020, they rewrote their ancient COBOL system in Scratch as it was then the "20th most popular programming language" and they wanted to future-proof.

    • C'mon (Score:4, Funny)

      by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Saturday April 11, 2020 @11:12AM (#59932630)

      Be realistic. It'll be a combination of libraries written in Scratch, Clojure, Swift, Go and Rust, glued together with Python, with a Node.js UI.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        You missed Perl and PHP. No good, um, program, is ever written without a bunch of Perl and PHP doing, uh, something.

      • Aka a mess of boxes and arrows, aka a graphical Enterprise Rules Engine:
        https://thedailywtf.com/articl... [thedailywtf.com]

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • MVVC/MVC can be a pain to implement initially, but holy cow once you get up to a few hundred classes and have to debug something data related, you appreciate it pretty quick.

      • You seem not to know what Scratch is.
        It is a programming toy for kids, not to make real software with frontend, backend, and a DB.

  • OK .. It's a graphical based programming language for CHILDREN TO LEARN IN!! So who is home with nothing to do, because school's closed ? Children! Relax they will learn Python when they get older and everything will be ok. Look at the bright side, at least they are home learning something. They are writing lots of scratch code between Minecraft sessions.

  • Note the difference to "good".

    And note "competence" too.
    Compare to "elections".

    Yeah, I'm putting everything in "quotes".
    I can't "stop".
    Please send "help".

  • Tiobe shows how useless their methodology are. Why do we keep giving them a chance to promote their crap ... unless, our preferred language is the one at the top or making a positive jump.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      It's not useless. It just doesn't suit *your* needs. They've never hidden that it's a measure of how much chat they sample. For some purposes it's quite useful. I use it as a metric for guessing how bad the documentation is, though it would really be better to temper that with a measure of the size of the population being sampled. Still, it's of some use.

  • Nobody cares (Score:3)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Saturday April 11, 2020 @12:12PM (#59932852)

    Somewhere around place 15, TIOBE becomes more than shaky as indicator. Also note that Assembly is at place 14, so that pretty much means nobody cares about "Scratch" (whatever that may be) except some small, exceptionally specialized places.

    • nobody cares about "Scratch" (whatever that may be) except some small, exceptionally specialized places.

      The "specialized places" are schools, where it is used by millions of students.

      Scratch is an educational tool to teach programming. It has a drag-and-drop interface. The student builds programs by assembling blocks of logic and conditionals. There is no way to have a syntax error. Your program may not do what you expect, but it will do something.

      It is a very gentle introduction to coding and is very popular in elementary and middle schools. I have even heard of high schools using it in introductory pro

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Ah, so not an introduction to coding at all, but some play-acting at being a coder, same as using Play Doh to simulate "cooking". (No, I do not think that you can educate coders that way. You are just wasting the time of those that could have been taught with a non-toy and the others have no business coding anyways. The failure of "graphical coding" is well established.)

        Hence the TIOBE thing will be for people qualified _teaching_ this failure, not for people that can use it.

  • More like... (Score:3)

    by rnturn ( 11092 ) on Saturday April 11, 2020 @12:14PM (#59932858)

    ... Scratch is the 20th most mentioned programming language on the net. It's my understanding that TIOBE bases their ranking, primarily, on search engine hit counts. With school-aged children now stuck at home and engaged in remote learning, including the courses that are attempting to teach programming to kids, is it a huge surprise that there are more web pages mentioning Scratch? Call me when major DNA analysis, gene splicing, and artificial intelligence, etc. begin getting written in Scratch.

    If TIOBE had been around years earlier, would they actually have been making proclamations that K&K BASIC was a big up-and-coming programming language? Jeebus, Logo is actually on the current rankings. Appearance on their list doesn't appear to mean much of anything. Really.

  • IIRC the methodology takes into account course offerings; so possibly this is people rushing to put coding courses online for students?

  • The screen caps and videos looked awfully familiar to me. Scratch is just the Squeak scripting from from way back [scratch-wiki.info] re-implemented in the browser, without a lot of the great benefits that Squeak OS brought to to the table.

    Naturally, both Scratch [github.com] and Squeak are built into [raspberrypi.org] the latest Rasbian image [raspberrypi.org] for Raspberry Pi [raspberrypi.org] fans.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      No. It's related, though. IIRC Scratch was developed at MIT as a simplified form of Squeak's eToys, but then it was expanded with a set of multimedia extensions.

    • Since Squeak isn't used professionally anywhere I can find and has no vital free software or open source projects, it's difficult to see why this would be a positive observation.What were the features of Squeak?

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