Developer survey: C# losing ground

[Karel]

C# has fared less well. “The fact that C# lost three places during the last three years is mostly
explained by its slower growth compared to C/C++ and PHP,” the report stated. “C# may be
sustaining its dominance in the game and AR/VR developer ecosystems, but it seems to be
losing its edge in desktop development – possibly due to the emergence of cross-platform tools
based on web technologies.”


https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/21/developer_survey_c_losing_ground/

[Wuerstchenhund]

Surveys like these have the value as data gained by reading from fish guts.

Not sure what industries they surveyed in but the results suggests it's very narrow (web/cloud, IoT, mobile) and leaves out a lot of other industries (like embedded).

As one of the El Reg commenters noted, the survey is as useful as the Gartner reports.

[Wilksey]

Yet according to TIOBE C# us up 0.3%

Seriously though who cares what the "trending" languages are, it's like comparing web frameworks, it'll change next week and a new one will be along next month.

C# is primarily used for desktop apps, you can use Xamarin for mobile and ASP for web, and .NET core for cross platform and Unity for games.

You can also use VB.NET, or C++ or Java, or Javascript in frameworks like Ionic or React Native for mobile, web etc.

You use what is right for the project and what you know, if C# suddenly went to the bottom of the list (unlikely) would I stop using it? Nope.

As Wuerstchenhund has said, these surveys are not worth much.

[Syntax Error]

That survey is based on developer community size, not on the scope, application, security, robustness, support or quality of those language. Or even it's salary position?

The only harm these surveys can do, is when dumb CTO's are deceived into thinking which language is "trending" right now and, go and redeploy the C# and Hadoop teams into programming with Javascript and Node.

[Siwastaja]

It's completely meaningless in any case.

For example, Python being "popular" in AI / machine learning means that exposed Python APIs are used to configure and supply data to existing complete AI/ML engines, which are obviously written in languages like C, asm, OpenCL, CUDA, VHDL, Verilog...

[hans]

Perhaps even more important is that these surveys only look at projects that are part of the past. E.g. COBOL was very popular many years ago, but such information has a half-life time of only a few years.

Probably the best languages for future technologies haven't been invented yet, or are so narrowly adopted that they are not on this list. However, if you're keen on learning and perhaps interested in the academic background of such tools, I think those developments are for more interesting (although probably even has a shorter half-life time)..

For general purpose "getting things done", languages like Python, C/C++ and C#/Java are my personal choices.

Also, I'm amazed that:

- C/C++ are mentioned together, while they are completely different beasts
- Games are not mentioned with C++, whereas many game engines are still developed in C++..
- Games is a main application for C#? Okay then.

[Mechatrommer]

if you are so popular, why annoy people with advertisements? this has been keep going for weeks, no dependencies my arse..

[VK3DRB]

Good to see Visual BASIC is gone. Visual Beginners All purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. Its a crock. During the dot com boom VB programmers were overpaid script kiddies.

[bd139]

Meh. C# is slowly dying and I say that as someone who has been programming in it for nigh on 18 years. Ignore the metrics, ignore the marketing. The real sign is that most of the large enterprises which were primary customers for a large chunk of that period are chucking it out after being burned over and over again by massive costly breaking changes in the ecosystem and the associated abandonment by the open source contributors. The emperor changes clothes faster than a Eurovision presenter. On top of that the traditional userbase is being thoroughly gouged for cash by Microsoft on the self-hosting front to push them to the cloud so they can milk you for opex instead of capex. Now the issue is when you have the choice of moving to Microsoft's cloud or someone else's, someone else gets the business due to the better maturity and reliability ratings in the commercial due diligence reports. Then when you get there there's a whole lot of non C# ecosystem stuff treated as first class citizens which is sexy, works out of the box without tearing you a new arsehole every 5 minutes and gives you better ROI.

A fine example of the shit show that C# is, well the ecosystem. A little story broken down into bullet points about how to ruin a platform and trust with your customers.

