"Count what is countable. Measure what is measureable. What is not measureable, make measureable." -- Galileo

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Programming Languages and CMSs

Courtesy  of a link on LifeHacker, I discovered an interactive IEEE webpage that lets you slice and dice programming languages in a variety of ways.  You can sort them by ranking criteria like "trending," "jobs," "open," or customize your own ranking systems.  Additionally, you can filter them by web, mobile, enterprise or embedded language types. 

Interestingly, Python holds its number 4 spot overall and for all individual language types.  PHP follows in the number 6 slot.  PERL struggles along at 8 or lower, depending on how you select the filter settings. 

That said, it looks like Python is very much a contender in the programming language debate.  I used to teach Python to my class in algorithms because the class text, Corman and Leiserson, Rivest, and Stein's "Introduction to Algorithms," uses Python-ish pseudocode.  In fact, we'd often cut and paste their pseudocode, make a few edits, and run the algorithms with time tracking functions.  Racing algorithms--how to make O-notation fun. 

That, of course, brings us back to CMS.  A search on CMS Matrix for Python-based systems returns 23 results:
  • autowebcms
  • BlackMonk CMS
  • CubicWeb
  • Cyn.in
  • django-cms
  • DXM Multilingual
  • Easy Publisher
  • eContent 3.5
  • Ellington
  • EZRO
  • Macromedia Contribute
  • Mezzanine
  • Nuxeo CPS
  • Plone
  • PublishXML
  • PyLucid
  • Silva
  • Solgema
  • SR2
  • Web Cube
  • WEB123 CMS
  • WebEngine v6
  • zwook
A search for PHP-based systems returns 585.  (Contact the author if you'd like to see the entire listing.)

That's a fascinating mismatch between the IEEE ranking of the programming language and number of CMSs based on the underlying language.  Considering that Plone and Django are the heavy hitters among the Python-based CMSs, this puts them in a positive light.