Lazarus

Announcements => Third party => Topic started by: Leledumbo on July 09, 2011, 04:32:14 am

Title: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Leledumbo on July 09, 2011, 04:32:14 am
See this month's index (http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html).  That's a good step. Now, they only need to merge Pascal as well, so we can beat JavaScript :D
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: zbyna on April 06, 2020, 06:17:14 pm
It lasted nearly 9 year but now Delphi and FPC are splitted again:
https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/

This Month's Changes in the Index
This month the following changes have been made to the definition of the index:
Ian pointed out that Delphi and Object Pascal have separate Wikipedia pages so they should also have different TIOBE index entries. As of this month Delphi and Object Pascal are split. Delphi is at position #22 and Object Pascal at position #73.

In my opinion Delphi and FPC are compilers for Object Pascal.  :o
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: avra on April 06, 2020, 09:12:06 pm
Ian pointed out that Delphi and Object Pascal have separate Wikipedia pages so they should also have different TIOBE index entries.
Weak argument. So GNU C++, Visual C++, C++ Builder, Watcom C++ and Think/Symantec C++ have separate wiki pages and still they all count under one C++ Tiobe index. Do they deserve to get separate Tiobe indexes? If wikipedia lists all Pascal compilers together here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compilers#Pascal_compilers and FreePascal and Delphi are all Pascal compilers, that makes such argument even more absurd. They should not only be under one Tiobe index, but Delphi, Object Pascal and Pascal should be under single Tiobe index. Separation of Pascal from Delphi/ObjectPascal is the prisoner of C and C++ separation. C is still used in Linux and embedded world, while we can not say the same for good old Pascal. It is used mostly for learning and hasn't got much real use. And even for that learning modern compilers are used.

We should be aware that Embarcadero (or who ever owned Delphi IDE at the time) is guilty of separation between Delphi and Object Pascal since they started insisting calling their variation of Object Pascal language the Delphi language. It is not different language at all. There are more differences then that in C++ language between 2 C++ compilers. Delphi language (if we want to call it like that) is an extension to an Object Pascal (or dialect of it), as Object Pascal is an extension to plain Pascal. If I remember well, First Borland's hooray into OOP was called something like Turbo Pascal with Objects.

In my opinion Delphi and FPC are compilers for Object Pascal.  :o
Let's just look into Think/Symantec C++ at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THINK_C. As you can see it has originally extended C before it implemented a subset of C++. Do you think that they didn't call it C++ just because at first it supported only single inheritance? Of course they called it C++. And they had the right to call it. What strikes me is the fact that you have much better chances to compile the same visual application under Delphi and Lazarus/FreePascal then to compile some application with GNU and Microsoft C++ compiler, and yet both C++ compilers are in the single Tiobe index while that is not the case with Object Pascal and Delphi.

I have only one word for Tiobe's consistency in separation of Pascal, Object Pascal and Delphi - and that is discrimination.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: jwdietrich on April 06, 2020, 09:22:01 pm
The TIOBE index is a highly questionable construct. Its methodology is more than dubious.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: avra on April 06, 2020, 09:26:58 pm
The TIOBE index is a highly questionable construct. Its methodology is more than dubious.
Yes, but big argument for non-pascal developers when language popularity needs to be quantified somehow and compared. There are no valid alternatives. That's why we need to try to correct that to have a more realistic situation.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: simone on April 06, 2020, 10:49:55 pm
Certainly Object Pascal today does not have the popularity of 20 years ago. However in Tiobe index it was always in the top 20 until last month. Three months ago he was in position #13. Is it credible that a language loses 10 positions in 3 months? Is it realistic that Scratch is more relevant than Delphi, Scala, Rust, Kotlin, Cobol, Fortran and Lisp? After 35 years in the IT industry I can say that this is completely wrong. I'm sorry, but Tiobe is losing credibility to my eyes.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: jwdietrich on April 06, 2020, 10:58:12 pm
Certainly Object Pascal today does not have the popularity of 20 years ago. However in Tiobe index it was always in the top 20 until last month. Three months ago he was in position #13. Is it credible that a language loses 10 positions in 3 months? Is it realistic that Scratch is more relevant than Delphi, Scala, Rust, Kotlin, Cobol, Fortran and Lisp? After 35 years in the IT industry I can say that this is completely wrong. I'm sorry, but Tiobe is losing credibility to my eyes.

TIOBE is as mindless as counting search results for [programming language] + "programming" in Google and Q&A sites. This is the cheesiest method of assessing the popularity of a progrmaming language. Perhaps Pascal is low in ranking since it is a rather consistent and logical language, so that less questions arise compared to the more "popular" languages.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Warfley on April 07, 2020, 12:21:55 am
TIOBE is as mindless as counting search results for [programming language] + "programming" in Google and Q&A sites. This is the cheesiest method of assessing the popularity of a progrmaming language. Perhaps Pascal is low in ranking since it is a rather consistent and logical language, so that less questions arise compared to the more "popular" languages.

Even than, when I search for something I either search for "lazarus  [question]", "fpc [question]" and "delphi [question]". None of them would count into tiobe because I don't add the term "programming" to it.

The only thing you can somehow tell from tiobe is how many new people are interested in a certain language, as it only evaluates the most general search term possible. E.g. when I try to find out what for exampel scala is, I search for "scala programming language" or when I want to learn it I search for: "Scala programming tutorial" or something like this.
People who are already using the language usually don't search for this, and from what I have read, TIOBE does not intend to capture anything else, so ranking of newcommers is more or less the goal.
Combine this with the fact that people often search not for "objectpascal programming language" but rather "lazarus ide" or something like this.

TIOBE is therefore inherintly biased against programming languages, where the search term does not include the name of the language (like for lazarus). It also heavily favors things where you basically have to add "programming" to get any meaningful results. E.g. searching for "go" in your favourite search engine will, if you are not already a programmer) most likely not grant you any information about the programming language.

That said, there is of cause also the way people start using a language. As I said TIOBE only measures how relevant a language is for newcommers, not according to specific questions. If you now start learning Pascal at your Uni or School (where it is still quite popular, at least here in Germany), you will more or less directly start with very specific questions, because you have a set of tasks to solve. There is no need for a general overview, because you are already told what to use and do.

