GitHub's Four Most Popular Programming Languages Remain: JavaScript, Java, Python, and PHP (thenewstack.io)

A recent TechCrunch article claimed to have identified the best indicator of programming language popularity: GitHub's annual "State of the Octoverse" reports. So Austin-based technology reporter Mike Melanson explored the new verdict in GitHub's 2018 report: It felt to me like the overarching theme of the numbers was one of quiet stasis for the year past, at least when it comes to those languages deemed the cream of the crop. One of the first graphics offered in the post shows the top languages according to the number of repositories created and we see that everything seems to be flowing along, just as it has for the last decade. While GitHub points to a "steady uptick" for JavaScript after 2011, it looks like this list of languages hasn't changed much over time. [The graphic shows the four most popular languages -- every year since early 2014 -- have been JavaScript, Java, Python, and PHP.]

When we look at the top languages according to the number of contributors, we see a similar story, with the top four languages mirrored. In this chart, of course, we see that Ruby is on a steady decline, while Typescript is on a steady rise. The only surprise to be seen here is that C, after a brief uptick in popularity, has taken a bit of a nosedive over the past year. Either way, seven of 10 languages have the same exact ranking....

Finally, beyond the language rankings themselves, GitHub offers a wonderful analysis of just what it is that makes a particular language popular in 2018, boiling it down to three key characteristics: thread safety, interoperability, and being open source.
GitHub's report also identifies its fastest growing languages over the last year -- including Kotin, TypeScript, Rust, Python, and Go. "This year, TypeScript shot up to #7 among top languages used on the platform overall, after making its way in the top 10 for the first time last year," the report notes.

"TypeScript is now in the top 10 most used languages across all regions GitHub contributors come from -- and across private, public, and open source repositories."

Comments

Web languages

[Actually, I do RTFA]

So, a website with programming tools is primarily used by people who use web technologies. Shocking. Meanwhile, most C++ people are probably just all self-hosting repos.

Re:Web languages

[AmiMoJo]

I know a lot of C/C# people use GitLab and BitBucket because they give you free private repos. With GitHub free accounts can only make public repos.

Web developers are used to doing everything in public, because everyone gets to see their code and most of it is using public frameworks anyway.

Popularity !== Best

[UnknownSoldier]

By this retarded logic McDonalds is gourmet food with the *billions* it serves. Hint: It isn't.

Likewise, shit languages like Javascript and PHP, are popular because any code monkey can use them. But ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away. i.e. Memory management. To paraphrase JWZ, "Now you have two problems." This attitude of just throw more hardware at it is naive and non-scalable for certain problems.

Almost no one cares about performance, minimal code libraries, and non-bloated apps. The lower the bar for programming the worst this is going to get.

It's no surprise that "Worse is Better" W.R.T. programming languages has taken off. This has been happening for 30+ years.

Re:Popularity !== Best

[Anonymous Coward]

APL: âOE/(^/0=Aâ.|X)/AâââOES/Xâ

Awk: 'function gcd(p,q){return(q?gcd(q,(p%q)):p)}{print gcd($1,$2)}'

Dc: [dSa%Lard0] [dup rollup rem] while pop.

K: gcd:{:[~x;y;_f[y;x!y]]}

Perl 6: my &gcd = { ($^a.abs, $^b.abs, * % * ... 0)[*-2] }

R: %gcd%" - function(u, v) { ifelse(u %% v != 0, v %gcd% (u%%v), v)}

Scheme: (define (gcd a b) (if (= b 0) a (gcd b (modulo a b))))

Re:Popularity !== Best

[Joce640k]

Likewise, shit languages like JavaScript and PHP, are popular because any code monkey can use them.

No, they're "popular" because that's all there is.

In a web browser? What can you use that isn't JavaScript?

On an ISP-hosted web server? What do they give you except PHP?

Plus: Most JavaScript/PHP is written in the form of unimportant little snippets, that's why it ends up on GitHub.

The web folks embrace new ...

[Qbertino]

... solutions and methods of development within hours.

I'm a relatively conservative developer in the web camp and it amazes me day in and day out how the web folks just automate away truckloads of menial tasks with some new tool that came along last week. A first look into npm has everyone joking but a second look reveals how they use their tools at hand to automate just about everything and get to go home early every other day. Example: many web centric repos on GitHub are actually used as distribution servers with a completely automated process for end-user software updates attached. And while many would think "OMG, how could you?"this is actually pretty smart. Another thing is this newfangled NoSQL fad which should better be called "We don't do relations and normalization". However, think about how often one-to-many is resolved outside of its original relational trail (almost never) and suddenly these super flat high speed data dumps aren't that stupid an idea.

Conclusion: That the web camp basically owns and drives development methodologies and PLs these days doesn't surprise me the least and if you're some C++ snob I'd be careful to judge too quickly.

My 2 eurocents.

Re:JAVA What?

[AuMatar]

Have an Android device? YOu know, the smartphone owned by over 80% of the world? Over 90% of the apps on there are written in Java.

Work with servers? A large amount of backend webservices are still written in Java. Especially large scale ones.

It isn't used much for desktop apps, but its used pretty much everywhere else.