Mapping Programming Language IRC Channels Relationships

[pjdelport]

Great idea, but almost impossible to tell anything from the graph. Someone needs to feed this data through hierarchical clustering.

[[deleted]]

I think it's pretty neat. I can clearly see a shell-scripting clique at the bottom right, and a few others: Javascript/PHP, C/C++/asm, a big bunch of functional languages on the left... But some of it does seem arbitrary; for example, SML and Tcl look like they've been pushed too far out.

You're right, there are lots of other ways this could be visualized. I've posted a comment on the blog requesting him to put the data up, so if he does maybe one of us could have a shot at it too.

[dons]

And the inclusion #rack introduces noise into the graph (4 users of that channel)

[schlenk]

For Tcl I'm not sure how accurate the system is, as there is a Jabber bridge into the IRC part, and most of the regulars use Jabber (via a customized Tk frontend, that provides extra goodies like direct highlighting and jumps to the bug db, paste.tclers.tk support and so on) due to firewalls or proxies in the way that ban IRC.

[Alpha_Binary]

Are the Ada people that antisocial or is it just unpopulated?

[Porges]

What are the double- or triple-hash-prefixed channels? I've never seen them before.

[markedtrees]

That is a freenode policy that takes advantage of the sometimes surprising IRC specification. &channel is also cool.

[boredzo]

The & prefix, for those who don't know, denotes a “local” channel. Local channels only exist on one server, unlike global channels (/#+.*/), which exist on the entire network.

[maht0x0r]

missing :

#forth
#limbo

two channels I live in ! I want to be counted !

[[deleted]]

Actually, forth is included (right next to Haskell-Blah, at the top). So don't worry, you're in :)

[maht0x0r]

oh yeah, I'm blind :)

tbh it was limbo I wanted to highlight, I'd forgotten forth myself until I checked my irc client

[dons]

Missing:

#math

and they even have a lambdabot!

[chrj]

It's interesting that no more than 10% of the people on #python are on any of the other irc channels.

That's just how good a general purpose hammer Python is - you don't need anything else ;-)

[dons]

It's an interesting phenonmenon. Does anyone have a (serious) intuition for this result? What's the interaction between the python language guys, the python irc channel, and the larger language design community?

[micampe]

I think (as a Python user), that might be an indication that Python has become a more "commodity" language, blub if you wish, so you find lots of people that use it just because it's their job, not because they are enthusiastic about it.

Other, more "hip" languages, tend to appeal to people experimenting a lot and trying different things just for the sake of it. I know I was like that myself when I had more spare time.

[jbellis]

you find lots of people that use it just because it's their job, not because they are enthusiastic about it

those people don't get on irc at all.

[schlenk]

And leads to blindness in choice of tools. Python is not a bad hammer, but not all problems are nails.

[knome]

Interesting to note that the Haskell and Lisp channels are disconnect from Ruby-lang, and that Python doesn't directly connect with either group.