13 Most Influential Programming Languages

In today’s tech-driven world, every company is a technology company. The technologies too keep updating from time to time. In order to make sure that you remain updated with the latest technological innovation, it is necessary that you have a proper idea of which programming language is popular and influential. Having a proper idea of the same can help you to focus on the latest trends and can help you to make it the focal point of your company. These form the basis of the technologies implemented in the industries. It can also turn out to be a guiding beacon for the businesses.

There are certain metrics that can help you to get an idea of what programming languages can help you to get an idea of what programming languages are growing in trend. These metrics are available on the websites like Tiobe Programming Index, Indeed.com, GitHub, etc. Tiobe has an index of the most popular programming languages and the list is updated monthly, by pulling in data from various sources around the world. Indeed is the world’s largest job search engine and is a good measurement of the in-demand programming jobs. This helps you to get an idea of which programming languages are in demand for different jobs around the world. GitHub is the largest code repositories in the world. Every year a Year in Review report is generated that can help you to get an idea of the sharing statistics about programmer community and the language that is popular. These metrics can also help you to get an idea of the future of programming languages. It also helps you to predict which programming languages are rising and which ones are going down.

List of top programming languages of 2017 based on Tiobe Index:

• Java
• C
• C++
• Python
• C#
• JavaScript
• VB.NET
• R
• PHP
• MATLAB
• Swift
• Objective-C
• Assembly
• Perl
• Ruby
• Delphi
• Go
• Scratch
• PL/SQL
• Visual Basic

List of most popular programming languages based on Indeed job openings:

• Java
• JavaScript
• C#
• Python
• C++
• C
• PHP
• Ruby
• Go
• Perl
• PL/SQL
• Scala
• Objective-C
• Apex
• R
• Swift
• SAS
• MATLAB
• Crystal
• Scratch

List of popular programming languages based on pull requests via GitHub:

• JavaScript
• Python
• Java
• Ruby
• PHP
• C++
• CSS
• C#
• Go
• C
• Typescript
• Shell
• Swift
• Scala
• Objective-C

Here are some of the most influential programming languages of 2018. This can help you to get an idea of what programming languages to learn in future to help you enhance your skills and enhance the job opportunities available to you.

Java:

Java turns out to be one of the most popular programming languages by various indexes. It ranks top on the Tiobe index and Indeed job opening as well. Based on the pull requests from GitHub, Java also ranks the third. Ever since its creation, Java has been ranked as number 1 or 2. It is used to develop desktop apps, mobile apps, and backend web systems. In order to develop the Android apps, Java language is used. Java language provides a number of features to the users and developers. Some of these are:

Portability:

Java is a highly portable platform and can be used on various devices like desktops, mobile, tablet, handheld devices and other such devices. It makes use of Java Virtual Machine (JVM) that is platform-agnostic and makes it possible to run it on every system. A majority of the Android apps are built in Java.

Scalability:

Java language is highly scalable and can be enhanced when the web companies grow. It is because of this reason that it is the preferred choice for both the enterprises and startups. It is used by a number of top organizations. It is also a statically-typed language and makes it is faster and easier to develop apps and make sure that the apps are devoid of bugs.

Backward compatibility:

Java language is backward compatible and even after updating the apps with the newer version of Java, the older version of the language is also supported. Hence you do not need to worry about rewriting your code every time a new version is released.

Large community:

Java has a large community of users that make it popular and helps the users to get support whenever they face the problem in the Java development. You can find a large number of massive Stack Overflow and GitHub communities to fix the problem when encountered.

Kotlin:

Kotlin in the recent days has become quite popular and is expected to top the charts in 2018. Kotlin is a statically-typed programming language from JetBrains. It has been named as the development language for the Android officially. The popularity of Kotlin is increasing day by day ever since it was declared as the primary Android app development language. One of the best parts of Kotlin is that it is 100% interoperable and also runs on Java Virtual Machine (JVM). It also compiles into JavaScript which makes it versatile for both the front and backend development. Hence if you are planning to learn a new rising language Kotlin is the one for you.

Scratch:

Scratch is a popular visual programming language that is targeted for children and can be used to introduce children to basic computer programming. It is designed to be fun, educational, and easy to learn. It is because it makes use of drag-and-drop features and the kids do not need to type any codes. It has several tools that can be used to create interactive stories, games, art, simulations, etc. using block-based programming. It has a built-in paint editor and sound editor as well. Users program in Scratch by dragging blocks from the block palette and attaching them to other blocks like a jigsaw puzzle.

Python:

Python usage has increased considerably in the recent days and has a large number of users and organizations. Even the top companies make use of Python to provide better results and user experience to the users. It ranks fourth on Tiobe and Indeed and ranks second for GitHub. Python has risen in great numbers in the past 15 years. Python can be used to power some amazing technologies like Machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), Big Data, Robotics, Cyber Security, etc. Python is quite simple and easy to learn and is the introductory language that is taught in universities and used by experienced developers as well.

