Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

C Top Programming Language For 2016, Finds IEEE's Study (ieee.org)

Posted by msmash on from the c-ftw dept.

IEEE Spectrum, a highly regarded magazine edited by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, has released its annual programming languages list, sharing with the world how several languages fared against each other. To assess the languages the publication says it worked with a data journalist and looked into 10 online sources -- including social chatter, open-source code production, and job postings. The publication has rated C as the top programming language this year, followed by Java, Python, C++, and R. From their article:After two years in second place, C has finally edged out Java for the top spot. Staying in the top five, Python has swapped places with C++ to take the No. 3 position, and C# has fallen out of the top five to be replaced with R. R is following its momentum from previous years, as part of a positive trend in general for modern big-data languages that Diakopoulos analyses in more detail here. Google and Apple are also making their presence felt, with Google's Go just beating out Apple's Swift for inclusion in the Top Ten. Still, Swift's rise is impressive, as it's jumped five positions to 11th place since last year, when it first entered the rankings. Several other languages also debuted last year, a marked difference from this year, with no new languages entering the rankings.The publication has explained in detail the different metrics it uses to evaluate a language.

5 of 315 comments (clear)

  1. As a C programmer by OrangeTide · · Score: 4, Informative

    I find the results shocking. As most people I deal with struggle to write moderately complex C programs.

    Also the use of the word "best" is highly subjective.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    1. Re:As a C programmer by al0ha · · Score: 4, Informative

      Nowhere in TFA does it say best - is says Most Popular, and that is not subjective.

      --
      Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
    2. Re:As a C programmer by OrangeTide · · Score: 4, Informative

      The title of the post was "C Best Programming Language For 2016, Finds IEEE's Study", but it has been edited to "C Top Programming Language For 2016, Finds IEEE's Study"

      such is life getting first post.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    3. Re:As a C programmer by Curate · · Score: 5, Informative

      Firstly, you can't safely cast pointers to unsigned long. Unsigned long isn't guaranteed to be big enough to hold a pointer value. Secondly, (dst - src >= len) is not even close to the correct condition for testing that the buffers overlap. Thirdly, the reason for not using a backward copy in all cases is that it corrupts the output buffer in 1 of the 2 overlapping cases. Those three huge errors aside, you make some good points.

  2. No jobs for C by Shompol · · Score: 4, Informative
    I spent some time looking for a position that required C a while back. Nobody hires for C anymore. Even shops that actually use C are too ashamed to admit it and advertise their positions as C++. So, looking at TFA:

    We measured the demand for different programming languages on the CareerBuilder job site....Because some of the languages we track could be ambiguous in plain text—such as D, Go, J, Processing, and R—we use strict matching of the form “X programming” for these languages.

    So off to CareerBuilder and i typed in "C programming", with quotes. Result: electrical engineering positions, other non-developer positions and false-positives. Conclusion: C is used but seldom by developers.