Re: RPG vaults COBOL, leaps 11 spots

That argument has come up in the past, Cor, and while it has merit, consider a couple of points.

First, the argument is just as strong against the C language, or Java, or Ruby, or Python. So while I'm sure there's distortion, I'm pretty comfortable the folks at TIOBE have done a lot to remove that noise.

Second, even that argument doesn't hold when talking about trends. Unless you have a feeling that there has been a general uptick in interest in role-playing games (or rocket propelled grenades), then the trends won't have been affected.

The general statistics - VB down, JavaScript up, Java steady with a gentle decline, Perl falling off the map - seem to be pretty reasonable. And consider this: with the graying of the RPG community, somebody has to learn this stuff.

Anyway, as I said way back when, it's an interesting site but you take the statistics with a grain of salt. I just find it interesting.

Joe

Well... you must place it in context. The way this TIOBE is set up is by
googling for results on the particular programming language. And for RPG
in particular you will get an enormous amount of false positives because
of the fact that 'Role Playing Games' (RPG for short) is also programmed
and people who work on these games are also programming RPG. I have read
somewhere that TIOBE is trying to filter these false positives out as
much as possible, but you shouldn't discount the fact that they are
there and we don't know the effectiveness of the filtering process.

I would be very happy, but equally surprised, if the RPG they are
referring to is 'our' beloved RPG.


Just my 2 cents,

Cor

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joe Pluta
Sent: woensdag 6 mei 2009 4:31
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion; RPG programming on the AS400
/ iSeries
Subject: RPG vaults COBOL, leaps 11 spots

I know I haven't been around a lot, and the last time I mentioned this the trolls appeared, but those interested in the RPG language might find

this intriguing:

http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html

RPG is now the 15th most popular language. I guess it dropped to 26th last month (as I've noted, I don't really keep track) but the surge to 15th is pretty astonishing, at least to me.

Even more astonishing, though, is the fact that since the beginning of the year, the demand for RPG has skyrocketed, relatively speaking, and continues to trend upward. Very interesting.

http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/paperinfo/tpci/RPG_(OS_400).html

This in comparison to, say, Java, which is slowly trending down, and PHP

which is basically flat (and has been since about 2005). And while C# still has an overall upward trend, it hasn't done very well in 2009. Poor old Visual Basic has been on a pretty steep decline since 2008.

Hey, at least it's not Perl:

http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/paperinfo/tpci/Perl.html

Joe