[Web4lib] Re: Web Languages

Mon Jul 14 15:55:42 EDT 2008

The Craigslist data is interesting. Someone with time on their hands
should do it for various different markets. I suspect SF leads the
nation, with Cambridge, MA close behind, and that Craigslist Maine is
asking for Integer Basic programmers.

On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 3:45 PM, Cloutman, David
<DCloutman at co.marin.ca.us> wrote:
> Tim,
>
> You may be right in the long run, if Ruby follows the evolutionary path
> of PHP, though I think PHP will adapt, with better frameworks emerging
> (like Symfony) and native Unicode support in PHP 6. As far as Java goes,
> I think it is the COBOL of the future. If you know if, you'll probably
> be able to find a legacy application to support for the rest of your
> life. And for many things, I still think it is a choice development
> language. For heavy duty OO programming, I really think a strongly typed
> language works better, and for that reason I do not see Ruby or Python
> being Java killers.
>
> I would not totally discount your book sales data. It certainly
> indicates the level of interest in learning a technology. However, I
> don't think it is necessarily indicates traction for any particular
> technology.
>
> My own unscientific metric for languages is searching the Craigslist job
> listing for the SF Bay Area. (This includes silicon valley.) For my
> purposes, I look at "internet engineering jobs" and "web design jobs".
> Here are today's numbers by keyword.
>
>                             PHP    Java   Ruby   Python PERL
> internet engineering jobs    110    71     22     19     109
> web design jobs              167    246    85     98     31
>
>
> It will be interesting to see how these numbers shift when the first ROR
> apps reach legacy status, as is currently happening with PHP and
> happened a few years back to PERL.
>
> - David
>
> ---
> David Cloutman <dcloutman at co.marin.ca.us>
> Electronic Services Librarian
> Marin County Free Library
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
> [mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Tim Spalding
> Sent: Saturday, July 12, 2008 7:40 PM
> To: Dan Scott
> Cc: Marcie Pierson; Thomas Dowling; web4lib at webjunction.org
> Subject: Re: [Web4lib] RE: Open source support models
>
>
> Incidentally, lest you think I'm being a language snob or bending the
> evidence to my own ends, I was a Perl hacker once and I program in
> PHP. I do not know Ruby-or Python for that matter. But I've tried to
> hire smart, young programmers-for Perl when I was at Houghton Mifflin
> and for PHP at LibraryThing. The top talent out there now has mostly
> gravitated to Ruby and Python. I *hate* that, but it is a fact.
>
> These is not some sort of bull feeling of mine, but are exhaustively
> documented every year by Tim O'Reilly in his yearly book-industry
> analyses. PHP, Java and C/C++ have shrunk five years running. Ruby
> came out of nowhere and is now quite significant--particularly as Ruby
> programmers seem to be less book-oriented than some others.
>
> http://radar.oreilly.com/2008/03/state-of-the-computer-book-mar-23.html
>
> Tim
>
> On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 10:26 PM, Tim Spalding <tim at librarything.com>
> wrote:
>> Thanks for the correction on Evergreen.
>>
>> I wouldn't say I needed correcting on VuFind, though. Saying that
>> VuFind isn't mostly PHP because there are chunks of shell scripting
>> and HTML is like saying that a car isn't made out of steel and glass
>> because it also has leather seats and pockets of air. Much the same is
>> true of SQL and, depending on what you're doing with it, JavaScript.
>> And if you're going to count lines HTML against lines of code, you
>> should also factor in all the GIF and JPEG images, not to mention
>> Cascading Style Sheets. This way lies madness.
>>
>> Tim
>>
>>> Ha! Fact-checking is readily available for a few of these projects at
>>> http://www.ohloh.net/projects/evergreen/analyses/latest (for
>>> Evergreen) and http://www.ohloh.net/projects/10977/analyses/latest
>>> (for VUFind).
>>>
>>> So a correction: the business logic of Evergreen is written primarily
>>> in Perl and SQL, with a few optimized sections rewritten in C. The
>>> current catalogue interface is primarily JavaScript with XHTML, and
>>> the staff client user interface is written in Mozilla XUL (XML +
>>> JavaScript). The user interface for most new staff client
>>> functionality is being built with the Dojo JavaScript framework.
>>> Python is used for the internationalization build infrastructure and
>>> for the new EDI piece.
>>>
>>> The choice of language in the project largely comes down to using the
>>> most appropriate tool for the job. That's one of the advantages you
>>> get from building an application using a service-oriented
>>> architecture.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Dan Scott
>>> Laurentian University
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Check out my library at
> http://www.librarything.com/profile/timspalding
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Check out my library at http://www.librarything.com/profile/timspalding
>
>
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