Certainly Object Pascal today does not have the popularity of 20 years ago. However in Tiobe index it was always in the top 20 until last month. Three months ago he was in position #13. Is it credible that a language loses 10 positions in 3 months? Is it realistic that Scratch is more relevant than Delphi, Scala, Rust, Kotlin, Cobol, Fortran and Lisp? After 35 years in the IT industry I can say that this is completely wrong. I'm sorry, but Tiobe is losing credibility to my eyes.

I don't think TIOBE is nessecarily "bad", but you need to understand what is measured. First it does not measure the current state, but the newcomers. So it may give a hint how the state will be 5 years or so from now, but even thats a strech. It can't be used to make any statements about current popularity of a language. And that Delphi or Lazarus is not the hot topic everyone who wants to get into programming searches for is rather uncontroversial. On the other hand, nearly everone who wants to get into programming knows at least something about python.
And even if you are looking at newcomers, it also has a lot of caveats. If you want to assess the popularity of a language, there is a very simple way, look at the download figures. The most current version of Lazarus for windows has on sourceforge currently >2k downloads per week, a few years ago this was only around 1.5k (I don't exactly know when this was, but I remember times downloading it when the number there war around 1.5-1.6k). Lazarus is getting more popular.

Also measuring the popularity is not an easy task in it of itself. For example you could take a look at languages used on Github: https://githut.info/ But this only measures open-source projects that use Github which is therefore heavily biased towards highly accessible general purpose languages (which is why for example C is below C++) and Pascal doesn't even make it into the top 50. Evaluating search terms is also not easy, for example when searching for go the term usually used by the community to avoid confusion is "golang". So any Index trying to capture the current usage by search terms, needs an indepth understanding of the terms the community uses. Going by what buisnesses use, is as missleading as the Github sources, just in the opposite direction, against open-source projects.


After all, all measures have their pros and cons and using one of them is like using any tool, if you don't understand what it does, its useless.

Weak argument. So GNU C++, Visual C++, C++ Builder, Watcom C++ and Think/Symantec C++ have separate wiki pages and still they all count under one C++ Tiobe index.
[...]
Let's just look into Think/Symantec C++ at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THINK_C. As you can see it has originally extended C before it implemented a subset of C++. Do you think that they didn't call it C++ just because at first it supported only single inheritance? Of course they called it C++. And they had the right to call it. What strikes me is the fact that you have much better chances to compile the same visual application under Delphi and Lazarus/FreePascal then to compile some application with GNU and Microsoft C++ compiler, and yet both C++ compilers are in the single Tiobe index while that is not the case with Object Pascal and Delphi.

I have only one word for Tiobe's consistency in separation of Pascal, Object Pascal and Delphi - and that is discrimination.
Bad comparison, C and C++ are standardized. If you have standard C++ it will compile on VC++, G++, Intel C++, etc. and run the same. Sure everyone can call his C++ dialect C++, but there is the term ISO-C++ which can only referr to standard compliant C++. Vc++, G++, Intel C++, etc. are all ISO-compliant up to C++17. There is a standardized Pascal dialect, which no one uses.

On the other hand is the Object-Pascal dialect the FPC implements and Delphi incompatible. Look no further than function pointers. While I think that splitting those two indices up with the reasoning of wikipedia articles is kinda stupid, and after all the differences are rather minor, these are still two different dialect, which is not true for two ISO-C++ compilers, which implement the same language and can only differ in parts where the standard is undefined.

A better comparison there would be Lisp, as every software using Lisp (such as emacs) uses it's own dialect (as Lisp for itself is just S-Expressions). As TIOBE simply has one category LISP, even though LISP is only a family of language dialects, I think that the only consistent way would be to also have one entry for ObjectPascal (or even Pascal as the more general family)
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: dbannon on April 07, 2020, 12:50:22 am
.......
TIOBE is as mindless as counting search results for [programming language] + "programming" in Google and Q&A sites. This is the cheesiest method of assessing the popularity of a progrmaming language. Perhaps Pascal is low in ranking since it is a rather consistent and logical language, so that less questions arise compared to the more "popular" languages.

Plus of course most questions about FPC and Lazarus are directed directly to our forum and don't get counted by Google.  That it works so well is a problem ? sigh.

Davo
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: 440bx on April 07, 2020, 01:12:19 am
If you have standard C++ it will compile on VC++, G++, Intel C++, etc. and run the same. Sure everyone can call his C++ dialect C++, but there is the term ISO-C++ which can only referr to standard compliant C++. Vc++, G++, Intel C++, etc. are all ISO-compliant up to C++17.
That may be true for "hello world" class programs but, there are plenty enough differences between implementations of C++ that porting from one implementation to another requires _work_ not just a simple recompilation.

That said, the work required is not usually caused by syntactic or semantic differences (except in the case of those "implementation defined" compiler behaviors.)  Most implementations do adhere to the standard but, when it comes to details such as specifying alignment in fields, variables, controlling the output of the compiler, it's a different story.  There are _many_ details in an "ambitious" program that the standard doesn't address and every implementer designed their own way of addressing them.

Personally, since I don't use any of the object oriented stuff, porting my programs from Delphi to FPC is usually simpler and faster than porting MSVC++ code to g++ and, the result is more often than not, significantly better.

As far as TIOBE's separation of the various Pascal dialects, I believe that reflects their "comprehensive" understanding of computer languages in general.  (estimate: it's probably at the level of understanding my neighbor's cat has of differential calculus - they named it Newton but, it doesn't seem to have had the desired effect.)

Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Warfley on April 07, 2020, 01:24:51 am
That said, the work required is not usually caused by syntactic or semantic differences (except in the case of those "implementation defined" compiler behaviors.)  Most implementations do adhere to the standard but, when it comes to details such as specifying alignment in fields, variables, controlling the output of the compiler, it's a different story.  There are _many_ details in an "ambitious" program that the standard doesn't address and every implementer designed their own way of addressing them.

