This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Python Buzz by Carlos de la Guardia. Original Post: Python overtakes Perl, stiffs Ruby on its way to language of the year 2007 Feed Title: I blog therefore I am Feed URL: http://blog.delaguardia.com.mx/feed.atom Feed Description: A space to put my thoughts into writing. Latest Python Buzz Posts Latest Python Buzz Posts by Carlos de la Guardia Latest Posts From I blog therefore I am

The TIOBE programming community index has declared Python as the language of the year 2007, based on it's growth during the period as compared to other languages.

Without all the hype of last years wunderkind, Ruby, Python advanced from 8th to 6th place, overtaking Perl for the first time ever. Ruby lost one place after Delphi (!) climbed from 12th to 9th place and pushed last years fastest growing language into the 11th position, behind Javascript.

Python had a +2.04 percent growth for the year to get to 5.538 percent overall usage (as you can see, 'fastest growing' doesn't mean 'most used' by a long shot, so don't lose perspective here). Ruby's growth for the year? -0.17 percent. Its growth over the year of the big Ruby on Rails push? +2.15 percent. That's right, without all the noise, Python grew almost the same in 2007 as Ruby did in 2006.

There are several reason why, I think. First, keep in mind the TIOBE index ratings attempt to give an indication of programming language popularity and are based, according to the TIOBE site, on the world-wide availability of skilled engineers, courses and third party vendors. Search engines play a big part in the rating process, as can be seen in the definition at their site.

Now, what caused Python's popularity surge? I'd venture the following guesses:

• The popularity of strong agile web development frameworks, like Django, Pylons and Turbogears. Many a Python fan that had been lured away by RoR's seductive appeal came back to the language because of them.
• The growing use of Python as a system administrator's tool over Perl. Python, like Perl, is present in almost every system and has a nice standard library in place. Unlike Perl, Python is just easy.
• The constant if sometimes unaknowledged push of Zope and it's related technologies. Plone is one of the most heavily used Python based applications out there, and more than ten years later, Zope still continues to innovate and influence the Python development world.

Anyway, it's a great time to be a Python developer. No matter what part of the growth curve you and your favorite Python projects represent, please keep at it.