Results of the survey about programming languages

So the time has come ( finally ) to summarize the results of a recent survey in which I asked Habr users to give preference to one of the proposed programming languages, based only on its name.

The final results of the voting are as follows:



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What is the point?

This survey is partly a joke, partly - an attempt to verify the fact that the name of the language in a certain way affects the attitude of the programmer to it.

The idea to create such a survey came to my mind at that moment when I thought, “Wouldn’t the programmer give preference to the language that has a feminine name?” This assumption was the occasion to create a survey. And although the attempt to check it failed miserably, the results of the survey turned out to be very interesting and unexpected.

To make the survey interesting, I selected a number of existing programming languages ​​for it, and divided them into several groups. It was assumed that by the number of votes, the languages ​​in one group will occupy neighboring places in the rating, since they should evoke similar associations in people.

The following groups of languages ​​have been identified:

• feminine (java, ada)
• concise or associated with notes (C #, D)
• "Learned" language Pascal
• abbreviations (FORTRAN, COBOL)
• denoting objects of the real world (Python, Ruby)

Unfortunately, I did not consider this choice sufficiently before publishing the survey. It turned out that almost all users who unsubscribed in the comments perceived the name Java as “Java”, instead of “Java”. Naturally, it lost all appeal in the sound. Ada, as it turned out, is in most cases associated with hell, instead of Lady Lovelace. For these reasons, I did not manage to verify the accuracy of the original assumption. However, from the survey results can be found many other interesting observations.

Here I will make a reservation that the results do not claim objectivity. Honestly, I don’t know how to get objective data if people vote for answers, not robots. The essence of this survey is to find the emotional aspect when choosing a programming language, the name of which for each person causes different associations. Therefore, in further discussion, I will proceed from the factual data that were obtained as a result of the survey.

What we got

Judging by the fact that the first two positions are occupied by Python and Ruby, the majority of programmers want to not lose touch with the physical world. Despite the fact that in the comments to the survey there were complaints about the difficulties encountered when trying to abstract from knowledge of the language, I do not think that the majority of those who voted for Python program on it.

Some people really associated C # and D languages ​​with musical notes. Others gave them preference for reasons of brevity. About the D language in the comments sounded such a philosophical phrase: “I have long wanted to burn with the verb of people's hearts. And only the D language will be able to express with the letter one, something that has to be silent in other languages ​​”( iChirva bravo). We will assume that C # has gone ahead only because everyone knows about the popularity of C, C ++ and C # itself. Although, maybe, people just like the sound of “C-sharper” more than a pure “re” note. Who knows :)

Abbreviated languages, as I expected, very few people liked. Personally, this tells me that a programmer still experiences, feels some emotional experiences associated with the name of the language. If, for example, there existed a language like R2D2, it would have received no less votes than Ada, I am sure of it. Because it is not just an abbreviation, it is the name of a very sweet and good-natured robot. However, it should be noted, some people remember about Professor Fortran, who loved to teach children the basics of working with a computer. I think FORTRAN only therefore surpassed COBOL by 2 percent.

As for the Pascal language, all those who voted, even non-programmers, must be familiar with it. And for the majority, it doesn’t evoke the most positive emotions :) I explain the small percentage of those who voted for this language with associations with programming experience in its youth in most users, and not with the last name of a great mathematician.

Here, in fact, all the observations that I wanted to share with you. For the sake of interest, I made a diagram of the popularity of programming languages, leaving only those that were available for selection in my survey:


Data for the chart was taken from this topic . Similar results allow me once again to be convinced a little more than half that the majority of those who voted for Python and Ruby in the survey I created do not use these languages ​​in their daily activities. This again leads us to the idea that for a programmer, emotionally closer are those languages ​​that are associated with objects existing in the physical world. Programmers are people too.

Afterword

Users of Habr definitely liked the poll in the form of a riddle, in which it was necessary to think before voting for this or that item. Obviously, if the question were in the spirit of “what language do you program?”, Much less interest would be shown to the survey. Next time I will try to puzzle you with something less comic, but more interesting. Thank you all for your attention and patience :)

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PS What I learned for myself of new and interesting from the survey:

• the true name of the lattice in C # is oktohorpe ;
• in some people, the word "Ruby" is associated with sex ( proof );
• what programming languages ​​would look like if they were people (thanks to user dzhariy for the link );
• programmers have difficulty with abstraction (proof: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 );
• there is no such thing that cannot be done with Java: besides programming and brewing, it can even be smoked; Moreover, she also drives !! 11 ( proof ).