# \> Ruby is the #1 most popular language on GitHub

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-is-the-1-most-popular-language-on-github/170712>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [June 21, 2009, 4:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-is-the-1-most-popular-language-on-github/170712 "2009-06-21T16:41:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![quik77](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/q/dec6dc/32.png) [@quik77](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/quik77)\
**Post date:** [June 21, 2009, 4:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-is-the-1-most-popular-language-on-github/170712/1 "2009-06-21T16:41:29Z")

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Need anything be said more? 🙂

[http://github.com/languages](http://github.com/languages)

> Python is the #3 most popular language on GitHub.

Never let the snake catch up 😃

Javascript comes actually at second place, and it is my firm  
believe that Javascript is a rather bad language, especially as  
far as a “prototype” programming language (and also for it being  
so restricted to the www area).  
But the fact that there is so much code about it, that flash games  
are ubiquitous, simply means that the WWW is an incredibly  
important area.

The WWW is the strategical key element for at least the next 10  
years to come for ANY programming language. And this is my  
assumption _not_ only based on github, but by the rise of another  
quite ugly language (PHP).

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**Author:** ![quik77](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/q/dec6dc/32.png) [@quik77](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/quik77)\
**Post date:** [June 21, 2009, 9:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-is-the-1-most-popular-language-on-github/170712/2 "2009-06-21T21:12:14Z")

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On Jun 21, 2009, at 7:41, Marc H. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> Javascript comes actually at second place, and it is my firm  
> believe that Javascript is a rather bad language

I find Javascript a rather beautiful language, its prototypes and open  
objects are similar to Ruby and its singleton classes in power. It’s  
the DOM that makes Javascript ugly.

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**Author:** ![quik77](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/q/dec6dc/32.png) [@quik77](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/quik77)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 1:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-is-the-1-most-popular-language-on-github/170712/3 "2009-06-22T13:21:30Z")

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Eric H. wrote:

> I find Javascript a rather beautiful language, its prototypes and open  
> objects are similar to Ruby and its singleton classes in power. It’s  
> the DOM that makes Javascript ugly.

I agree. You can even extend core classes in Javascript as per Ruby (\*).  
There is a book “Javascript: The Good Parts” which expands on the clean  
and elegant aspects of Javascript.

As for Ruby being top on github: that just demonstrates that the Ruby  
community makes a lot of use of github, possibly because github itself  
is written in Ruby. Maybe python users have their own preferred ways of  
sharing code?

Regards,

Brian.

(\*)  
// ex1  
Number.prototype.times = function(thing) {  
for (var i=0; i\<this; i++) thing();  
}  
Number(5).times(function() { print(“hello”) })

// ex2  
Function.prototype.times = function(num) {  
for (var i=0; i\<num; i++) this();  
}

f = function() { print(“hello”) };  
f.times(3);

// These examples can be run at the command line using ‘js’  
// (sudo apt-get install spidermonkey-bin)

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**Author:** ![quik77](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/q/dec6dc/32.png) [@quik77](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/quik77)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 5:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-is-the-1-most-popular-language-on-github/170712/4 "2009-06-22T17:07:01Z")

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> Maybe python users have their own preferred ways of sharing code?

Well, where? And Perl? And PHP?

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**Author:** ![quik77](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/q/dec6dc/32.png) [@quik77](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/quik77)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 7:13pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-is-the-1-most-popular-language-on-github/170712/5 "2009-06-22T19:13:33Z")

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On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 11:07 AM, Marc H.[removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
wrote:

> > Maybe python users have their own preferred ways of sharing code?
> 
> Well, where? And Perl? And PHP?

Perl has CPAN, don’t know about PHP. Before there was github there was  
sourceforge as a general open source repository. Python seems to have  
the Python Package index [PyPI · The Python Package Index](http://pypi.python.org/pypi/)

Github first became popular with the Ruby crowd, and really exploded  
when Rails started using it for source code maintenance. That’s also  
probably why JavaScript is the second most popular language,

The killer feature of course is the addition of ‘social’ open source  
features.

–  
Rick DeNatale

Blog: [http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/](http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/)  
Twitter: [http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale](http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale)  
WWR: [http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9021-rick-denatale](http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9021-rick-denatale)  
LinkedIn: [http://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdenatale](http://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdenatale)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![quik77](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/q/dec6dc/32.png) [@quik77](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/quik77)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 9:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-is-the-1-most-popular-language-on-github/170712/6 "2009-06-22T21:41:19Z")

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Hemant K. wrote:

> [http://bitbucket.org](http://bitbucket.org) (Bit bucket has usually more python users and  
> compares more directly to github)

Google code is another that springs to mind. Plus there’s  
savannah.(non)[gnu.org](http://gnu.org), and projects using Trac.

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**Author:** ![quik77](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/q/dec6dc/32.png) [@quik77](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/quik77)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 7:47pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-is-the-1-most-popular-language-on-github/170712/7 "2009-06-22T19:47:38Z")

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On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 8:37 PM, Marc H.[removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
wrote:

> > Maybe python users have their own preferred ways of sharing code?
> 
> Well, where? And Perl? And PHP?

[http://bitbucket.org](http://bitbucket.org) (Bit bucket has usually more python users and  
compares more directly to github)

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**Author:** ![quik77](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/q/dec6dc/32.png) [@quik77](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/quik77)\
**Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 2:09am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-is-the-1-most-popular-language-on-github/170712/8 "2009-06-23T02:09:18Z")

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On Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:21:37 +0900, Brian C. wrote:

> community makes a lot of use of github, possibly because github itself  
> is written in Ruby. Maybe python users have their own preferred ways of  
> sharing code?

Many Python users may prefer bzr or mercurial as their VCS, since both  
are written in Python.

–Ken