A more reasonable way of putting it would be, what would be really interesting is a breakdown of the languages used by the last 100 successful internet startups, where "successful" is whatever metric you feel like.
It might be a better way of putting it, but it's not a useful question.
No language can be called "successful" if only 100 internet startups use it. Look at languages that are used in the real world, and don't artificially limit your selection process.
I might be OK with making the criteria: languages used for new programs (rather than languages in use for a useful product). I'm not sure what their criteria is though.
No, I am just saying that this data lumps totally unrelated fields together.
I would guess that VB is maybe used by Excel users who write little scriplets for their Excel sheets, but rarely by programmers.
It is like saying "PCs and cars are the most popular products in the world", since I am not interested in cars, I simply don't care. I only care about the popularity of PCs. The data is correct, but it is irrelevant to me.
You're wrong though. VB is used for many desktop applications, not just "excel scripts". But it seems that you don't want to change your beliefs even in the face of evidence.
Sure, it's always possible to set up the selection criteria ("only language used by companies I like") such that the answer will be what you expect - but how is that valuable?
If you define competing as "what language should I used for this app" then no. VB is way better then perl for desktop apps, and perl way better than VB for text processing and web apps.
But if you define competing as "what language should I learn in order to get a job" then yes, they are competing.
PS: I know, and have used, both in different jobs, so it's not really competition because you can do both. But if you are only going to learn one, then yes, they are competing.