At my workplace we have a very simple rule: if your code relies on undefined/implementation specific behavior (such as alignment of fields) your code is broken and any merge request containing UB code will be rejected. To ensure this the GCC now ships ASAN and UBSAN (originally from clang), which do runtime checks for UB (and memory violations). While it's true that a lot of C++ code (if not most) relies on UB, you can easiely just code standardized C++. Developers writing broken code is not the fault of the compiler.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: 440bx on April 07, 2020, 01:27:28 am
Developers writing broken code is not the fault of the compiler.
I see your point and agree to some extent but, there are times when you need control over details that force the programmer to write code that pushes the envelop in order for the program to perform as intended.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Warfley on April 07, 2020, 01:33:13 am
there are times when you need control over details that force the programmer to write code that pushes the envelop in order for the program to perform as intended.
Yes, I do fully agree, somethimes it is required, especially for really low level stuff, but I would say 90% of the UB code you face is avoidable. I mean it also happend to me that I build UB code because I simply assumed this would be working (and didn't want to read cppreference) and also some websites (like cplusplus.com) are known for having UB code on their site, which gets copied by many.

One great thing about languages like fpc flavored pascal or delphi is, if you don't have a standard, nothing is UB. But thats a little off topic. As I said, I think c++ is kinda a bad example, but they have LISP in their list, which is a language that has so many dialects that there is not even the "one" lisp one could think of
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: jwdietrich on April 07, 2020, 08:59:09 am
If the ranking of programming languages is of interest at all then the RedMonk index may be a more sensible approach, see https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2020/02/28/language-rankings-1-20/ (https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2020/02/28/language-rankings-1-20/) for the latest statistics.

Here, with respect to the number of projects on GitHub, Pascal is in the 50th percentile, i.e. it ranks exactly in the middle of all programming languages, making it more popular than other well-known languages including Mathematica, Smalltalk or Scheme. On the other hand, it is below the 50th percentile with respect to questions on StackOverflow. This supports the hypothesis that Pascal has more clarity than other languages, so that less questions are necessary.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Warfley on April 07, 2020, 05:41:24 pm
This supports the hypothesis that Pascal has more clarity than other languages, so that less questions are necessary.
I don't think this is the case. For example I think Python is in many cases much clearer. For example: Check if an element is in an array:
Code: Pascal  [Select][+][-]
  1. for o in arr do
  2.   if o = val then
  3.   begin
  4.     // found
  5.     break;
  6.   end;
Python:
Code: Python  [Select][+][-]
  1. if val in arr:
Similar for Java, I don't think that Pascal is nessecarily clearer than Java. But both are right on the line. Don't get me wrong, I think Pascal is clearer in the sense that reading code is simpler, but most questions are not: "what does this code do" but rather: "how do I accomplish this" and there I would say that languages like python or Java are at least as clear, if not clearer than pascal.

I think it mostly breaks down to 3 factors, 1. most pascal developers are long term pascal users, and turns out the more you use a language the less questions you have about that language. Also pascal has never changed much. Sure new things came to the language, like type helpers, generics, etc. But the differences are rather small, and most Delphi 7 code will still work in modern versions and vice versa. Compare this with  C++, where prior to C++11 this was basically a completely different language. And lastly, pascal has different communities. When having a question about Lazarus or Delphi, chances are much higher to get a quick answer here  than on Stack overflow.

So you basically have a large repository on Pascal code available on the internet in many specialized Lazarus or Delphi forums, that has accumulated over decades (for example when googling something like "Delphi screenshot" I still get one of the first results being from swissDelphiCenter an article from 2006, before Stack Overflow even existed, that still works today perfectly fine.

This is simply not the case for Languages like python, there Stack-Overflow is the repository of information, and even for languages like Java, a lot of the old code doesn't work anymore (e.g. javax)
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: jwdietrich on April 07, 2020, 05:57:07 pm
OK, for the one case one language may be clearer and for the other case another one. Your argument with the age of StackOverflow is a good alternative hypothesis.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: BeniBela on April 07, 2020, 06:54:43 pm
Omg, Pascal rank 235
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: jwdietrich on April 07, 2020, 07:06:49 pm
Omg, Pascal rank 235

... in a meaningless index, which uses a questionable method and which has separate entries for Pascal, Object Pascal and Delphi. What is listed under "Pascal" is pure old-style Pascal without OOP.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Leledumbo on April 14, 2020, 12:44:17 am
I just sent them a protest email, because I was one of many who make them merged back in 2011. Here's my email content:
Quote
Hello,

I specifically want to point out this month's index change:

"Ian pointed out that Delphi and Object Pascal have separate Wikipedia pages so they should also have different TIOBE index entries. As of this month Delphi and Object Pascal are split. Delphi is at position #22 and Object Pascal at position #73."

As with the same reasoning they were merged back in 2011, which I also requested, Delphi in as implementation of Object Pascal, as well as what Free Pascal and some other compilers implement. If your argument is because these two have separate Wikipedia pages, then I expect you, in the name of justice, to have Visual C++ separated from C++, as well as Embarcadero C++ Builder, which is the Delphi equivalent from the same company, Intel C++ Compiler and so on.

Regards,

Mario Ray Mahardhika
I encourage you to send similar email so they realize how wrong they have been.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: avra on April 14, 2020, 04:39:03 pm
I encourage you to send similar email so they realize how wrong they have been.
++1

Quote
Hello,

I want to strongly protest after finding out that as of this month Delphi and Object Pascal are split again in TIOBE index.

Delphi in as implementation of Object Pascal. Free Pascal is also implementation of Object Pascal. They should not be separated at all, and how similar they are clearly shows the fact that there are dozens of very complex projects which share the same code base and can be compiled under both.

Argument that this was done because they have separate Wikipedia pages can hold only if you do the same for C++ and starting next month I see it split into separate Microsoft Visual C++, Embarcadero C++ Builder, Intel C++ Compiler, GNU C++ and so on. Otherwise it will be obvious that for some reason Pascal is discriminated in TIOBE index, and I do hope that it is not the case here.


Regards,
Zeljko Avramovic
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: avra on April 14, 2020, 05:47:28 pm
Here is a reply I publish here with the permission of Mr. Paul Jansen of TIOBE Software:

Quote
Hi Zeljko,

Thanks for your mail about our TIOBE index. They reason why we split up Object Pascal and Delphi is indeed because they have different Wikipedia pages. We follow this rule very strictly because we get every day requests to combine or split up languages and we need some formal mechanism for this. The reasoning is that if 2 languages have different Wikipedia pages something must be different otherwise there wouldn't be 2 different pages.

