Re: What makes a programming language popular?

From	BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups	comp.programming
Subject	Re: What makes a programming language popular?
Date	2012-02-07 15:53 -0700
Organization	albasani.net
Message-ID	<jgsa32$s8v$1@news.albasani.net> (permalink)
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On 2/7/2012 12:27 AM, tm wrote:
> On 6 Feb., 02:33, Aaron W. Hsu<arcf...@sacrideo.us>  wrote:
>> At any given time, a programming language can usually be thought of as
>> currently fashionable, rising in popularity, or losing popularity. I would
>> like to hear some thoughts on what makes a language popular, ...
>
> Marketing done by a big company or organization.
>
> Consider languages like Java, C#, Objective-C, VisualBasic, Delphi,
> PL/SQL and Go. All backed more or less by big companies, which
> do a lot of marketing (directly or indirectly) for these languages.
>

marketing can help, but it is not what ultimately "makes" a language.

even if well advertised, if the language is "obviously crap" (IOW: has 
major or obvious drawbacks), then any such popularity will soon fade 
away as people loose interest in favor of "better" options.

similarly, many languages have gained what positions they have mostly by 
rising from the bottom up (and spreading via word-of-mouth and similar).

granted, popularity is an aggregate factor (as determined by what most 
people "actually" use), rather than necessarily the opinions of a 
small-but-vocal minority.

sometimes people confuse this (thinking this vocal minority is in-fact 
the majority opinion), which would likely seem to result in a situation 
where society seems to be saying one thing but doing another (as it more 
follows along with the position of the silent majority).

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What makes a programming language popular? Aaron W. Hsu <arcfide@sacrideo.us> - 2012-02-05 19:33 -0600
  Re: What makes a programming language popular? BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-05 22:57 -0700
    Re: What makes a programming language popular? Fritz Wuehler <fritz@spamexpire-201202.rodent.frell.theremailer.net> - 2012-02-07 18:12 +0100
      Re: What makes a programming language popular? Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2012-02-07 18:34 +0000
        Re: What makes a programming language popular? BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-07 15:25 -0700
  Re: What makes a programming language popular? tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2012-02-06 23:27 -0800
    Re: What makes a programming language popular? BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-07 15:53 -0700
      Re: What makes a programming language popular? gremnebulin <peterdjones@yahoo.com> - 2012-02-08 04:07 -0800
        Re: What makes a programming language popular? BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-08 17:15 -0700
          Second Best Language Aaron W. Hsu <arcfide@sacrideo.us> - 2012-02-08 20:19 -0600
            Re: Second Best Language BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-08 21:27 -0700
    Re: What makes a programming language popular? gremnebulin <peterdjones@yahoo.com> - 2012-02-08 04:05 -0800

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