Solution

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt; plt.rcdefaults()

import numpy as np

data = []

fh = open("hacker_poll.txt")

for line in fh:

language, votes = line.strip().rsplit(None, 1)

data.append((language, int(votes)))

data.sort(key=lambda x: (x[1], x[0]), reverse = True)

languages, votes = zip(*data[:10])

languages = np.asarray(languages)

votes = np.asarray(votes)

index = np.arange(len(votes))

bar_width = 1.0

plt.bar(index, votes, bar_width, color="blue")

plt.xticks(index +bar_width / 2, languages)

plt.show()

Notes:

# April 2012, Hacker News 'Survey, reader poll