Ask HN: Where are the best places online to read about software trends?

2 pointsmcraenich2y ago1 comments

I'm interested in doing some research on the long-term outlook of a few programming languages and technologies, and am wondering if there is a de-facto place, or a few places, to go for this information.

I know the Stack Overflow developer survey can be pretty good to understand what's happening now, but I'm more curious about long term projections.

Is this information available anywhere?

1 comments

uticus2y ago

"Long term projections" meaning, projecting a language's popularity in a decade or so?

The SO developer survey and others [0] [1] [2] have been around long enough to notice trends, but projection - whether in economics, sports, or the weather - is of course about much more than trends.

Personally I would seek out the advice of as many trusted greybeards as I had access to; experience counts more than math and statistics. Also, if your research is for the purpose of guiding current decisions (you didn't say this explicitly but I picked up an implicit need) be aware of black swan events [3].

[0] https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/devecosystem-2022/

[1] https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2023/05/16/language-rankings-1-2...

[2] https://www.codingdojo.com/blog/top-programming-languages

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse