Syntax, Semantics, Libraries and Popularity What is it that makes one language more "popular" than another?
Why does popularity matter?
I don't have a definite idea, just some thoughts. Paul Graham has an article on the subject of language popularity. But what does "popular" mean, and why is it good to be popular? I suppose you might say that one language is more popular than another if more people choose to use the first language rather than the second. This raises the question of how and why that choice is made. It's often not a completely "free" choice as. For example, for an open source project on which you want assistance you need to pick an existing language with a reasonable base of users so that people who want to help have the skills to do so. For a "corporate" project you need to pick a language that has a certain credability so the customers feel reassured. In neither case is the language chosen necessarily the "best" for the project. As to why it is good for a language to be popular, I think that is simply a question of the network effect. The more popular a language becomes the more it is used and the larger the number of useful reusable components that are available in that language. Posted by Alex at December 15, 2001 07:14 PM