1. 3MLOC C# web forms application dating back to 2002 and evolved since backed on SQL server on owned hardware.
2. Along comes Remoting/DNA fad from MS P&P. Chunks rewritten into semi distributed nightmare on advice.
3. Along comes WS-* fad from MS P&P. Chunks rewritten into even worse distributed nightmare on advice.
4. Along comes MVC from MS. UI rewritten using this and EF.
5. EF, WWF, Remoting, WS-* deprecated (yes all of them) and enough of MVC rewritten to break everything that's left (when they added async which is incidentally buggy as fuck even 10 years later with regular production deadlocks)
6. .Net core comes along. New approach is microservices (this is correct for this company). Huge swathes rewritten so it's portable to Linux, but deployed on windows while infrastructure is migrated.
7. Massive breaking changes in .Net Core while they consolidate the API with .Net standard. Huge changes required.
8. At this time they're pushing people to cloud so SQL licenses start going up 20% per year with some bigger jumps due to how they change core licensing.
9. Another set of massive breaking changes to the entire web pipeline which causes 3 months wall clock work for 3 people across 120 microservices.
10. Try to get this shit working in kubernetes on linux and you find that the certificate store implementation is STILL based on the shitty half arsed APIs written in 2002 which has an abstraction which doesn't make sense on any platform other than windows resulting in 2 month delay on a project while people work out how to do cert management with hashicorp vault in this environment which ends up in a whole chunk of sticky tape and string just to get it out of the door.
11. Along comes MSFT and says they're going to rebrand it all .Net 5.
12. Everyone goes FUCK YOU we've had enough of this shit. No new projects on .Net / C#

So the UI is going in the direction of React and Electron and the back end is Go, Python or Node. And the storage engine is going postgres. And this is all on AWS. And the grass is greener. There's some poo dotted around on it but it's not up to your neck.

That's why C# is dying: Lots of people experienced with it don't want to get hurt any more.

[Mechatrommer]

Good to see Visual BASIC is gone.

you'll get dissapointed when i publish my next free software. i'm the living proof that the stats is wrong. and few other softwares that still developed and maintained to this day. we are the resistance to the "bloatware".

[olkipukki]

That's why C# is dying: Lots of people experienced with it don't want to get hurt any more.

... or next generation cannot accept to be 'static, strong, safe and nominative,' and prefer 'dynamic & duck' 

[bd139]

Not so sure about that. Seeing a big focus on Go and TypeScript surprisingly.

[olkipukki]

No wonder... Humans walk forward, not backwards.

Should we look into a crystal ball to see what will happen with your Electron app in a decade time? 

[bd139]

Well I quit and am going back to contracting so I don’t give a fuck what happens to it 

And that’s how you keep your sanity in this mess.

[olkipukki]

Thought you guys there locked inside into IR35 for a while if not forever.

Let's see from a positive angle, like a plumber in a shit bath to neck, at least know where don't swim and how to connect pipes to drain this quickly and get out.
A temporary stinking is not really problem whatever C#, Java or... PHP   

[bd139]

IR35 is only a problem if you're doing 100% disguised employment. Not an issue if you sell a contract for services, rather than an individual's contracting services (subtle but important distinction).

Good analogy with the stink. I can cope with a little but you start to drown after a while. Permanent employment is not for me.

[james_s]

I agree that it's meaningless, you use the language(s) that your employer is using in most cases, or the one you are most comfortable with for personal projects. I haven't worked anywhere that used C# since back in my Microsoft days, in the modern tech industry Python and Javascript are used for most of the stuff that would have used C#.

[Syntax Error]

[[etc...]]
12. Everyone goes [redacted] YOU we've had enough of this shit. No new projects on .Net / C#

On the same page dude. C# is a great language but, a pity MS kept on moving the goal posts every two years with another sugar coated turd in a presentation foundation (bun) rebrand. As you say, everyone has just walked away. .NetCore is now a far too deep ecosystem for javascript framework fanboys to wade through. Try hiring a team, in six weeks, who know their WCF from a WTF.

