Xref: utzoo comp.software-eng:5423 comp.object:3276 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!microsoft!jimad From: jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK) Newsgroups: comp.software-eng,comp.object Subject: Re: How to pay for reusable software Message-ID: <71966@microsoft.UUCP> Date: 20 Apr 91 19:00:12 GMT References: <1991Apr12.182420.18587@m.cs.uiuc.edu> <291@dumbcat.sf.ca.us> <12676@pucc.Princeton.EDU> <1991Apr16.123527.2854@jyu.fi> Reply-To: jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK) Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA Lines: 82 In article <1991Apr16.123527.2854@jyu.fi> sakkinen@jytko.jyu.fi (Markku Sakkinen) writes: |In article <12676@pucc.Princeton.EDU> EGNILGES@pucc.Princeton.EDU writes: | |(Sorry, I am commenting on a small side issue of the long article.) | |>There is a refreshing consensus right now on the value of C as a |>programming language, but even C is not The Language of the Gods. | |What consensus? If I have an approximately correct picture of |American school grading, perhaps the name of the language is well chosen. |And I think C is really more suited for Gods (and daemons) to program in |than humans. I don't know about a "consensus" or not, but I try to keep an honest picture in my mind about the relative size and importance of various products in the marketplace -- including the relative market impact of various languages. I do this by performing various kinds of primary source numeric studies. For example, below find some word-hit-counts and document-hit-counts based on searching the Computer Select database for various computer language names. [The Computer Select database is a monthly CD-ROM based database that contains full text from 40 of the most popular programming journals, as well as abstracts from 110 others. In addition is contains product information on thousands of software and hardware products. If you haven't checked it out yet -- I strongly recommend it] journal articles software products hit-counts: #words #articles #words #product-descriptions C 21482 6507 7956 6922 C++ 3111 578 178 117 Ada 2322 510 334 174 Pascal 2284 772 1809 1635 Cobol 1850 633 3814 3459 Fortran 1364 558 2193 1925 Smalltalk 741 212 15 11 Modula 665 112 87 62 Objective-C 186 40 14 7 Eiffel 158 34 1 1 Oberon 28 3 0 0 Modula 3 20 4 0 0 [Caveat: these are raw numbers from my hit searches. In the case of "C" only, the "C" word is such a small word that about half the total hits represent mis-hits -- articles for example, where the "C" word doesn't refer to the "C" programming language, but rather refers to Howard "C" Smith, or the like. [So you may want to mentally divide the "C" numbers by about 2]] Statistics can be interpreted many ways by many people. I leave it to the reader to get what they want out of these numbers. Below are *my own personal* conclusions: ---- C really is the dominant programming language for today -- but not so dominant that a "consensus" could be said to have formed behind it. C++ is the dominant "object oriented" programming language. *Some day* there really are going to be "Object Oriented" Cobol and "Object Oriented" Fortran compilers [because the market is big enough that *someone* is going to do it] To date there's still more talk about object-oriented programming than software products using it. [IE OOP is still not a mainstream programming approach] Some well-known OOPLs aren't going to garner enough market-share to make them a commercial success. Programmers would do well to choose an OOPL that stands a chance of making the cut. [Just because your favorite language above doesn't have large numbers doesn't necessarily mean that its failing -- if its a language that's only come out in the last year or two, it could simply mean that that language hasn't caught on yet] --- [If your favorite language isn't in the above list, its simply because I did not think of it while compiling the above numbers. All languages that I did search on are included in the above list]