It is important to note that another criterion is that Wikipedia should refer to it as a programming language. Microsoft Visual C++ is considered "an IDE" so it doesn't even qualify for the TIOBE index.

So if you want me to join Object Pascal and Delphi again and then please make sure the Wikipedia entries are merged as was the case in the past. I hope that this answers your question.

Regards,

Paul
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: marcov on April 14, 2020, 06:07:24 pm
I sent a mail with my take on the issue.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Warfley on April 14, 2020, 06:13:58 pm
As I said... C++ is a bad example, because borland c++, intelc++, etc. are all tools for c++, that fully support ISO-C++ and only extend the language. Take any ISO-C++ programm, it runs on every C++ compiler. Take any Delphi-Program it most likely won't work in mode ObjFPC as these two dialects are different in some fundamental language featues (e.g. function pointers, generics, operator overloading, etc.)

I mean sure the reasoning about wikipedia doesn't really make sense and this should be decided on a case by case basis (e.g. vb6 and vb.net are also distinguished and I think no one argues with that), but with this framework they are consistent.
The only exception I've found in their top 50's was LISP, where the original LISP language is now 70 years old and not used anymore, and all modern LISP dialects also have their own wikipedia pages.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: marcov on April 14, 2020, 06:19:53 pm
The problem is that one side is a registered trademark.

Moreover, Delphi is awfully random, everything is branded Delphi sooner or later. Just like the IDE is not Delphi either, but "BDS", the language of Delphi is not "Delphi", but "Delphi language" according to their own marketing and documentation materials.

And even in wikipedia, "Delphi language" is an alias for "Object Pascal" since 2006.

I put those facts into my mail.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: zbyna on April 14, 2020, 07:06:15 pm
I changed wiki text for Delphi from:

Delphi is an event-driven programming language based on Object Pascal and an associated integrated development environment (IDE) for rapid application development of desktop, mobile, web, and console software,[1] currently developed and maintained by Embarcadero Technologies.

to:
Delphi is an integrated development environment (IDE) for rapid application development of desktop, mobile, web, and console software,[1] currently developed and maintained by Embarcadero Technologies which uses an event-driven programming language based on Object Pascal.

We will see how long it will persist.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Leledumbo on April 14, 2020, 07:43:53 pm
e.g. vb6 and vb.net are also distinguished and I think no one argues with that
Well, the two are not really compatible actually, despite looking similar. The case is very different with Object Pascal as implemented by Delphi and Free Pascal, where language and even library compatibility reaches over 90%. At the worst, one can still maintain single codebase that compiles with both using conditional compilation. You can't do that with VB6 and VB .NET, hence it's correct to separate the entry. Even Microsoft as the creator of both said VB .NET is closer to C# than to VB6.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Warfley on April 14, 2020, 08:50:54 pm
Well, the two are not really compatible actually, despite looking similar. The case is very different with Object Pascal as implemented by Delphi and Free Pascal, where language and even library compatibility reaches over 90%. At the worst, one can still maintain single codebase that compiles with both using conditional compilation. You can't do that with VB6 and VB .NET, hence it's correct to separate the entry. Even Microsoft as the creator of both said VB .NET is closer to C# than to VB6.

Yes, with {$Mode Delphi} that is certainly true. But if you use a modern Delphi code and you don't use {$Mode Delphi} you'd go insane fixing the code for compiling with {$Mode ObjFPC}. The dialects are very close to each other, thats true, but as soon as you look into "newer" features such as generics, operator overloadeing, etc. you need to use {$Mode Delphi} if you wan't to be compatible and keep your sanity.
It also isn't true anymore for many libraries. Delphis RTL now heavily relies on generics like TList is now generic, while in FPCs RTL generic types are added with their own names, and don't take a central role.

I don't know about VB.net today, but back in 2008 when I used it, it still provided all the default vb6 libraries (in their own namespeace), so that you could rather easiely port VB6 code to VB.net. So much so that VS08 even provided a conversion tool that would convert your old VB6 programs to VB.Net. Sure it's not fully comparable, Lazarus can also be used to convert Delphi Projects to Lazarus, but the other way around is much harder
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: marcov on April 14, 2020, 08:58:48 pm
First reply was not exactly positive. Pretty much as expected. They hide behind rules they created themselves. :Pathetic.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Otto on April 14, 2020, 09:17:15 pm
 It comes naturally to me to quote:
(<< Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa >>  “Divina Commedia” by Dante Alighieri.)
You won't care about them, but look and pass over.


Otto.

 
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: marcov on April 14, 2020, 10:35:31 pm
It's the same story for all the online businesses.  The rules have nothing to do with the problem under discussion.

The rules are solely meant to be a hard cap of time that can be spent on the project (and since it is just about publicity: not much)
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: cdavidson on April 14, 2020, 11:00:58 pm
Quote
Hi Zeljko,

Thanks for your mail about our TIOBE index. They reason why we split up Object Pascal and Delphi is indeed because they have different Wikipedia pages. We follow this rule very strictly because we get every day requests to combine or split up languages and we need some formal mechanism for this. The reasoning is that if 2 languages have different Wikipedia pages something must be different otherwise there wouldn't be 2 different pages.

It is important to note that another criterion is that Wikipedia should refer to it as a programming language. Microsoft Visual C++ is considered "an IDE" so it doesn't even qualify for the TIOBE index.

So if you want me to join Object Pascal and Delphi again and then please make sure the Wikipedia entries are merged as was the case in the past. I hope that this answers your question.

Regards,

Paul

Well, this is crap!  Visual Studio has its own Wiki page, Code::Blocks has its own Wiki page, GNU Compiler has its own Wiki page, etc... and C++ has a Wiki page therefore it's a language. 

In contrast...

Delphi has its own Wiki page, Lazarus has its own Wiki page, GNU Pascal has its own Wiki page, etc... and Object Pascal has a Wiki page (which mentions Delphi, Free Pascal, GNU Pascal, Oxygene, etc)... but it's not a language?!?!

