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The TIOBE Programming Community Index for January 2006 has been released. Java and C have treaded places for the #1 and #2 spots (Java is now in the lead), Python and Delphi are slipping, C# is on the rise, Ruby misses the top 20 by one spot ... and ColdFusion climbed from 25th to 16th (the biggest mover on the board).

There are some real oddballs here, too. ActionScript below Prolog and Ada? PL/SQL as a programming language (but no other SQL implementations)? And it gets worse, too.

Now, just to be brutally honest, I have no faith in these numbers and in what they are supposed to mean. And so I don't read much (if at all) into rankings and comparative movements. But, one point may be worthy of consideration. Assuming that the data compilation and analysis used the same techniques and patterns this year as they did last, TIOBE has discovered massive growth in ColdFusion use this past year.

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Actually, I hate to point this out, but CF is not the biggest mover on the board. CF moved from 25 to 16, but Visual FoxPro moved from 48 to 20!

# Posted By 6dust | 1/12/06 1:34 AM

Coldfusion with 1/2 a percent share of the market?

Based on these numbers, everyone should move to PHP.

I don't trust these figures, see no reason Coldfusion would have doubled usage in one year.

# Posted By Dale Fraser | 1/12/06 5:28 AM

Well, I have faith in these numbers... but it is specific to what they mean. This index tracks what people are <b>talking</b> about, not what they use. I would guess the jump is more related to the acquisition than anything else. That said, the index does offer a good proxy for where things might be going.

# Posted By Chip Temm | 1/12/06 6:52 AM

Chip makes a good point. This has nothing to do with market share. The say "The ratings are based on the world-wide availability of skilled engineers, courses and third party vendors" but in reality all they do is a web search for "<language> programming." ColdFusion was probably mentioned in a bunch of press releases and news reports and blog posts about the Adobe deal, so it's now showing up in more web searches.

# Posted By Grant | 1/12/06 1:30 PM

Number of hits on .cfm pages or number of developers... Coldfusion will never have the market penetration of a free application server such as php - and it is not a metric that this site is trying to define, I think. This page is for someone looking to find out what skills will show them the money.

# Posted By Derrick Stone | 1/12/06 4:21 PM

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ColdFusion Climbs The TIOBE Programming Community Index