VFP: TIOBE and Google Trends

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A few people have mentioned the Tiobe index again (I liked Bill Coupe’s post) and VFP sitting at 13.
Never mind VFP, I’m still amazed to see how well Visual Basic is doing (still going from strength to strength even though it is no longer officially supported).
 
I was reminded of Google Trends the other day (thanks to Mitch Wheat’s post). So here’s a few interesting comparisons (some of this may disappoint FoxPro die-hards so be warned):
 
Perhaps surprisingly ‘Foxpro’ is a much more searched for term than ‘VFP’ (makes me want to re-think my thoughts about branding – I had previously suggested getting rid of the Fox moniker from the product).
Overall the trend is slightly down, but in general pretty steady.
 
You’ll notice that C# is the clear ‘winner’ and Fox down the bottom. This is not surprising I guess, but, interestingly VB and Visual Basic clearly outsearch VB.Net – agreeing somewhat with the Tiobe index. You notice that the Visual Basic and VB trends are in sync, so it is unlikely that many VB searches are finding beer links (VB is a beer brand in Australia)
 
But to see the real story, just add Java to the mix…
Yep, FoxPro and all the Microsoft languages are shown up for their real relative popularity – as per Tiobe’s index. Since the trend is steady for Java it is pretty likely that the search is not skewed much by people searching for the location versus the langauge (especially since there have been some major world events there that don’t show up in the trend).
 
And here’s one for interest…
and go to the Regions tab and check out the results for El Salvador and Indonesia
 
Note: Google Trends is still in early development
 

2 comments

  • Thanks for the mention!!

    I’ve had several visitors from your site today.

    I always like to find another FoxPro type on the net…

    Great blog.

  • Thanks for the mention!!I’ve had several visitors from your site today.I always like to find another FoxPro type on the net… Great blog.

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