So why does Object Pascal not stand on its own just as C++ does???  By Paul's reasoning, C++ has a Wiki page and GNU Compiler has its own Wiki page therefore -> split up C++ since both of these have their own Wiki page  :D
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: GAN on April 14, 2020, 11:17:08 pm
Quote
They reason why we split up Object Pascal and Delphi is indeed because they have different Wikipedia pages.

A site specializing in programming languages should base its stupid index on Wikipedia. They laugh in our face.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Ñuño_Martínez on April 16, 2020, 11:28:40 am
A site specializing in programming languages should base its stupid index on Wikipedia. They laugh in our face.
Welcome to the XXI Century. ;D
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: marcov on April 16, 2020, 02:41:09 pm
After another mail, I got a reply from the guy that he will reconsider.

So not 100% positive, but at least he confirms that the rules are maybe overly simplistic.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: simone on May 03, 2020, 11:39:58 am
I share the mail received from TIOBE. I have no words...

"Hi Simone,
Thanks a lot for your mail. Lots of members of the Delphi/Object Pascal community reacted similarly like you did about the split up. And not that nicely as you have put it.
In order to make clear that Delphi should  not be considered a programming language but as an IDE for Object Pascal, somebody changed Delphi's Wikipedia page on the 14th of April. Until that time Delphi was defined as being a programming language and thus treated like that. I have warned the community that if this change will happen it will have major consequences. Now that I have observed that Delphi is not a programming language any more, it will be removed as a search term from the index. In other words, only Object Pascal will remain. So no more Delphi in the charts and only Object Pascal at position #67.
The same happened to ColdFusion 10 years ago. ColdFusion is the programming environment and CFML is the programming language. Once we changed that CFML didn't show up anymore high in the charts. The community was furious about this.
Of course everybody will argue that Delphi should be part of the Object Pascal search term after this. But we are very strict in this otherwise we have to add Visual Studio to C++ and C#, Rails to Ruby and even Excel to Visual Basic and then the end is near of all possible combinations. So please inform the Object Pascal community that they will not be happy as of next month.
Regards,
Paul"
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: jwdietrich on May 03, 2020, 01:07:25 pm
This is debunkging.

What is so difficult in adding the results for Delphi and Object Pascal (and Free Pascal and GNU Pascal etc.) and to filter out the duplicates?

The stubborn reply reminds me of the defiant response of a three year-old child that was catched when steling sweets. TIOBE has disqualified as a scientific (or at least useful) instrument. Forget about it. It isn't much more meaningful than a collection of random numbers.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: marcov on May 03, 2020, 02:14:31 pm
And then to think that TIOBE stands for "The Importance Of Being Earnest". It would be funny it it weren't so sad, sigh.

I don't think the goal is science, the whole thing is probably mostly for publicity. Their rules are just to avoid discussion and reduce maintenance. But probably they bend them for parties they care about if they relate to their business.

I never considered the whole premise of it as of particular value because the principle is fundamentally flawed, counting all users and their actions as equal, without much filtering. IOW a person referencing PHP while doing a one day job customizing some web package is counted as much as a reference made by a fulltime programmer on some other language's occasional question.

It sounds very equal of course, but the resulting stats are mostly useless.

Now it turnes out that even the execution of the flawed principle is deeply flawed.

The only thing we can do is redirect all TIOBE questions to this thread.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: dbannon on May 03, 2020, 02:36:20 pm
I accept the argument that Delphi is an IDE for Object Pascal, much like Lazarus is.  But his second last sentence -

Quote
...add Visual Studio to C++ and C#, Rails to Ruby and even Excel to Visual Basic

is just plain silly. Visual Studio is used with C++, .net, C# and even Python apparently.  Very few Excel users write VB content.  Whereas one can assume, quite safely that a Delphi user is writing Object Pascal.

On the other hand, the first line indicates to me that he did not appreciate a barrage of email from Lazarus users and this approach is punishment for people being vocal.  If TIOBE's methodology is that easily manipulated to settle personal scores, its worthless !

Davo
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: marcov on May 03, 2020, 02:40:23 pm
I accept the argument that Delphi is an IDE for Object Pascal, much like Lazarus is.

Actually, it isn't. Delphi is mostly the brand name. The IDE is called "BDS". Maybe the old (D7- IDE was called Delphi)

Quote
On the other hand, the first line indicates to me that he did not appreciate a barrage of email from Lazarus users and this approach is punishment for people being vocal.  If TIOBE's methodology is that easily manipulated to settle personal scores, its worthless !

Indeed. It was fairly worthless anyway, except as tool in useless language debate. But it shows they don't take audience and their communities serious in any way.

I wonder if C/C++ contains "GCC" or LLVM or CLANG.

It might also be related that some other languages, like FreeBasic have probably tried to get more terms included. There are a handful of users on both forums.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: marcov on June 16, 2020, 05:07:07 pm
... and they merged the categories again in June.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Ñuño_Martínez on June 18, 2020, 11:27:52 am
They cite Zbynek Fiala. Who's he?
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: avra on June 18, 2020, 07:56:30 pm
... and they merged the categories again in June.
Good news but something fishy is still going on. In January Delphi/ObjectPascal was 12th, i February 18th, and now 22nd. Half the popularity in less then 6 months. I guess we could be number one if we apply that popularity loss for a Guinness world record. As long as Tiobe is alive no one will be able to take that from us.
 8-) :D 8-)
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: wp on June 18, 2020, 08:00:24 pm
And when I scroll down https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index// to "Very Long Term History" Pascal is even at #243. A very mysterious site...
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Leledumbo on June 21, 2020, 09:21:54 am
And when I scroll down https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index// to "Very Long Term History" Pascal is even at #243. A very mysterious site...
Before this separation, they already separate Pascal from Object Pascal/Delphi. Sounds like a team of a**hole trying hard to make bad impression for Pascal. They just don't want Pascal to enter the top 20 or even the top 10. You don't see any other languages treated this way.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: argb32 on June 21, 2020, 01:35:27 pm
Why someone still cares about this rating? It's obviously crappy. And doesn't show something real nor for Pascal nor for other languages. Just forget about it. ;)
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Leledumbo on June 22, 2020, 10:58:26 am
Why someone still cares about this rating? It's obviously crappy. And doesn't show something real nor for Pascal nor for other languages. Just forget about it. ;)
The shitty fact is, it's often referenced elsewhere, including "scientific" research.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: simone on June 22, 2020, 11:18:20 am
I have written several emails to the CEO of Tiobe, reporting the inconsistencies of his methodology. He himself recognized his limitations.

