Popularity of the programming language: Python surpasses Java, as Rust reaches the top 20


Python programming language is now the second most popular programming language, for the first time, removing Java from the top two places in the RedMonk language popularity ranking.

It is the first time since 2012 that Java is not one of the two most popular languages ​​on the developer analyst firm’s programming language popularity list.

The company’s previous rankings in March placed machine-learning-driven Python in a tie for second place with Java, behind JavaScript.

The latest electrical engineering publication popularity ranking IEEE Spectrum, released last week, puts Python at the top, followed by Java, C, C ++, and JavaScript, while Tiobe’s July rankings are led by C, Java, Python, C ++ and C #.

RedMonk’s influential programming popularity ratings are based on data from GitHub and Stack Overflow. The company combines them “for a ranking that attempts to reflect both code (GitHub) and discussion traction (Stack Overflow),” says RedMonk analyst Stephen O’Grady, who notes that “all numerical rankings should be taken with a grain of salt. ”

While RedMonk’s June 2020 ranking doesn’t show much change compared to March’s list, O’Grady considers Python to be the big winner in this edition simply because it hasn’t moved out of second place, while Java has fallen in a place.

“Python is the first language other than Java or JavaScript to rank in the top two of these classifications by itself, and it would not have been the obvious choice for that distinction in previous years,” O’Grady notes, comparing it to Perl at its heyday because it has become a “language of first resort” and the “glue” for thousands of small projects, while enjoying high adoption in growing categories like data science.

Although Java has pulled out of the first two for the first time in nearly a decade, O’Grady believes it’s wrong to dismiss the language. But he acknowledges that Java’s prominence is threatened as developers pay more attention to other languages.

The five-year system programming language Rust, created by Mozilla, has reached a more positive milestone, becoming for the first time the 20th most popular language in RedMonk’s ranking. Rust joined the Tiobe top 20 this June and is currently ranked 18th.

Apple, Amazon, Dropbox, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are using Rust in various ways to build platforms rather than applications. Microsoft in particular sees value in language for its memory security features.

Rust and the Google-backed language for writing Android apps, Kotlin, have seen equally impressive growth in the past five years. At the time, Rust has risen from 48th, while Kotlin, now 19th, was the 68th most popular language half a decade ago. However, Kotlin’s position has not changed since the last qualification.

In July, Tiobe proposed a theory that the statistical programming language R increased in popularity as a result of universities and the health industry seeking a COVID-19 vaccine. Previously, Tiobe suggested that Python could squeeze R out in the field of data science. RedMonk’s current ranking for R remains unchanged at 13th place.

Microsoft-backed TypeScript, a JavaScript superset for large projects, also held its place as the ninth most popular programming language in RedMonk rankings. The question now is whether it will fall out of the top 10, as Apple-backed Swift did, it is now 11th, or whether it will join the top five programming languages.

As O’Grady points out, the TypeScript security features of TypeScript and the Microsoft Visual Studio Code (VS Code) code editor are likely helping its performance.

“Previous languages, like Swift, have shown that achieving high ranking is certainly possible, but maintaining it is a completely separate and often more difficult challenge. However, TypeScript has accomplished this trick with minimal effort, its particular combination of JavaScript. based on ubiquity, optional type security and use in popular projects like VS Code that prove to be a powerfully sustainable blend of attributes, “he writes.

“The question for TypeScript, as it was during the last run, is what the potential maximum limit is for the language. Will it get past the top half of the Top 10, or can it propel the Top 5? Looking to see where it’s going. this emerging language. ”

The 20 most popular RedMonk programming languages ​​in June 2020 are:

one JavaScript
two Piton
3 Java
4 4 PHP
5 5 C ++
5 5 C #
7 7 Ruby
7 7 CSS
9 Typescript
10 C
eleven Quick
eleven C objective
13 R
14 Scala
fifteen Let’s go
fifteen Shell
17 Shell stem
18 years Perl
19 Kotlin
twenty Oxide

rankings-over-time-2020-06-2048x16341.png

This RedMonk chart tracks the movement of the top 20 languages ​​throughout the history of rankings.

Image: RedMonk

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