Proof of Life #

hacking, July 5th 2007

I made the mistake of reading comp.lang.lisp again, but I shall not rant. Instead I will just point out that all available data (that I can see) is consistent with Common Lisp gaining, not losing, users.

Take for example these three graphs, showing the download activity of three CL implementations hosted on Sourceforge (Clisp, ECL, and SBCL):

Clisp



ECL



SBCL



All three are on the rise: SBCL is positively skyrocketing, ECL has clear upwards trend, and even Clisp is increasing its mindshare.

Of course, it may be that all the new users are coming from implementations for which statistics aren't so easily available, or that the increase is purely illusionary and due to bots — but I doubt it. Common Lisp is becoming more popular.

If an implementor reading this feels like saying "Yes, our numbers are looking good too." — or anything else remotely on the topic — just send me an email and I'll put your success statement right here, next to these glorious lies statistics.

To keep this in perspective, though, the numbers are still pretty small. ...but they keep getting bigger.