No person with a minimum of knowledge of the subject can believe that this metric has a scientific value and measures the real popularity of a programming language.

The problem (not negligible however), is the impact on the image. However, I note that other metrics treat our beloved language even worse. For example in PYPL it is #28.

We must not be discouraged and engage more and more in the advocacy of language in every possible context, as many of you already do.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Blade on June 23, 2020, 11:48:03 pm
I have also written TIOBE about what they are doing.  They appear to be applying a different standard to the Pascal programming language, where they incorrectly divide the language by different compilers and IDEs, versus viewing it as a whole.  The impression that I was given is that they have internal biases within the company, very strong personal opinions, and a business agenda that affects the outcome of their index.  Unfortunately, they are somehow in the position to affect and shape public opinion.

I do think the Object Pascal community should continue the attempt to inform and enlighten them, to make it clear we are aware of what they are doing and that they should treat our programming language fairly, and under the same standards that they use for the other languages at the top of their list.  Our public advocacy will at least serve as a counter-balance to what they are doing.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Warfley on June 27, 2020, 12:36:03 pm
I honestly think it's highly unlikely that the people behind the TIOBE index, who rank multiple hundred of languages have a specific bias against one small language (which currently is also rather unimportant, compared to the top languages).

I think this is just because of their flawed methodology. As they stated on their website, they merged Delphi and ObjectPascal again because the wikipedia entry for Delphi changed (somewhen in april).
Even if the guideline to base this all on the exact wording in wikipedia articles is stupid (which I personally do), they seem to follow it rather strictly

PS: if you want pascal to rise in the TIOBE index we should just rename lazarus to "Object Pascal Programming Environment" and every google search after it would increase the tiobe counter
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Ñuño_Martínez on July 02, 2020, 11:56:04 am
Why someone still cares about this rating? It's obviously crappy. And doesn't show something real nor for Pascal nor for other languages. Just forget about it. ;)
Marketing.

Maybe you don't like it (I don't like it) but a lot of people still use TIOBE to decide the language to use instead of actual research about efficiency, costs, support, etc.  It's sad but it is the world we live in.  :(
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: 440bx on July 02, 2020, 12:25:51 pm
a lot of people still use TIOBE to decide the language to use
Proof that there is something to the phrase "there's a sucker born every minute".  There is probably some truth to the Brooklyn bridge having been sold twice a week at a point in time.  The buyer's descendants are probably among the TIOBE "believers". :)
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: jamie on July 02, 2020, 12:40:36 pm
a lot of people still use TIOBE to decide the language to use
Proof that there is something to the phrase "there's a sucker born every minute".  There is probably some truth to the Brooklyn bridge having been sold twice a week at a point in time.  The buyer's descendants are probably among the TIOBE "believers". :)

Ah the Brooklyn Bridge. I had a copy of that software years ago for the DOS PC via the serial port, modem to remote link to other  PCs it was very useful back in the days when I was doing POS software.

Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: AlexTP on July 07, 2020, 10:47:08 pm
I got a email reply from TIOBE.
Seems they "play correctly" -

Quote
1. We only accept terms that are referred to as programming languages according to Wikipedia (see our definition page). So Visual C++, GNU C++ etc are not on our radar because these are referred to as IDE and compiler respectively.

2. The Delphi community caused all this confusion themselves. First they separated Object Pascal and Delphi in Wikipedia (thus creating two entries in the TIOBE index), then somebody referred to Delphi as an IDE (thus removing Delphi all together from the TIOBE index) and then they tried to save the situation by calling Delphi a programming language again and stating in the Delphi article that it is the same as Object Pascal. Please check the history of the Delphi and Object Pascal Wikipedia pages and you will see that they have been messing around and restore things to make sure the Delphi/Object Pascal ratings are not going down.

So all in all. We just stick to our definition without any discrimination and the weird Delphi/Object Pascal things that are going on in TIOBE index are caused by the Delphi community themselves. If you want to get back in the front seat with Delphi I strongly recommend to improve your tools instead of changing Wikipedia pages all the time. I hope that this answers your question.

Regards,

Paul

--
Paul Jansen - TIOBE Software

It is not private info so I put it here

Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: 440bx on July 08, 2020, 03:40:56 am
Quote
2. The Delphi community caused all this confusion themselves.
They have a point there and, it isn't just the Delphi community that caused the confusion. Borland and its descendants  made significant contributions to it by trying to distance themselves from Pascal as a language and when, for instance, they claimed that Delphi was written in Delphi.  Just for the record, the Pascal compiler used in Delphi is written in C not Pascal.  Unlike FPC, Delphi (if there is such a language) isn't self hosting.

Delphi is just a development environment on top of a Pascal dialect but, that does not seem to be good enough for some people.  IOW, Delphi is a programming language as Lazarus is a programming language (fortunately, the Lazarus community seems to know better than to attempt to pass it as one.)


Sadly, Pascal's glory days are in the rear view mirror and, unless a miracle happens, the best that can be expected is for it to remain there instead of simply disappearing in the distance.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Blade on July 08, 2020, 10:30:21 am
Sadly, Pascal's glory days are in the rear view mirror and, unless a miracle happens, the best that can be expected is for it to remain there instead of simply disappearing in the distance.

I think Object Pascal still has a very significant future, because it still has some very nice features and tools in comparison to other languages.  As a language, debatably it can go toe to toe with C#, C++, Java, or Python.  Yes, there are advantages and disadvantages to each language, but I'm speaking in general terms and usage.  And there is a surprising amount of information about how to do things or learning resources out there for Object Pascal, if the person applies correct search term combinations, because of so many different brand labels.  Which kind of shows how powerful and mature the language is.  You can use many different IDEs and dialects to do a much more wide range of things.

