People like to look at rates of change, or if that isn't favorable to their argument, the rate of the rate of change. With enough operations that remove the "+ c" term, you can win any argument.

This results in:

"The total number of people that have ever used Ruby is greater than the rate of people switching to Perl."

"Clearly Perl is dead!! My decision to use Ruby is justified with mathematical fact!"

I meant to add; there is nothing wrong with using Ruby. You do not need mathematical proof that it is better. If you use it and it makes you happy, that is all the "reason" you need.

It would be amusing if people argued over colors and ice cream flavors in the way they argue over programming languages. "Chocolate is dead!"