Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:107099
DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws;
	s=turbo-smtp; d=php.net;
	h=Received:Received:X-TurboSMTP-Tracking:X-Gm-Message-State:X-Google-Smtp-Source:X-Received:MIME-Version:References:In-Reply-To:From:Date:X-Gmail-Original-Message-Id:Message-ID:Subject:To:Cc:Content-Type;
	b=egwYDZhTBUCc3I3JsxjyYjawxjIUhaZQkijYvSx4uD99Mffsb53fH0RFzxvr5E
	nc1f4hl1PQ5jrMwGQozD5j1OKuPkmENWJmFu/0JtA7TUkWBozB6EXGgfzObqedcL
	uJ8P1S6LUDmjJmLhcgLVGTxPeV1nRS1zOXOvxTfTCeblQ=;
MIME-Version: 1.0
References: <F1E4D4E4-57E1-4B27-B6D2-81E9BA6B096D@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <F1E4D4E4-57E1-4B27-B6D2-81E9BA6B096D@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2019 10:18:26 +0300
Message-ID: <CAJHtznzf6Kc6-x1ieVQtS9i5CebpVzRRj+E_Srxa-J9=CVTvvQ@mail.gmail.com>
To: Mike Schinkel <mikeschinkel@gmail.com>
Cc: Olumide Samson <oludonsexy@gmail.com>, PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="000000000000c753d40592924ba2"
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] PHP's declining(?) popularity
From: zeev@php.net (Zeev Suraski)

--000000000000c753d40592924ba2
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 6:33 AM Mike Schinkel <mikeschinkel@gmail.com>
wrote:

> > On Sep 14, 2019, at 5:18 PM, Olumide Samson <oludonsexy@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > https://jaxenter.com/php-tiobe-sept-2019-162096.html
> > I think this is one of those things we get from voting no...
> >
> > I might be wrong anyways :-?
>

First of all, Olumide, this is in fact wrong, although the general topic
(language popularity and the reasons to it) is definitely worthy of
discussion.

The reason it's wrong is that TIOBE is a meaningless 'index' with a
methodology that's not only questionable - but is rather downright
idiotic.  It's not just off or inaccurate - it's practically a random
number generator.
See for yourself:
https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/programming-languages-definition/

The RedMonk Language Rankings has a much more reasonable methodology, is a
lot more stable, and there, PHP is repeatedly at the top 5 languages and
not losing any steam in both absolute and comparative measures:
https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2019/07/18/language-rankings-6-19/


> If those specific rankings are legitimately a cause for concern then it
> would make sense to do some objective analysis to determine why the
> languages that are growing marketshare are growing.
>

Mike - even though specifically the TIOBE index isn't a cause for virtually
anything, the rest of your analysis is still relevant - as the key takeaway
you're basing it on - Python's growth - is also reflected in RedMonk
rankings.

Thomas - I also wholeheartedly agree with your suggestion.  That's why we
worked on FFI - to open the door for PHP to enter new areas.  Even JIT is,
for the most part, not really relevant to the common Web case and would be
a lot more impactful in other types of workloads.  And there may be other
things we can do.  But you're right - if we don't find a way to position it
for these use cases in people's minds - it won't move the needle.

Zeev

--000000000000c753d40592924ba2--