The Sociology of Programming Languages

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Empirical claims: analysis of 600,000+ open-source projects plus surveys totaling 15,600 responses shows a clear long tail of languages — a few general winners and many sustainable niche languages; typical developers keep about four languages “well” and most managed languages reach proficiency in under six months while C/C++ take years. Adoption hinges on libraries, teammates and legacy, and design succeeds when it emphasizes trialability and observability.

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" chapters (16)

1. 0:00Intro
2. 2:28Confession of a Language Salesman
3. 6:09Ecological Model of Adoption
4. 11:48Popularity vs. Niche: Dispersion
5. 12:24Language Use (survey)
6. 14:13Survey of 1,679 Developers
7. 15:33Learning: Shelf Life of a Programmer?
8. 16:53We learn and forget
9. 17:53Median reported time required to "learn a language well"
10. 18:51Probability of Knowing a Language
11. 20:55Detailed Model: Diffusion of Innovation
12. 26:22Two Weekends to Spread Safe Sex hang out at gay bars, identify opinion leaders
13. 28:11Designs that Diffuse
14. 30:51Productivity: Guided REPLs/APIS
15. 32:41Safety: Traces for Whitebox Testing
16. 34:54GRAPHISTRY Explore millions of data points in real-time