Probably among the biggest issue in terms of public awareness is labeling, which companies using dialects of Object Pascal seem to purposely muddy the water.  Just as much, advocates of competing languages want to say "this dead" or "that dead", so people think their favorite language is the only choice.  Many will think that Oxygene or Delphi are their own languages, because of the sales pitch.  If you talk about Pascal, often the mental link goes directly to Turbo Pascal.  Say Object Pascal, you might get blank stares for a second, but then say Delphi and then, "Oh yeah, I heard about that."  You can't blame companies for pushing their products, but I guess something should be done to push the name of the programming language that they are using (Object Pascal) more into the forefront. 
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: 440bx on July 08, 2020, 11:24:43 am
I think Object Pascal still has a very significant future,
I hope you are right but, the current trend doesn't lead there.

Pascal's mindshare isn't growing and, quite a few Pascal programmers are life long programmers who are _not_ being replaced by a new generation. 
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: devEric69 on July 08, 2020, 12:20:21 pm
Quote
PS: if you want pascal to rise in the TIOBE index we should just rename lazarus to "Object Pascal Programming Environment" and every google search after it would increase the tiobe counter.

Done.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: howardpc on July 08, 2020, 05:00:41 pm
PS: if you want pascal to rise in the TIOBE index we should just rename lazarus to "Object Pascal Programming Environment" and every google search after it would increase the tiobe counter
Lazarus does not need renaming.
Even if it did, to try to rename it because it might inflate some here-today, gone-tomorrow third party statistic would be about the most ridiculous motive for giving it a new name I can imagine.
Pascal, FPC and Lazarus are not super-popular compared with many other programming languages and IDEs. This is true, and no one can disagree. It may always be true (though we don't know the future until it arrives, so it might not always be true, though personally I doubt it will ever be super-popular).

Democracy works by elevating the most popular choice. Sometimes it turns out well. Often it does not, or the USA would have a different (most likely better) president than the current, once-most-popular, choice; and the UK would not be leaving the EU.
TIOBE merely reflects a fairly crude comparative assessment of the popularity of different languages. While one can pick holes in their methodology, and see shortcomings in the yardsticks they use to produce their statistics, it is not so far from reflecting current developers' preferences that it is useless or worthless. Pascal, by whatever measure, does not fare well. So what?
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Warfley on July 08, 2020, 06:31:19 pm
Lazarus does not need renaming.
Even if it did, to try to rename it because it might inflate some here-today, gone-tomorrow third party statistic would be about the most ridiculous motive for giving it a new name I can imagine.
Pascal, FPC and Lazarus are not super-popular compared with many other programming languages and IDEs. This is true, and no one can disagree. It may always be true (though we don't know the future until it arrives, so it might not always be true, though personally I doubt it will ever be super-popular).

Democracy works by elevating the most popular choice. Sometimes it turns out well. Often it does not, or the USA would have a different (most likely better) president than the current, once-most-popular, choice; and the UK would not be leaving the EU.
TIOBE merely reflects a fairly crude comparative assessment of the popularity of different languages. While one can pick holes in their methodology, and see shortcomings in the yardsticks they use to produce their statistics, it is not so far from reflecting current developers' preferences that it is useless or worthless. Pascal, by whatever measure, does not fare well. So what?
This was a joke because it seems like a lot of people here seem very concerned with the perception on the popularity of Pascal.
Actually Pascal comes of pretty good in the tiobe index, if you take another metric like share of projects on github, Pascal lands somewhere in the lower half, while on tiobe it's somewhere on place 2x or so (didn't bother to look up).

Pascal is not very popular right now, which I think can be blamed on many things, to  name the two most important ones in my Oppinion:
1. the poor marketing choices of borland and co, who guarded the most well known compiler for this language behind a few kilo€ paywall, and only recently added a "community edition" (even though they seem to not know what this term actually means)  which is much much worse than comparable community editions like Visual Studio or the JetBrains products.
Lazarus while having some popularity now, was back when I started using Delphi (about 10-12 years ago) pretty buggy and also not really well known. If Embarcadero would have put out an "Community Edition" (back then they would have probably named it free edition or so) of XE in 2010 I bet the situation would be totally different.
2. .Not took the Niche on windows. The big thing about Delphi was Rapid GUI development, which suddenly was much easier with .Not If I compare Delphi XE with VS 2008, VS is better in nearly any regard, it was faster, had more features and most importantly didn't crash every 10 minutes (honestly I only tried the test version for 14 days of XE and have stopped using it because it was unusable).

I mean if I look to today, languages like C#, Java are making a lot of things much easier than in Pascal, tooling for such languages (especially java) is much better, and in the bare metal programming niche, C, C++ and Rust are much better because they are tuned for such things.

I use Lazarus most importantly because I really like the language and it's open source (and I really like these oldschool bare metal programming, being able to test and use all the quirks of the underlying architecture just makes me happy, things you simply can't do in java or so). But if someone just wants to learn a language to get things done, I would most probably recommend Java, C# or some other language, because in the end, they make life much easier in many regards. (But I would recommend it for example to someone who wants to learn how to program out of interest to learn how computers and programming works, I think here pascal is really great)
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: julkas on July 08, 2020, 07:51:29 pm
Democracy works by elevating the most popular choice. Sometimes it turns out well. Often it does not, or the USA would have a different (most likely better) president than the current, once-most-popular, choice; and the UK would not be leaving the EU.
First of all give us your definition of democracy, please.
What is it? Sky or earth, lake or mountain, black or white ... or may be nothing ?
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Blade on July 17, 2020, 12:40:12 pm

I hope you are right but, the current trend doesn't lead there.

Pascal's mindshare isn't growing and, quite a few Pascal programmers are life long programmers who are _not_ being replaced by a new generation.

There are new Object Pascal programmers, but think they are likely fractured into using different products, groups, and possibly also using a mix of other programming languages.  Examples:

PascalABC is a thing (and for many years) in Russia, but would such users be on Delphi websites or here on the Free Pascal/Lazarus's site?  Would such users also be using .NET Pascal with other .NET languages or would their applications be confused as being created with C#?

Would people using Delphi's Community Edition and using maybe the Delphi Basics website even know about PascalABC or be using Lazarus?

