Popularity of Languages
Over the years, hundreds of computer and programming languages have been created. Anyone can create a programming language. Python, now a hugely popular language was created by Guido van Rossum (picture left) in 1989 as a hobby to keep him busy over Christmas.
Sometimes new languages are created to provide perceived or actual improvements over an older, existing language. Sometimes new languages are created by one company to complete with another company. Sometimes new languages are created to be an open-source alternative to a propriety, vendor owned/specific language. Sometimes new languages many be created to provide something inherently new to programming and software development.
As new languages are created and introduced, some gain popularity. Others, over time, lose popularity as newer languages are more heavily adopted. Some languages, such as Cobol, may not be popular for new developers, but are still heavily used in existing systems. A December 5, 2015 Mashable article indicated: "'Some 23 of the world's top 25 retailers, 92 of the top 100 banks, and the 10 largest insurers all entrust core operations to Cobol programs running on IBM mainframes,' says Deon Newman, vice president, IBM."
Calculating the popularity of programming languages is not easily done. The Tiobe Programming Index is a web site that ranks them based on such factors as number if programmers using it, courses offered in it, and search engine results.
December 2018 Tiobe Results
- Java
- C
- Python
- C++
- Visual Basic.NET
- C#
- JavaScript
- PHP
- SQL
- Objective-C
- Delphi/Object Pascal
- Assembly
- MATLAB
- Swift
- Go
- R
- Ruby
- Perl
- Visual Basic
- PL/SQL
- Groovy
- SAS
- Dart
- COBOL
- D
- Scratch
- Fortran
- ABAP
- Scala
- Lua
- Prolog
- Lisp
- Ada
- Rust
September 2018 Tiobe Results
- Java
- C
- Python
- C++
- Visual Basic.NET
- C#
- JavaScript
- PHP
- SQL
- Objective-C
- Delphi/Object Pascal
- Assembly
- MATLAB
- Swift
- Go
- R
- Ruby
- Perl
- Visual Basic
- PL/SQL
- Groovy
- SAS
- Dart
- Cobol
- D
- Scratch
- Fortran
- ABAP
- Scala
- Lua
- Prolog
- Lisp
- Ada
- Rust
August 2018 Tiobe Results
- Java
- C
- C++
- Python
- Visual Basic.NET
- C#
- PHP
- JavaScript
- SQL (added to list)
February 2018 Tiobe Results
- Java
- C
- C++
- Python
- C#
- Visual Basic.NET
- PHP
- JavaScript
- Delphi/Object Pascal
- Ruby
- SQL
- Visual Basic
- PL/SQL
- Assembly
- Swift
- Perl
- Go
- MATLAB
- Objective-C
June 2015 Tiobe Results
- Java
- C
- C++
- C#
- Objective-C
- Python
- Visual Basic.NET
- PHP
- JavaScript
- Delphi Objective Pascal