PHP:

PHP is a very popular server-side scripting language designed for web development. Apart from the web development, it can be used as a general-purpose programming language. It ranks ninth on Tiobe, forth on Indeed, and fifth on GitHub. It can be used to create dynamic and interactive Web pages. It can be either embedded into the HTML code or used in combination with web template systems, content management systems, and web frameworks. It can be executed with both the command-line interface (CLI) and standalone graphical applications as well.

Go:

Go is an open source programming language created at Google. It is quite easy to build simple, reliable, and efficient software with the help of Go. It is a statically-typed language and has the syntax similar to C. It ranks ninth on Indeed and ninth on GitHub. It features a rich standard library and is used by a number of organizations like Dropbox, Google, Netflix, CloudFlare, Caddy, SoundCloud, etc.

Ruby:

Ruby is a dynamic, open source programming language, reflective, object-oriented, general-purpose programming language. It ranks ninth on Tiobe index, eighth on Indeed, and forth on GitHub. One of the best things about it is that it follows an elegant syntax that makes it easy to read and write. It makes use of a wide set of third-party libraries. It can be used to develop web applications, websites, and other applications. It simplifies the repetitive tasks. It is quite easy and fast to develop projects as there are a large number of open source code available within the community. It is good for rapid application development (RAD) as it makes it easy to accommodate changes in the same. Ruby is a very popular programming language that is popular amongst tech startups. Various top tech startups like Airbnb, Twitch, GitHub, and Twitter make use of Ruby as their programming language. Ruby on Rails is a full-stack web application framework that runs on Ruby. Ruby has an incredibly simple and beautiful syntax and requires the developers to develop programs with quite less code. Ruby on Rails helps the developers to develop the web application in less time than other frameworks. Ruby is a dynamically-typed language which makes it quite flexible which works great for prototypes. However, the apps developed using Ruby is difficult to maintain as it lacks scalability. This is one of the most prominent reason due to which Twitter shifted to Java.

R:

R is a free and open source programming language used to develop free software. R language is very popular amongst statisticians and data miners to develop statistical software and data analysis. It is mainly used in polls, surveys, studies of scholarly literature databases. R ranks 13th in the TIOBE index. One of the best things of R is that it can be used with big data as well.

JavaScript:

JavaScript has become one of the most popular programming languages in the world and plays a major role in the web, and ranks number 1 on GitHub, number 2 on Indeed, and number 6 on Tiobe index. JavaScript can help the users to develop interactive pages and also develop the web apps entirely in JavaScript. It can also be used to develop apps for the mobile devices. JavaScript can be used to develop apps that are simple and fast.

Scala:

Scala is an object-oriented, high-level programming language. It is devoid of bugs in the complex applications, JVM, and JavaScript runtimes. It can help you to build high-performance systems as it has huge libraries. It is intended to be compiled to Java bytecode, and the executable code can run on Java virtual machine as well. Scala has many features of functional programming languages.

C, C++, C# and Objective C:

C is one of the oldest and most popular programming languages. It ranks second on the Tiobe index, sixth on the Indeed job openings and tenth on the GitHub. C++ ranks third on the Tiobe index, fifth on the Indeed job openings and sixth on GitHub. When it comes to C# it ranks fifth on Tiobe index,  third on Indeed job openings, and eighth on GitHub. Objective C ranks twelfth on Tiobe index, thirteenth on Indeed and fifteenth on Objective C.

These powers various software and has a rapid boost to its popularity since its inception. C and C++ work perfectly well for the embedded system and has turned out to be a major language for IoT devices. It can also be used to develop apps for wearables and car dashboard. The automation and IoT can help enhance the reach of C. It is popular still because of fact that it is a portable assembly language and works best from embedded systems as well. It also provides better and faster response and hence turns out to be helpful for the programs that require smaller response times like games.

Objective C is used to develop apps for the Apple devices for OSX and iOS.

C# is developed by Microsoft and runs on top of Common Language Runtime (CLR). It can be used to develop Windows Services, Web Applications, Windows Applications, Web Services, Games, Console Applications, WokFlow Applications, Class Libraries, etc.

Swift:

Swift is a popular programming language that can be used to develop apps for Apple devices. It is designed to work with Apple’s Cocoa and Cocoa Touch frameworks. It has been growing in popularity ever since its inception. It is ranked eleventh on Tiobe, sixteenth on Indeed and thirteenth on GitHub. Swift is considered to be one of the best languages for the beginners.

Summary:

These are some of the best programming languages that are expected to remain effective and popular in 2018 and the years to come. The knowledge of these languages can help you to enhance your skills and enhance your job opportunities and remain updated with the latest trends.

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