Is TIOBE deterring developers?

[Pluto]

Ok, so I was a little slow to do anything with this... But I've notice that, according to TIOBE, Pascal's popularity is going down.  I think its possible that this deters people from adopting the language for new projects.  Back in January I emailed TIOBE about this and got an interesting response.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

xxxx xxxxxx <xxxx.xxxxxx@tiobe.com>
To:
xxxx xxxxxxx

Feb 17 at 6:55 PM

Hi xxxx,

Thanks for your mail about the TIOBE index and sorry for the long delay
before answering. One of the criteria to accept a term/language in the
TIOBE index is that it is referred to as a programming language by
Wikipedia. Lazarus is called an IDE and Free Pascal a compiler. So
neither Lazarus nor Free Pascal qualifies. That's why we don't take
these terms into account. I hope that this answers your question.

Regards,

xxxx

--
xxxx xxxxxx - TIOBE Software, https://www.tiobe.com
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On 15-Jan-19 10:11 PM, xxxx xxxxxxx wrote:
> Hello.  I wonder if you are missing a large chunk of data regarding
> the use of Pascal?  I think it is very likely that Lazarus IDE + Free
> Pascal has more usage than Delphi + Object Pascal.  This can be
> observed by looking at the large and vibrant user forum at
> http://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/. Lazarus has garnished a
> substantial userbase due to the popularity of single-board computers
> such as Raspberry Pi.  This usage should be included under one
> programming language on the Tiobe index because the two compilers and
> IDEs are largely compatible at the source code level.
>
> Thank you for your time.  I hope this was helpful.
>
> Respectfully,
>
> xxxx xxxxxxx

[marcov]

I'd prefer to keep it bundled up. C++ is not fragmented over GCC and Visual Studio and whatnot either.

And I think Delphi usage is still at least a magnitude bigger.

[Pluto]

Thats cool.  I didn't understand the ramifications of his answer.  I just don't want them to accidentally miss usage, and under-represent the Pascal community.

[Leledumbo]

Thats cool.  I didn't understand the ramifications of his answer.  I just don't want them to accidentally miss usage, and under-represent the Pascal community.

Their result is based mostly on search engine result. So the more people are talking about it (forums, mailing list, etc.) the more "popularity" it gains.

[furious programming]

This wiki article is misleading.