Object Pascal at position n. 9 this month in Tiobe Index

[simone]

Object Pascal reaches the position n. 9 this month in Tiobe index. I know that  measuration of language popolarity is a debatable question, anyway it seems to me very good news!

(see http://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index)

[jacmoe]

Nice to see that Object Pascal is not some fringe language! 

[Fungus]

Vigtig viden eller ligegyldig info?

For good measures, translation from Danish: Important knowledge or useless info?

[jacmoe]

Det er jo op til dig, hvad du vil lægge i det. 

(tranlation: it's up to you how much importance you want to attach to it)

[Edson]

Object Pascal reaches the position n. 9 this month. I know that  measuration of language popolarity is a debatable question, anyway it seems to me very good news!

Good news.  This is something I was expecting for a long time.

[Phil]

Good news.  This is something I was expecting for a long time.

I would caution reading too much into this list. Not so much because of the methodology behind it, but because people don't make decisions about programming languages based on aggregate data like this. Rather, they decide based on what others in their field use or what their specific problems require. Any given field probably has a potentially different mix of tools. In my "area" (U.S. tech companies and startups), the trends appear to be quite clear: software engineers (programmers) tend to use Python, JVM-based languages, maybe C#; data scientists tend to use R, MATLAB, and also Python. I don't know if it's relevant that none of these requires a recompile to move to other platforms; it could just be an artifact. In any case, I'm not seeing any use of traditional compiled languages.

I also don't know if the language choices reflect the other big trend: no more desktop software development. From what I can see, both established companies and startups are now targeting big, headless Linux servers running on AWS. Programmers and data scientists tend to use Macs. A few Windows users here and there; no desktop Linux use from what I've seen. (As a Mac user, I tend to pay attention to this sort of thing.)

Again, other fields are probably different. If you're doing consumer-oriented phone apps, for example, you probably wouldn't even consider most of these languages.

Most Lazarus users are hobbyists. In the greater world of hobby programming, the mix of languages might be more diverse, since there's no real-world consequence from the choice of programming tool. On the other hand, since hobbyists tend to be less experienced developers, it's also possible that the mix is less diverse.

These kinds of lists are fun to look at, but I don't know what meaning one can take from them.

[jacmoe]

That list can be used to measure the amount of people engaged with a particular language.
And that's all.
There are other, slightly different, lists like that (I can't remember off the top of my head)..

Personally, I don't care much if whatever programming language I am using has a high score on the list, but I do care about the fact that there is a community around it.
The TIOBE thingy can help me to answer that question.

As for who uses Delphi/Object Pascal?

Hobbyist, yes, but also professional developers (Delphi, in particular) who wants to develop and ship applications instead of chasing after the new black.

[Phil]

I do care about the fact that there is a community around it.

Yes, that can be important when you're just starting out and learning the syntax, but I would argue that soon the community of people in your field quickly becomes far more important than the community of people using the same syntax.

Hobbyist, yes, but also professional developers (Delphi, in particular) who wants to develop and ship applications instead of chasing after the new black.

But do they/are they? I would argue most Delphi developers are maintaining legacy desktop codebases, not starting new apps for Web and mobile.

Apple paid out US $20 billion to developers last year. What percent of that did Pascal developers capture?

[jacmoe]

I think right now you are arguing just for the sake of arguing, Phil. 

Web and mobile?

Yes, I would not use Lazarus/Object Pascal/Delphi for that. Obviously.
I wouldn't use C or C++ either.

I am using PHP/Javascript for that. (And, yes: people are picking on me for using PHP).

By community, I mean other people who code in the same language and who use the same tools so that there is libraries/packages being maintained/shared.

/Edit
You said that none are creating new projects written in Object Pascal... well, I am.
I have followed Lazarus / Free Pascal for years, and I think now's the time to dig into it.
I know other languages and comparatively speaking, modern Object Pascal does quite well against C++, C#, Java, ... it is modern.
So, yes: I think it is a viable option to take for commercial development.
Especially the cross platform capabilities, and the fact that new and exciting features are in the works at Free Pascal headquarters..
/Edit

/Edit_Again
Pascal and Delphi are 2 out of 16 languages to learn on Business Insider's Learn any of these 16 programming languages and you'll always have a job article on the highest in demand languages in 2016.

The irony is that Delphi is on that list because of mobile development due to Firemonkey which has meant an increase of Delphi developers.
/Edit_Again

The TIOBE index is not Gospel - and normally I couldn't care less about popularity contests.

Still, I rather enjoy seeing Object Pascal in the top ten.

Even if it's silly to enjoy that kind of thing. 

[jacmoe]

I wouldn't be surprised if the reason why Object Pascal appeared on the top 10 is because of Delphi and their Firebase Firemonkey framework.
That is great because it means that new people are getting into Pascal programming, and that can't be a bad thing.

That means that it's not only old farts, like myself, who programs in Object Pascal because we started out in Turbo Pascal way back in the 80's. 

[Akira1364]

I wouldn't be surprised if the reason why Object Pascal appeared on the top 10 is because of Delphi and their Firebase framework.
That is great because it means that new people are getting into Pascal programming, and that can't be a bad thing.

That means that it's not only old farts, like myself, who programs in Object Pascal because we started out in Turbo Pascal way back in the 80's. 

Top 10? Delphi? FireBase? No offense, but are you drunk? I'm aware that a large portion of users here are from European, South American, and (East, mostly) Asian countries where Delphi has somehow maintained a moderately significant level of popularity, but you need to understand that here in North America, where Delphi originated (I'm Canadian, but this applies to the United States too) its use and the use of Object Pascal in general is virtually nonexistent. Anyone who does even know what it is usually only has some vague memory of using it decades ago. Tell anyone you actually use it in production (as I do, since I'm lucky enough to work for a company who happens to have a significant existing Delphi codebase alongside their C++/C#/Python codebases that I also work on) and they'll look at you like they think you're joking. It is not a remotely popular language in the grand scheme of things at all, unfortunately. As far as I'm concerned this is largely the fault of Embarcadero's embarrassingly poor business practices in the last decade or so. (And as much as I enjoy coding in Object Pascal, it DOES have a variety of annoying limitations that simply aren't present in other languages.) What does all this mean? In my opinion, it means FPC and Lazarus have far more "on their plate" than most people think: without them, Object Pascal would almost certainly drift completely into the "legacy" category. The status of Delphi is essentially irrelevant, nowadays... Counting on it for anything is deeply unwise.

[Thaddy]

Not too long ago the wise men at TIOBE finally united the different object pascal flavors into one entry as opposed to listing them as different entries/entities..
That revealed two things:
- Object Pascal is more than just Delphi and has always had a far higher cumulative score than previously suggested. (which confuses people like you)
- The D 10.1 freebee has an effect.

[jacmoe]

No offense, but are you drunk?

(which confuses people like you)

Could you please tone it down ?

I wasn't aware that the topic was that touchy, to the degree that you feel the need to engage in personal attacks.

[jacmoe]

Top 10? Delphi? FireBase?

Sorry, I mistyped. It should be 'Firemonkey'.

[Thaddy]

No, almost nobody uses that (on desktop). I use only my two Firemonkey T-shirts... These are really high quality!

You may have spotted the error in their documentation: Firemonkey is not Object Pascal but Abject Pascal.

And that is not in the TIOBE index, so don't worry