Trending programming languages both from a popularity and jobs perspective

Per the list of Programming Languages article on Wikipedia, there are about 600+ coding languages in existence. With the vast number of programming languages available, it may be overwhelming for someone who is looking to learn how to code or deciding if the current programming skills are relevant. There appear to be rankings from different sources but not on a single chart that shows all rankings. Below is a chart that organizes rankings of various programming languages. The rankings don’t seem to be consistent, but Java appears to be the highest ranked in most of the rankings.

Before moving ahead further analysis, it is imperative to understand how each source creates its rankings. PopularitY of Programming Language Index (PYPL) is leading indicator and is created by analyzing how often programming language tutorials are searched on Google. It is assumed that more a programming language tutorial is searched the most popular the language is. Whereas, TIOBE index of popular programming languages is a lagging indicator. This index is created by counting the number of web page hits for the search query “ programming” across 25 search engines with some weight based on popularity. Stackoverflow ranking of top 10 programming languages is created from a developer survey answered by 56,033 coders in 173 countries. New Relic’s rankings are generated by combing through Indeed’s 16 million job listings to see how often each of the various programming languages was mentioned in the first six months of 2016.  IEEE Spectrum calculated its rankings using 12 different metrics from 10 online sources as proxies for gauging the popularity of a programming language. 

Now that we understand how rankings work, the real question to ask is just because Java, C, and Javascript are ranked one as per various rankings does it really mean they still sustaining their market shares? Java and C have been in existence for a while and widely taught at universities.  So, it is possible that there are lots of programming tutorials and web pages created on them. As TIOBE index is a lagging indicator and considers the count of web page hits for ranking, it is reasonable to think that Java and C are on a high on its list. One way to analyze trends is to see the shift in rankings for programming languages in the past ten years. The table below shows changes in TIOBE indexes for different programming languages. Java, C, and C++ have been consistently occupying top three spots for the last decade. Python, Javascript, and Visual Basic .NET have been gaining in popularity. Visual Basic .NET has moved from 25th rank in 2011 to 8th position in 2016.  That is a gain of 17 positions. In 2014, Microsoft decided to open source its .NET platform. So, there seems to be renewed interest in the developer community on .NET. Python is ranked higher in 2016 compared to 2011. Some of the reasons could be: i) expansive library including for machine learning ii) plethora of third-party documentation iii) massive user base creating a positive feedback loop iv) Google as one of the corporate sponsors.  Javascript is rising in ranks as well. Javascript is the de facto client side language for browsers and increasingly gaining in popularity for server-side applications as well. One other language that made a list in 2016 which is absorbing is Assembly language. This is probably due to increased attention on Internet of Things (IoT).

This still doesn’t reveal if some of the top ranked programming languages are sustaining the market shares. Digging deeper into a shift in ratings from Dec’15 to Dec’16 as seen from the picture below the patterns are more revealing!

Java has lost 3.12%, and C has lost 7.73% in their ratings while Visual Basic .NET even though ranked at number five gained 0.91% in ratings. C has been losing ground because it is not the preferred language for writing programs for mobile and web applications. Plus, no big company is promoting the language.

A similar pattern is also seen from PyPL index. Even though Java is on top of the list, it is trending down in its share from a year ego. In the meantime, languages such as Python and Javascript are gaining in popularity. Python has a staggering 2.6% increase in share.

Now, looking at trends from a job earning potential perspective. Using Indeed job trends feature, we have plotted ratio of interested job seekers to job postings for the last two years. Fr

om the plot, it appears that there are 2.74 job seekers for one Java related job while there are 13.

46 VB .NET postings for a job seeker, and for Python, there are 1.31 job seekers per posting. This observation reveals us the supply(number of jobs) vs. demand(job seekers per posting) imbalance. For a Java related job post, there are more candidates whereas for Visual Basic .NET there seems to be a high demand for developers.

Summarizing the observations we have so far analyzing the most popular programming language rankings:

• Java is ranked highest in most of the rankings
• Java, C, C++, and PHP have been losing market share while Javascript, Python, and Visual Basic .NET have been gaining the same
• From a job earning potential standpoint, there are more Visual Basic .NET and Python related jobs per a job seeker while on Java there seem to be fewer jobs