CoffeeScript, a preprocessor that takes code and compiles it to JavaScript, is creeping forward in a prominent language popularity index -- a sign that developers want alternatives to JavaScript.
This month’s Tiobe Index of language popularity has CoffeeScript
entering its top 100 languages for the first time, ranked 64th, albeit
with a rating of less than 1 percent, like most of the languages
featured in the index. Tiobe’s index gauges language popularity based on
a formula assessing searches on specific languages in a variety of
search engines.
“The surge for CoffeeScript was expected already some time ago,” said
Paul Jansen, managing director of Tiobe, in an email. “Now that
everybody is forced to use JavaScript and it is very easy to shoot
yourself in the foot with JavaScript, [the] industry is looking for
alternatives. These are Dart, CoffeeScript, TypeScript, and many
others.”
JavaScript, ranked seventh in this month’s index, is a staple of Web
development. Dart is ranked close behind CoffeeScript at 66th place.
TypeScript does not register on this month’s index. But that could
change soon, given a recent partnership between Google and Microsoft that heavily leverages TypeScript, which is Microsoft’s answer to JavaScript.
This month’s index also has F#, Microsoft’s functional programming
language, reaching an all-time-high ranking of 11th place, with a share
of 0.29 percent. It was ranked 12th in last month’s index and was seen
as on its way to the top 10 a year ago. That still has not happened. But interest nonetheless is growing in functional languages such as F# and Scala. “F# has the luck that it is part of Microsoft's Visual Studio ecosystem, so it is easier to accept as a solution by industry,” Jansen said.
Elsewhere in the index, C is tops again, with a 16.64 rating, followed
by Java (15.58 percent), Objective-C (6.69 percent), C++ (6.64 percent),
and C# (4.92 percent). The alternative PyPL Popularity of Language
Index, which assesses searches on language tutorials in Google, has Java
in its top spot with a 24.3 percent share, followed by PHP (11.4
percent), Python (10.7 percent), C# (8.8 percent), and C ++ (8 percent).
The two indexes part ways when it comes to Apple’s Swift language,
introduced last June. PyPL has it in 11th place, with a 2.7 percent
share, while Tiobe ranks it 23rd, with a rating of 0.82 percent. It was ranked 16th in the Tiobe index
last July. Still, Jansen sees good things for it. “Usually if one of
the big software companies announce a new programming language it will
hit the top 20 the first few months [due to hype].
After that, it will
drop and then the most important phase starts: adoption,” he said. “This
is a very gradual process. The fact that Swift is at position 23 is a
good sign. This means that adoption is taken place and we can expect
Swift to be back in the top 20 soon.”
More Info :- InfoWorld
3/12/2015 02:28:00 PM
Tableau 9.0 beta rolls out
Tableau will showcase beta version
9.0 of its data visualization and analysis software to a large group of
customers today, touting features that include drag-and-drop analytics as well
as data-preparation features that formerly had to be done outside the
application.
Customers were invited to a "virtual
user group" meeting this afternoon to see the latest version,
which has been in beta since mid-January.
Version 9.0 also features a new
analytics tab making it easier to see and use data-analysis functions; a
"data interpreter" designed to figure out where column headers and
data begin in an Excel spreadsheet; and one-click smart splitting of data
within a column, such as data in "month-year" format.
The data splitting does not require
users to enter a field separator; instead, the software figures out what the
likely separator characters are.
\
The goal, said Francois Ajenstat,
Tableau's vice president of product management, is to let customers
"answer questions at interactive speed." For example, while it is
already possible to generate forecasts in existing versions of Tableau,
the new drag-and-drop feature makes it easier -- and also allows users to
select an area of a visualization with forecast to get a forecast trend just
for that data.
\
Work was done to speed performance
as well as add new features.
\
One customer-sought function not yet
implemented: dynamic parameters, which would allow options for
a parameter to be defined based on a data source. In a Reddit AMA (Ask Me
Anything) session yesterday, Ajenstat responded: "We have been debating
the use cases for dynamic parameters for a while. We wanted to understand what
scenarios you needed Dynamic Parameters for. "
Another user asked for easier
migration of workbook and published data sources -- "the primary 'gotcha'
I see from an enterprise deployment perspective."
"Yep, I hear you on that
one," Ajenstat responded. "We are going to make this easier in a
future release. In the meantime, the REST API may provide a good interim
solution."
In response to another question,
Ajenstat said that statistical tests will be coming to Tableau, although they
are not in the current beta. "This year, we are likely to see stats objects
that are composable in calculations, significant improvements to trendlines and
forecasting, and possibly a surprise or two," he said.
·
Tableau will now read binary data files from SPSS, SAS and R.
·
The software supports Spark SQL, Amazon EMR and IBM BigInsights as data
sources.
·
Users can now type in calculation formulas in addition to the
drag-and-drop options, saving time particularly for data sets with many
columns.
·
The application allows users to easily transpose data from wide to long,
so that values spread across column headers can be pivoted to key-value pairs.
This functionality was previously achieved with a Tableau add-in for Excel.
·
Tableau created a new interface for the Server ("internally called
Vizportal) ... where the developers took a look at every single screen and
every single flow," Ajenstat told Reddit users
See more at:
http://www.itnews.com/business-issues/90605/tableau-90-beta-rolls-out?page=0,1#sthash.MUrGV8SY.dpuf