The second post in the February job trends posts focuses on what I call “web and scripting languages”. This list currently includes Ruby, Python, PHP, JavaScript, Groovy and Erlang. If you think I should be including another language, please let me know in the comments.

First, let’s look at the trends from Indeed.com:

Much like the traditional language trends, the trends for this list of languages has been trending down for the past year. JavaScript had a huge drop but still leads by a large margin. PHP, Python and Ruby continue to show similar trends, with a plateau for most of 2011 and 2012 with a slight dip at the end of 2012. Groovy also has a fairly flat trend though it still leads Erlang.

Now onto the short-term trends from SimplyHired.com:

Overall, SimplyHired shows a net flat trend for the year. JavaScript is slightly down over the past year bu demand is still relatively strong. PHP and Ruby show the largest change, with a bad trend towards the end of the year. It will be interesting to see how they recover in 2013. Python remained stable, and leapt ahead of the declining PHP. Groovy and Erlang barely register on this demand graph, so it is difficult to see any real changes.

Lastly, we have the relative growth trends from Indeed.com. This compares percentage growth as opposed to percentage of all postings:

Groovy is showing fantastic relative growth, which really skews the graph. Erlang had good growth as well for most of the past two years, but it has dipped a bit in the past few months. Most impressive is the continued growth of Ruby, even with the overall slumping of demand. Python still has a solid positive trend, although the growth is not increasing anymore. PHP and Javascript both have been in high demand for a long time but the demand is not growing much as they have a flat trend currently.

All of the trends have dropped a bit after a long plateau this year. This is consistent with the trends for the traditional languages. However, this flat trend is surprising if you read any technology blogs. Everyone seems to be looking for programmers, without much success. I must admit that the trends from this post and the traditional languages are rather disappointing. I expected better trends but the job data does not reflect that. Over the next few months, I will be researching other data points to include in the trends to see if the job data really describes reality.

Related articles

• Traditional Programming Language Job Trends – February 2013 (regulargeek.com)
• The Rise and Fall of Languages in 2012 (drdobbs.com)
• Reflecting On Programming Language Trends (dorai.me)