Go mindshare is low & ~flat, per Google Trends

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Liam

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Jan 15, 2020, 8:34:54 PM1/15/20
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Dan Kortschak

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Jan 15, 2020, 9:49:43 PM1/15/20
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Google Trends graph showing past 5y of Mechanic, Quantum mechanics

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=%2Fm%2F03f_s3,%2Fm%2F069dx

Liam

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Jan 15, 2020, 10:18:29 PM1/15/20
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My point is that Go should be rising, since Java & C# are falling. Python has gained significant mindshare, and Go is way better.

I think something's amiss with the public perception of Go, but it's hard to say what.

Daniela Petruzalek

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Jan 15, 2020, 10:24:52 PM1/15/20
to Liam, golang-nuts
If you look at python’s trajectory it took a while for it to become mainstream. I suppose Go’s curve will be somewhat similar.

This is a very interesting talk on usage trends among programming languages: 

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Robert Engels

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Jan 15, 2020, 10:58:31 PM1/15/20
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Please look deeper into how these "trends" are calculated.

For example, if everyone that uses product Y can't figure out how feature X works, and they search for it. Product Y will be showing growth...

Liam

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Jan 16, 2020, 1:16:59 AM1/16/20
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That could affect the level of a term, but wouldn't impact its trend much. Trends are the important insight of this graph.


On Wednesday, January 15, 2020 at 2:58:31 PM UTC-8, Robert Engels wrote:

Please look deeper into how these "trends" are calculated.

For example, if everyone that uses product Y can't figure out how feature X works, and they search for it. Product Y will be showing growth...
-----Original Message-----
From: Liam
Sent: Jan 15, 2020 4:18 PM
To: golang-nuts
Subject: [go-nuts] Re: Go mindshare is low & ~flat, per Google Trends

My point is that Go should be rising, since Java & C# are falling. Python has gained significant mindshare, and Go is way better.

I think something's amiss with the public perception of Go, but it's hard to say what.

On Wednesday, January 15, 2020 at 12:34:54 PM UTC-8, Liam wrote:

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Michael Jones

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Jan 16, 2020, 3:17:23 AM1/16/20
to Dan Kortschak, golang-nuts
🙂

On Wed, Jan 15, 2020 at 1:49 PM Dan Kortschak <d...@kortschak.io> wrote:
Google Trends graph showing past 5y of Mechanic, Quantum mechanics

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=%2Fm%2F03f_s3,%2Fm%2F069dx

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JuciÊ Andrade

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Jan 16, 2020, 11:12:49 AM1/16/20
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Liam has a point. Go is not attracting attention as it used to do. Go ceased to generate news.

Other projects attracts attention by aggregating new features often. So there is always a flux of news about the project, news that attracts interest, that bring new users to the project. However, that approach ultimately leads to disaster. Each new wave of developers want to employ the latest and greatest features and after some years you end up with a nightmare in form of millions of lines of source code using a plethora of competing techniques.

The minimalism in Go is its strength, but few people are mature enough to appreciate that. So what now?

I think we need to add a killer feature now and then. Not so often as to create a nightmare, but only a few, very sparse. Such a feature would be something that is very desirable but utterly difficult to achieve, something that only a selected group of the best professionals in the world backed by one of the biggest tech companies in the world could make.

Ian Davis

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Jan 16, 2020, 11:48:34 AM1/16/20
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If the purpose of adding "killer features" is just to make Go more popular then I'm completely against it. That doesn't seem like a sustainable way of growing and retaining a community, who may just move onto the next killer feature in another language. I'm not even sure that explicitly growing Go's attention should even be a goal. People will use Go when it fits the problems they need to solve.

I don't personally see any slowdown in Go's adoption in the areas I'm working in which is high scale web services.
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Amnon Baron Cohen

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Jan 16, 2020, 3:33:36 PM1/16/20
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Go was originally conceived as a niche language. And if it does what we need, then I don't think 
we need to be particularly bothered if other languages are more "popular".

But when looking at language popularity, I am not sure that the number of google searches is the most meaningful metric.

Lines of code on github could be more interesting.

FWIW: Githubs octoverse shows shows a 147% growth in Go usage last year.

And more interesting growth stats can be found on the Go blog https://blog.golang.org/8years

Michael Jones

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Jan 16, 2020, 3:58:09 PM1/16/20
to Amnon Baron Cohen, golang-nuts
How global mindshare develops is something that I know quite a bit about through leadership and engineering experience in multiple billion user projects. 

One key lesson for me was that you reach a point where the audience you originally wanted to serve (or refocused to serve) has been served. That’s when the debate of “more for this group” or “something for other groups” starts with vigor. 

There is a natural desire to grow but my advice here, after looking back honestly, is that the way to move forward is to be so excellent at some aspect(s) that users become effective missionaries. This is the only scaling mechanism at scale (other than force in unusually controlled scenarios).

Looking forward (i.e. guessing) maybe Go needs new greatness in what it already is and has by way of an “encyclopedia” of well-loved solutions. Imagine a guide to 100 top uses with links to tools, samples for each, and lots of details so that anyone wanting to build a static or dynamic web server, ftp server, ssh client, mail processor, ... would have complete guides from start to finish. 

Maybe existing solutions are sufficient or maybe they could be better. If they have room for improvement then my guess is that this kind of beginner hand holding might be the most effective investment for user growth. 

Just a guess,
Michael

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Robert Engels

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Jan 16, 2020, 4:06:07 PM1/16/20
to Michael Jones, Amnon Baron Cohen, golang-nuts
Well said. 

On Jan 16, 2020, at 9:58 AM, Michael Jones <michae...@gmail.com> wrote:



David Riley

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Jan 16, 2020, 4:20:48 PM1/16/20
to Liam, golang-nuts
I'll be interested to see how this trend goes when they FINALLY pull the plug on Python 2.7 and everyone who's been kicking the can down the road for the better part of a decade finally has to figure out which third-party libraries are breaking.

Python is better for some things, Go better for others. Python makes a good first language; Go does not. That affects numbers, too. Go apps are MUCH simpler to deploy than Java or C# or Python apps, but that's going to matter more for enterprise users with a good release process than hobbyists or business users whose deploy is "scp a bunch of files over and reboot", which is more than you'd think, sadly.

I don't trust popularity metrics that treat vector quantities as scalars. I'm not going to lose much sleep over this.


- Dave

Amnon Baron Cohen

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Jan 16, 2020, 4:59:34 PM1/16/20
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Liam

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Jan 16, 2020, 8:09:42 PM1/16/20
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Open source is a rapidly growing movement across virtually all languages, but still a small minority of all software. So the Trends graph is more revealing than Github activity. Assembly language use on Github also increased by ~150%

There's no question that Go use is growing rather quickly. It's the mindshare that I'm preoccupied with, because I'd expect that to impact Alphabet Inc's budgeting calculus.

On a golang-dev thread recently, I raised the point that talking about "Go 2" may have created a widespread misperception (esp among non-users) that a backwards incompatible "v2.0" language is planned.

This comment on the last Redmonk survey is telling about Go's public perception:

Go (-1): For the second run in a row, Go dropped one spot, this time out of a tie with R for 15th back to 16th on our list. To be sure, placement in the top twenty is by itself a remarkable achievement; many popular, widely used and beloved languages lay well behind it. But for all of its credibility and usage in widely used, popular projects, Go’s lack of versatility – perceived or otherwise – has limited its upside. Go has remained a solidly top twenty language, but has never placed higher than 14th, and that for only a single quarter. It will also be interesting to see if any of the controversy surrounding Go’s future direction – and the community’s input or lack thereof into that – has any observable impact on the language’s traction moving forward.

Robert Engels

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Jan 16, 2020, 8:44:46 PM1/16/20
to Liam, golang-nuts
Porsche’s sales are a tiny fraction of auto sales, but most in the industry consider it to be the best platform - and only wish they could emulate / afford to be in that conversation. 

On Jan 16, 2020, at 2:10 PM, Liam <networ...@gmail.com> wrote:


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Everton Marques

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Jan 16, 2020, 11:32:28 PM1/16/20
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See Go steadly growing over the years:

https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/stars/2019/4

Eric S. Raymond

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Jan 17, 2020, 12:04:12 AM1/17/20
to Everton Marques, golang-nuts
Everton Marques <everton...@gmail.com>:
> See Go steadly growing over the years:
>
> https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/stars/2019/4

Wait. #4 in GitHub populaity, pasr C++ and C. amd people are *complaining*?

I've seen failure. This isn't it.
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Wojciech S. Czarnecki

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Jan 21, 2020, 4:42:36 PM1/21/20
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Dnia 2020-01-15, o godz. 12:34:54
Liam <networ...@gmail.com> napisał(a):

> Google Trends graph showing past 5y of Java, Python, C#, Node.js, Go
>
> https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=%2Fm%2F07sbkfb,%2Fm%2F05z1_,%2Fm%2F07657k,%2Fm%2F0bbxf89,%2Fm%2F09gbxjr

Posted chart tells in loud that Go users have way less problems with understanding code
than users of languages described by curves rising steep. Go searches rise at most linearly
with developer population growth. Java and C++ searches are rising despite their respective
developers populations shrink.

