Bad news: Smalltalk falls off top 50 of TIOBE Index
Whether one likes the TIOBE Index or not, this is bad news for us Smalltalk enthusiasts:
TIOBE Programming Community Index for August 2010
August Headline: Dinosaur Smalltalk falls off top 50
Smalltalk, the first pure object-oriented programming language ever, lost its position in the TIOBE top 50 this month. The same happened to the other well-known pure object-oriented language Eiffel a couple of months ago. This is probably part of the trend that languages are becoming more and more multiparadigm: both object-oriented and procedural with a functional flavor.
I took action and created this blog. Hope it helps somewhat. 😉
Bernhard blogs about IT 
As someone who enjoys the classic dynamic languages, I strongly resent the “dinosaur” epithet. I’m not disputing that Smalltalkers may be a small number, but the sort of language in TIOBE seems an example of “poisoning the well.” This is not the sort of talk we need paraded in front of the no-thinkum crowd which are regrettably legion in computing these days.
Christopher Oliver
27. August 2010 at 17:39
I, too, resent the “dinosaur” epithet. In my day job, I am stuck programming in VS 2010 ASP.Net C#, wishing almost every day that I am using Seaside/Aida & Smalltalk!
I never heard of TIOBE before this Blog posting. Is that really a big deal? Do they count Pharo, Squeak, and other statistics correctly? I’m skeptical of this…
Prospace Environmentalist
27. August 2010 at 18:53
Yes, I was also appalled by the “dinosaur”. But then, on second thought, maybe we should jokingly embrace it. Dinosaurs are strong and all the kids find them extremely cool. 😉
As for the index definition, yes, they count Smalltalk, Squeak, VisualWorks, Croquet, Pharo.
Bernhard Pieber
28. August 2010 at 09:39
Utter nonsense. As someone working on an entirely new language – ZokuTalk – based in part on Smalltalk and Lisp and a few other languages, and as an often full time paid Smalltalker I can say that while we might be few in number were super productive and on the cutting edge of developing potent systems.
Besides, as someone working in many other languages such as C, Java, …, I can’t think of a better language than Smalltalk to do new development in! Oh, wait, I can think of a better language, and that’s ZokuTalk which I’m building! More pure smalltalk than smalltalk is our moto!
Back when Smalltalk was first being made they did an inventory of languages and discovered just over 3,000 that they could find. That was in the early 1970’s. By now there are likely over 100,000 computer languages. The key isn’t the language, the key is how flexible are you as a programmer that you can move between languages? Are you a mono-cult programmer or are you a polyglot multi-lingual programmer? I’d rather hire a polyglot programmer who doesn’t know the specific language than a mono-cult programmer anyday for the polyglots are at least willing to work with the tools in play.
Long live Smalltalk type systems!
pwl
28. August 2010 at 01:10
If you check out September http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html
then you find Smalltalk at position 37.
So it seems that these positions widely fluctuate for all what is beyond the first 10.
Or maybe opening this blog has changed the trend? 🙂 Or rather the activity around ESUG?
Hannes Hirzel
21. September 2010 at 16:18
[…] Three years ago Smalltalkers were somewhat worried about the drop-out from the TIOBE index of Smalltalk. https://bpieber.wordpress.com/2010/08/27/bad-news-smalltalk-falls-off-top-50-of-tiobe-index/ […]
Rob Vens Smalltalk and the TIOBE index - Rob Vens
7. January 2013 at 21:36
[…] Three years ago Smalltalkers were somewhat worried about the drop-out from the TIOBE index of Smalltalk. https://bpieber.wordpress.com/2010/08/27/bad-news-smalltalk-falls-off-top-50-of-tiobe-index/ […]
Smalltalk and the TIOBE index - Rob Vens
13. March 2019 at 20:13