C Programming Language Back At Number 1

derrida writes "After more than 4 years C is back at position number 1 in the TIOBE index. The scores for C have been pretty constant through the years, varying between the 15% and 20% market share for almost 10 years. So the main reason for C's number 1 position is not C's uprise, but the decline of its competitor Java. Java has a long-term downward trend. It is losing ground to other languages running on the JVM. An example of such a language is JavaFX, which is now approaching the top 20."

Comments

Java

[Andy Smith]

I expect Java to gain ground again as developers create apps for Android phones.

Although the bare-bones Nexus One hasn't sold in huge numbers, HTC have already produced several superb Android-based alternatives, such as the Legend and the Desire. If/when Android becomes the commonplace operating system in the smartphone market, this will lead to a rise in Java development.

In fact, to join in with the recent Apple-bashing (which I whole-heartedly agree with), I'd suggest that mobile app development will move away from the iPhone, in favour of Android phones. When you are investing time and money in app development, there is simply more certainty in developing apps that will live or die on their merits, as opposed to Apple's 'approval' process.

It is now over 2 weeks since Opera Mini was submitted to Apple for approval:
http://my.opera.com/community/countup/

Re:Java

[Niten]

I expect Android to be where the lion's share of Java development happens in the next few years

This is a joke, right? You must have no sense of how broadly Java is used in the industry. Even if Android were to surpass the iPhone in popularity, all the Android apps put together would be just a drop in the bucket next to the massive, active Java codebase in other sectors.

You're onto something with regard to JavaScript's importance, on the other hand, but I'd hardly call that "regrettable". It has its quirks (coerced concatenation with the + operator, some math gotchas), but on the whole it's an excellent programming language, as dynamic imperative languages go. I'm surprised at the extent to which the language is still misunderstood... think of it as Lisp in C's clothing.

Re:Why C?

[binarylarry]

C and Java are for different things.

C is a great systems language, it lets you get great performance, interact directly with the hardware and still stay fairly portable. Java is a great applications language, it lets you get work done quickly, runs very fast and is extremely portable and secure (which is getting more important everyday as Microsoft's grip on the desktop industry is on a slow but seriously downward trend).

It makes sense that these two would be at the top, popularity wise.

It takes a good programer to apprieate C

[thoughtsatthemoment]

As a long time C++ programmer who recently went back to C, I can tell you that C feels like a different language if you use it with all the skills you acquired from other languages. As a language C is almost perfect. It's the libraries that makes all the difference.

C-whatever

[NicknamesAreStupid]

C has become the English of computer languages. There are so many derivatives - C++, C#, 'Objective-C', Java, and all those other web scripting languages like Actionscript and PHP -- that I can't even keep track of them all. Their syntax are so similar, yet their libraries are from different planets. As for K&R's C, it is probably like the Queen's English - rarely spoken well and often slurred.

Remember when languages really looked different - COBOL, PL/1, Fortran, Lisp? I date myself.

Re:C-whatever

[FlyingGuy]

That's a good comparison. Like the queens english, C is becoming outdated - people want to do more by using the 100,000 lines of someone else's library routines. I think it's the equivalent of the evolution of smileys and lolz :)

There, fixed that for ya.

Read your insurance policy sometime. No I mean really read it. The reason for all that arcane language is because for the last 500 years it has been picked over, argued about, refined and re-worked until everyone agreed what the definition of "is" really is.

The problems with most of the "quote" modern languages is that know one agrees on one object model. Everyone does theirs differently, but guess what, they are all written in two languages and those are C and Assembler.

Pick just about ANY language out there, go ahead pick any one of them. It was written in C or C and Assembler. Even the ones that now can compile themselves the main language used to build the compiler that can compile itself was, wait for it... C.

While C may indeed be the "Queens English" it is still the Queens English and is the root of all other dialects and will remain so.

Re:Why C?

[binarylarry]

That was partially my point. Java's security track record for applications is amazing. Look at the current generation game consoles, the only console that has yet to be exploited for piracy in a practical fashion has a Java based security framework.

Java also powers most of the major internet applications available today.

But Java isn't great at everything, C fits in places Java doesn't.

Re:More mention of C

[Animats]

K&R's book on C is wordy. The true classic is the Revised Report on the Algorithmic Language ALGOL-60. In its original typeset form, it is 19 pages.

Languages which need 1000-page books are badly designed.

Re:TIOBE methodology is so flawed it's pointless

[AndrewBC]

You wouldn't be able to either if you were a super-calloused fragile mystic plagued with halitosis...

Robots only use C

[societyofrobots]

Robot programming has become very big lately, and the overwhelming number of microcontrollers out there only use C/C++ (well, and Assembly, but that doesn't count).

Re:Java is crap anyway

[Gr8Apes]

If the only reason you have the IoC code in your code is to facilitate testing, then the IoC code is test code.

MVC (in Spring3)? Really? You mean MVC in Spring 1.x or Spring 2.x sucked? Say it isn't so! So now MVC in Spring 3 is the cat's meow? Excuse me while I take a pass.

Spring's transactions are a massive headache when you need to alter or overload a specific operation. Yeah, it seems "cool" when a simple annotation will give you a "transaction", but later on, when you need to modify one bit of code somewhere in the stream or if you're really daring, have a transaction with rollbacks across multiple operations that weren't envisioned in the original design.... let's just agree to disagree and you can deal with all the crap that Spring heaps on you while you cut and paste code and debug it a week later when individual operations change due to changing requirements and I'll be at the bar sipping something cold and enjoying myself after an hour or two's work.

You didn't even mention Spring Security (ie, Acegi) which was so horribly broken 1.5 years ago that it is completely unusable in anything resembling a commercial application. Why, you ask? (I just know that was on the tip of your tongue) Because Acegi as of the current release at that time uses a token held by a thread, and limited the ability of a token to be held to a single thread. In layman's terms - there's only a single lane on the highway, folks.

I still stand by my statement of years ago: Spring is a solution in search of a problem and is a source of not so subtle bugs which most will only realize once they're in far too deep to easily pull out. It truly deserves a picture next to the kool-aid in the wikipedia story about project killers.

I will agree that JUnit4 is pretty darn decent all by itself. Without Spring.

And just in case you think I haven't worked with it - I've dealt with 4 separate large projects and analyzed the problems in various external codebases in 3 different companies that bought into the Spring kool-aid all the way back to before Spring 1.0. I shamefully admit I was even a proponent in the early days, before I actually used it in a big project. Now Spring has joined Apache Commons in the list of libraries to remove asap.