Remember Microsoft Silverlight? I was an MVP for that. After they ploughed it into the WPF ground, I went on to other stuff; mostly converting MVC code into MVVC code. And back again. Now it's Azure, Azure, Azure... why? Use AWS like a grown-up.

Remarkably, there are one or two jobs in town supporting classic Active Server Pages (ASP before .Net) applications, written in VB Script. Such halceon days.

[Zbig]

It's completely meaningless in any case.[..]

Not to Karel, it's not. C# is developed by Microsoft and he's found a "proof" it's losing - that's all that matters to him. Judging by the guy's posting history (on an EE forum), he spends his days hating on everything Microsoft religiously and evangelizing anything Linux. I'm surprised any of you guys who's not completely new here keep falling for any of this dude's posts - you should really have known better than to waste your time on this nonsense.

[bd139]

I happen to agree with Karel. Sit with a large Microsoft developer team (I ran a 100 person team until recently) and everyone wants out if they haven’t already bailed.

I’m ex MSFT certified this that and the other and ran a certified partner for a few years. I’ve even got a few fair C# libraries and examples on my public GitHub account.  But Shit’s over now. The cloud won and the language and tooling is superior elsewhere.

What matters is what you deliver and how long it takes to do that and C# and .net are never the best options unless you happen to have a lot of ancient piles of it already at which point it’s being paid danger money 

[Syntax Error]

Simply, C# lacks productivity in an enterprise environment. UK wide, over the last decade I have noted a distinct decline in the hourly rate for .net, but some quite stupid hire rates for React and Jenkins, for example. As for Python with Blockchain, print your own money!

Another .Net fail was Microsoft .net micro framework for embedded IoT devices. Like the Netduino, which you've probably never heard of? Hang on, it's now called the Microsoft .net NANO framework. Sorry for any confussion.

[Mechatrommer]

C# is developed by Microsoft and he's found a "proof" it's losing - that's all that matters to him.

when the # thing came, being as long time VB6 user, i tried VB#.. just what kind of nonsense is that? i dont have time learning new thing, so i stick with VB6... so if # thing losing ground? i dont care a rat arse. they should've polished the older VB6 such as providing true OOP capability to Classes, tree/pointer data structure etc... from my point, they've screwed themselves a long time ago.

[bd139]

Technically that’s what VB.Net was supposed to do. But VB was a dead end. So C# was the primary language.

To be clear the language is fine. It’s the runtime, the ancillary libraries, the management and the developer tooling where the turds lurk.

[james_s]

[[etc...]]
12. Everyone goes [redacted] YOU we've had enough of this shit. No new projects on .Net / C#

On the same page dude. C# is a great language but, a pity MS kept on moving the goal posts every two years with another sugar coated turd in a presentation foundation (bun) rebrand. As you say, everyone has just walked away. .NetCore is now a far too deep ecosystem for javascript framework fanboys to wade through. Try hiring a team, in six weeks, who know their WCF from a WTF.

Remember Microsoft Silverlight? I was an MVP for that. After they ploughed it into the WPF ground, I went on to other stuff; mostly converting MVC code into MVVC code. And back again. Now it's Azure, Azure, Azure... why? Use AWS like a grown-up.

Remarkably, there are one or two jobs in town supporting classic Active Server Pages (ASP before .Net) applications, written in VB Script. Such halceon days.

Microsoft has a severe case of ADHD. They are constantly changing and rebranding products, changing direction, going all-in on something and then abandoning it a few years later. This sort of thing happened internally too, back when I worked there re-orgs happened constantly, you'd come in to work one day and find out that now you report to a different manager and everything is shuffled around. Sometimes it seems like the only time they really stick to their guns and keep forging ahead is when they're trying to force something unpopular on the market.

[Mattjd]

Guido Von Rossum joins Microsoft.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/12/python-creator-guido-van-rossum-joins-microsoft/

Be nice if that means they'll be replacing vba/.net/etc. with Python.


I really don't understand Microsoft. They got a partial javascript library going as an alternative to VBA in Office but it was never fully extended to all the object models and now appears to be dead.

I'd love it if they move stuff to python and had more products be OS agnostic.