Yesterday introduced Java's "pinned-pointer" will make vast cohorts of Java developers
search for descriptions of encounters with that mysterious beast — from day one and
for months and years to come. It will be seen in Google Trends — as intended.

Trends (in technology field) are a good indicator of problems people have with said
technology. They do not search about what they already know and about what works
as described.

Hope this helps,

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Wojciech S. Czarnecki

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Jan 21, 2020, 4:48:06 PM1/21/20
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Dnia 2020-01-16, o godz. 03:12:49
JuciÊ Andrade <oju...@gmail.com> napisał(a):

> Liam has a point. Go is not attracting attention as it used to do. Go
> ceased to generate news.

Google Trends are based on searched terms, not on an analysis of some
mainstream media headlines. My interpretation of OP linked "flat" line:

"Go has matured, its docs and books are so excellent that Go programmers need not to
desperately look for a hint from someone else bitten by an obscure piece of the language
or of its standard libs".

> Other projects attracts attention by aggregating new features often.

Other projects attracts searches by pushing features important to tiny but
vocal minorities focused on their narrow savings of a keystroke here and there.
Then everyone (off this tiny minority) who stumbles upon such "feature"
does WTFII? search, often in rush.

Go searches raise only with raising number of Go users. Java and C++ searches peak
not because there are more users, these peaks because every *existing*, even
seasoned user of these languages day to day knows about them less and less.

> I think we need to add a killer feature now and then.

This is the last thing Go community needs.

TC,

Rob Muhlestein

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Jan 21, 2020, 10:05:35 PM1/21/20
to Liam, golang-nuts
I've always considered Google Trends to be a dubious source of *actual* trending and usage. Maybe I'm missing something but isn't it just based on searches, not usage.

Go is absolutely fine because it is a far better approach than Python for most things and people are realizing it, they might not be searching for it.

One recent indicator was when Dropbox announced it's port to all Go code base (from Python) and the same week that Guido tweeted his retirement (from Dropbox).

As more and more engineers and developers with insight share why and how more will reach the mainstream. Focusing on how "popular" the language is seems counter-productive to me

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Liam

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Jan 26, 2020, 10:51:00 PM1/26/20
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Google Trends is commonly used to discern public interest in topics, especially emerging ones. That's not equivalent to usage, but note my title: "Go mindshare is..."

For example, I've seen this chart of Python, Ruby, and Node.js posted elsewhere. It seems to reflect interest accurately.

I didn't start this thread as an attack on Go; I think it's preferable to any other environment, unless you need seamless C interop.

The trend of public interest in Go is important, and it's barely rising.

Amnon Baron Cohen

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Jan 26, 2020, 11:18:57 PM1/26/20
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Maybe Go is too stable and boring.

Perhaps we should add wacky new features in each release, remove old features,
and change the way everything else works in surprising and undocumented ways.
This way all our users will be forced to google like crazy to figure out how to port 
their code to the latest release. That should drive up our search count on Google trends.
Until our users give up and abandon the language.

Wojciech S. Czarnecki

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Jan 27, 2020, 12:47:57 AM1/27/20
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Dnia 2020-01-26, o godz. 14:51:00
Liam <networ...@gmail.com> napisał(a):

> Google Trends is commonly used to discern public interest in topics,

No, in the IT industry GT service is used to the exact opposite.

An "interest" in a programming language (or in tech) expressed as a search
about it is a viable indicator of how many people have _problems_ with any
given language.

You just posted the chart showing a spike in problems masses have had
with python due to libraries dropping off v2.7 support.

> Google Trends is commonly used to discern public interest in topics,

Public interest in fashion, diet, politics and outbreaks — could be (modulo astroturfing bots).

pentel...@gmail.com

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Jan 27, 2020, 6:27:35 AM1/27/20
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IMHO, golang didn't make a dent on key areas to become a language of choice like big data (analytics, complex event processing, etc.) and consequently, hot topics like artificial intelligence. Exactly areas where python excels today.

Eric Johnson

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Jan 27, 2020, 4:48:13 PM1/27/20
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On Sunday, January 26, 2020 at 10:27:35 PM UTC-8, pentel...@gmail.com wrote:

IMHO, golang didn't make a dent on key areas to become a language of choice like big data (analytics, complex event processing, etc.) and consequently, hot topics like artificial intelligence. Exactly areas where python excels today.

