Published on Aug 29, 2022
IEEE Spectrum, the official publication of the IEEE, has published its ninth annual ranking of the best programming languages.
Despite Python’s dominance, C is closely followed by C++ and C#. The combined popularity of C and the big C-like languages – C++ and C# – would outrank Python.
The popularity of Java and Javascript also remains strong, thanks to the ever-increasing complexity of websites and in-browser tools (although some quarters are now looking for stripped-down static sites built using only HTML and CSS).
The popularity of SQL is rising among these stalwarts. Having looked through literally hundreds and hundreds of job listings in the course of compiling these rankings for you, We can tell you that the strength of the SQL signal is not a consequence of employers seeking only SQL coders, as they do for Java professionals or C++ developers. Additionally, they want SQL. Lots of them want that “plus SQL…”
Spectrum looks at more than job listings. Our sources are listed here, but in a nutshell we look at nine metrics that we think are good proxies for measuring what languages people are programming in. In addition to GitHub, Google, Stack Overflow, Twitter, and IEEE Xplore [their technical content library], we consulted GitHub, Google, Stack Overflow, and Twitter. Data is normalized and weighted according to the different rankings – for example, Spectrum’s default ranking places a great deal of weight on IEEE members, while Trending emphasizes forums and social media.
Java is ranked second (followed by C, JavaScript, C++ and C# – and then SQL) in their “Trending” view of languages popularity. Python is still #1 in their “Trending” Popularity of languages. After PHP, HTML, Go, R, and Rust, PHP is their 8th-most-trending language.
