Google App Engine Platform

Evans Data Corp announced that use of the Python scripting language has increased by 45% since Spring 2008 according to the most recent North American Development Survey to be released this week to subscribers. Only 13% of developers used Python before Google announced its App Engine platform in Spring 2008, which at the time only supported Python, but that number has increased to 20.3% today. Other scripting language use remained relatively constant, with only small gains or losses in popularity among languages such as Ruby, PHP, Perl and Actionscript.

“Python has been around since 1989, but never had many users until recently,” said Janel Garvin, of Evans Data. “This adoption change illustrates the power of Google and the promise of Cloud Computing on which Google’s App Engine depends. As the computing landscape evolves with the Cloud, so will the adoption of surrounding technologies, as we see here.”

The survey, conducted in early October, consisted of over 500 in-depth interviews with developers in North America. It is part of the Global series of development reports conducted twice yearly throughout the world and covers topics such as Language and Platform use, Web Services and SOA, Cloud Computing, High Performance computing, Development tools and methodologies. Other highlights from the report include:

• Only 8.7% of North American developers are currently using a cloud service as a development environment, but another 18% plan to within the coming year.
• Agile is the most commonly used programming model being used today in North America, with slightly less than 40% more developers using it than the waterfall method.
• Lack of corporate priority is the biggest inhibitor in the adoption and Implementation of SOA.

See the complete table of contents here: http://www.evansdata.com/reports/viewRelease.php?reportID=1