At least when it comes to analytics, ML, AI, there are various languages at play in this space. Python isn't replacing "R" either. I don't think we should expect that it would either. One of Python's intended strengths for AI / ML / analytics involves REPL, which is specifically not a targeted feature of Go. On the other hand, when it comes to situations like the execution of AI / ML models in performance critical environments, I have heard / read of anecdotal evidence of teams opting for Go.

The question isn't whether Go making an impact for a specific area, it is whether it is making an impact where it is appropriate. For that, from what I see, the answer is overwhelmingly *yes*.

Eric.

Michael Jones

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Jan 27, 2020, 5:05:16 PM1/27/20
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Python, to its credit, has the nice inclusive property of extensible interpreters of being friendly to "hang things" onto just like ornaments on trees. By linking with C/C++-libraries and adding glue/shim code, anything can be used from Python. This facility and interpretive execution (as Eric Johnson observed above) makes it a natural for discovery and trying of things. 

These virtues may seem less so in eventual deployments, at scale, and in other cases.

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Robert Engels

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Jan 27, 2020, 6:13:07 PM1/27/20
to Michael Jones, Eric Johnson, golang-nuts
Developer: not sure this is going to work... use Python for POC
SVP: Looks great! Ship it!
Developer: but wait...

On Jan 27, 2020, at 11:05 AM, Michael Jones <michae...@gmail.com> wrote:



Rob Muhlestein

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Jan 27, 2020, 6:39:29 PM1/27/20
to Liam, golang-nuts
I appreciate the concern at the possibility that "mindshare" is decreasing and would rather read of such than not in order to take that into consideration. So I appreciate your message. But I do wonder what a similar source would say about YAML. I imagine the chart would be relatively flat, yet obviously YAML has massive "mindshare."

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Eric S. Raymond

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Jan 27, 2020, 6:55:12 PM1/27/20
to Michael Jones, Eric Johnson, golang-nuts
Michael Jones <michae...@gmail.com>:
> Python, to its credit, has the nice inclusive property of extensible
> interpreters of being friendly to "hang things" onto just like ornaments on
> trees. By linking with C/C++-libraries and adding glue/shim code, anything
> can be used from Python. This facility and interpretive execution (as Eric
> Johnson observed above) makes it a natural for discovery and trying of
> things.
>
> These virtues may seem less so in eventual deployments, at scale, and in
> other cases.

True, and connects directly to my recent experience report.

Python was the best language to prototype reposurgeon in,
but scale pressure forced the move to Go.

Liam Breck

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Jan 27, 2020, 7:43:07 PM1/27/20
to e...@thyrsus.com, Michael Jones, Eric Johnson, golang-nuts
Go mindshare suffers if it's seen as worse for prototyping, and necessary only for scale. Especially as there are more efficient (albeit more complex) ways to achieve scale.

Robert Engels

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Jan 27, 2020, 7:56:02 PM1/27/20
to Liam Breck, e...@thyrsus.com, Michael Jones, Eric Johnson, golang-nuts
easy prototyping != scaling

Pick one. 



On Jan 27, 2020, at 1:42 PM, Liam Breck <li...@networkimprov.net> wrote:


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Russtopia

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Jan 27, 2020, 9:01:55 PM1/27/20
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I'm just a "rando" from the peanut gallery, but over the past 2 years I've nearly *always* been able to find bindings with which to "hang things on" a Go-based prototype, if indeed it wasn't already in the stdlib.

So golang has become my 'go-to' for prototyping, replacing Python entirely for new work. One of the main drivers for me taking the dive into golang from C and Python was the superb tooling and lightning-fast build/test/run cycle it enabled, which felt almost as low-friction as Python.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/golang-nuts/BE504CA9-0E8F-4B09-8522-CDC7139F264B%40ix.netcom.com.

JuciÊ Andrade

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Jan 29, 2020, 10:11:11 AM1/29/20
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Change is needed to keep people interest. In particular, to keep highly capable people big challenges are needed.

"After ~12.5 years at Google and ~10 years working on Go (#golang), it's time for me to do something new. Tomorrow is my last day at Google." - Brad Fitzpatrick

Everton Marques

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Jan 29, 2020, 11:06:36 AM1/29/20
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Not a loss of mindshare:

It'd be nice to primarily work in Go rather than work on Go.
https://bradfitz.com/2020/01/27/leaving-google

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