Maybe a person is using Simba (automation tool using Pascal scripting language- https://villavu.com/forum/forum.php), would they be looking at Delphi or Lazarus, despite writing Pascal scripts?

How many people that bought and use Oxygene from RemObjects, would be on Delphi websites or this forum?

Various countries like South Africa use Delphi and teach Object Pascal in their schools, so where are these graduates going and what are they doing later?

My impression is that the Object Pascal community is split into numerous smaller groups and bubbles.  So unless it's understood how to account for this, its extremely hard to get an accurate picture.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Thaddy on July 17, 2020, 01:32:15 pm
My impression is that the Object Pascal community is split into numerous smaller groups and bubbles.  So unless it's understood how to account for this, its extremely hard to get an accurate picture.
Same goes for any language with multiple dialects like C and C++..... So that is true but bogus at the same time. E.g. FreePascal is closer to Delphi than Msvc is to C++builder or Intel C++
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Blade on July 17, 2020, 03:38:59 pm
Same goes for any language with multiple dialects like C and C++..... So that is true but bogus at the same time. E.g. FreePascal is closer to Delphi than Msvc is to C++builder or Intel C++

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending TIOBE's bias or bad business practices.  I'm just saying that it might be easy to get things wrong, if the person studying about the popularity of Object Pascal is clueless about the community or programming in general.  This is echoed by the insanity of some that say Pascal is dead (though some supporters of other languages might do this on purpose), and there knowledge on the subject seems to stop at Turbo Pascal or having taken a class on it 40 years ago.  "Turbo Pascal gone, so no more Pascal."  People that are being extremely lazy, to not find out that Pascal evolved into Object Pascal, that Delphi is very much in business and continually selling, know of Free Pascal, etc...

And I agree, it's crazy how multiple dialects/compilers/IDEs of C++ are seen as part of the same language, but Object Pascal dialects are often seen as entirely different programming languages that have no connection to each whatsoever.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: lainz on July 25, 2020, 05:39:09 am
I can't understand why c is so popular. I don't like it.  :P
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Blade on August 05, 2020, 06:51:22 pm
An argument as to why TIOBE and their index is not an honest actor, is the software data quality tools that they are selling.  TIOBE's top languages on their index corresponds strongly to their software code quality assessment service and tools.  In this regard, TIOBE's index doesn't look objective at all, especially if it's also part of their marketing and what they are trying to sell.

It's like a company giving the public an index of the top selling cars, while not clearly disclosing their business interest in selling services and products for the cars at the top of their own list.  A very strong conflict of interest.  Little wonder that Object Pascal and Delphi would be purposely getting the short end of the stick.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: marcov on August 05, 2020, 07:25:03 pm
I think it is more disinterest than malice.

If there is premeditation, it is just to keep the amount of work needed under control.

Still that means the index, even despite already a flawed base principle, isn't as good as it could be.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: ASBzone on August 05, 2020, 11:03:50 pm
An argument as to why TIOBE and their index is not an honest actor, is the software data quality tools that they are selling.  TIOBE's top languages on their index corresponds strongly to their software code quality assessment service and tools.  In this regard, TIOBE's index doesn't look objective at all, especially if it's also part of their marketing and what they are trying to sell.

It's like a company giving the public an index of the top selling cars, while not clearly disclosing their business interest in selling services and products for the cars at the top of their own list.  A very strong conflict of interest.  Little wonder that Object Pascal and Delphi would be purposely getting the short end of the stick.

It's also possible that they have tailored their services around what their data shows them is the "top development languages,"  and that their methodology is just poor.

Either way, it does eventually bring them to a conflict of interest position...
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: RTOlivier on April 17, 2022, 10:41:13 pm
Me too I have sent a mail to Tiobe on this and I had same response. But the thing is, now Delphi, DWScript, Object Pascal appear in their top 20. Currently 12th place. I'm sure, It'll be at top 10. But yes, they have to consider FreePascal. They said taht if we put FreePascal/Lazarus as a programing language. They can include them.
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: dbannon on April 18, 2022, 05:00:01 am
Maybe they are counting FPC in with Delphi ?  It does not appear anywhere else so if its not already counted, then its extra 'points' would make very little difference.  Its a flawed measure and we should not concern ourselves with it.

Davo
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: balazsszekely on April 18, 2022, 07:52:31 am
As of April 2022, Delphi is in12th place. People told me 22 years ago that object pascal is dead. It seems very much alive and kicking, not to mention Freepascal and Lazarus. :)
Two small issues though:
  -  it is relatively hard to find a job nowadays
  -  when you mention Pascal to other programmers, you got that stare, as if you just pass through a membrane from another reality
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: PierceNg on April 18, 2022, 08:30:58 am
  -  when you mention Pascal to other programmers, you got that stare, as if you just pass through a membrane from another reality

Once, somebody misheard me. I mentioned I program in Pascal. He replied, "Haskell, cool!"   :P
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Leledumbo on April 21, 2022, 11:51:05 am
Once, somebody misheard me. I mentioned I program in Pascal. He replied, "Haskell, cool!"   :P
Surprise that person by telling where Haskell stands against Pascal in TIOBE :P
Title: Re: TIOBE Programming Index merges Object Pascal and Delphi!
Post by: Warfley on April 21, 2022, 03:17:17 pm
The thing with Haskell is, it is one of these mystic languages many people hear alot about and how great they are, but no one really got around learning them because they are so different and so maths heavy (there is this joke in the functional programming community that when you get asked what a Monad is, a fundamental concept in Haskell, you answer with: A Monad is just a Monoid in the category of Endofunctors)

So if I would meet a Haskell developer, I would also want to strike up a conversation with them, because Haskell is really cool, and as I never really got around using it for any real project, I would find a conversation with someone who uses it really interesting.
I think the fact that Haskell is such a niche language is actually the thing that makes it interesting

But over all, I think the TIOBE index is not really useful, I think much better are actual surveys. For example StackOverflow does one every year (2021: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2021) where they ask much more interesting questions, like how much people want to learn a language in the future, how much people who actually use the language, like the language (e.g. only 15% of cobol users actually like using cobol, while for rust on the other end 87% of users love it)
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