Google is a great source for finding answers. One overlooked feature though is using the search engine to find questions! Like for example “Why is JavaScript so slow?”.
What you can do is go to Google, type in a partial search query and then wait for the autocomplete to tell you what others are searching for. I did so for a few programming languages and learned what apparently a lot of people are asking.
Here are the results for C++, Clojure, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, Lisp, Objective-C, PHP, Python and Scala.
C++
C++ is hard, popular, complicated and hard to learn.
Clojure
Clojure is slow, popular and fast.
Haskell
Haskell is big, fast, hard and popular.
Java
Java is popular, bad, slow and hard.
JavaScript
JavaScript is popular, bad, hard and slow.
Lisp
Lisp is powerful, hard and awesome.
Objective-C
Objective-C is complicated, ugly, hard and popular.
PHP
PHP is bad, popular, slow and hard to learn.
Python
Python is slow, good, popular and useful.
Scala
Scala is popular, slow and complex.
Similarities and differences
I am a bit surprised by how similar they all are. Some sticks out (Haskell and Clojure are fast while most others are slow and Lisp is awesome) but mostly people seem frustrated by how hard it is to learn and so they ask the obvious question; “How the hell did X get so popular anyway?”.
Were you surprised by anything? Or did I perhaps miss your favorite programming language? Let me know in the comments!