TIOBE Index of programming languages

[Picuino]

TIOBE Index

The TIOBE Programming Community index is an indicator of the popularity of programming languages. The index is updated once a month. The ratings are based on the number of skilled engineers world-wide, courses and third party vendors. Popular web sites Google, Amazon, Wikipedia, Bing and more than 20 others are used to calculate the ratings. It is important to note that the TIOBE index is not about the best programming language or the language in which most lines of code have been written.

The index can be used to check whether your programming skills are still up to date or to make a strategic decision about what programming language should be adopted when starting to build a new software system. The definition of the TIOBE index can be found here.

June 2024 Headline: C++ surpasses C for the first time in history

C++ is the new number 2 in the TIOBE index. Originally, dubbed as the better and object-oriented version of C, it took C++ 39 years after its inception to beat C's popularity. C++ has never been that high in the TIOBE index, whereas C has never been that low. C++ started a new life as of 2011 with its consistent 3 yearly updates. Although most compilers and most engineers can't take up with this pace, it is considered a success to see the language evolve. The main strenghts of C++ are its performance and scalability. Its downside is its many ways to get things done, i.e. its rich idiom of features, which is caused by its long history and aim for backward compatibility. C++ is heavily used in embedded systems, game development and financial trading software, just to name a few domains. Other highlights of the TIOBE index this month are Go, which is at position #7 for the first time, and Rust with an all time high at position #17. --Paul Jansen CEO TIOBE Software

[golden_labels]

People love things looking sciencey and rationalistic. Without ever considering, if they make any sense.

I point everybody’s attention to position 16 on that list.

[Picuino]

At what age did you start programming and with what language?
In my case 12 / BASIC and I wish it had been Scratch instead of BASIC.

[coppice]

I'm please to see that after 60 years COBOL is still rising in popularity.

More seriously, its interesting that it still scores more than 10% of the score for Java.

[golden_labels]

Not sure, if I understand the intentions of Picuino’s question right. So for now I will answer that directly.

Hard to tell, but certainly⁽¹⁾ before turning 12. My first steps were in DOS Batch. Then a very short period of VBA, followed by VB6. VB6 was also the first language I used to earn money (around 2002). I recall that was a pretty sudden change: just like 2–3 years earlier I was afraid of computers. Almost cried after closing Program Manager in Windows 3.11, thinking I broke the computer and my mother will have to pay for it. Then I discovered I can edit savegames and strings in games on my father’s computer, and got hooked instantly. The first programs were launchers for games using BE.EXE.

⁽¹⁾ I was expelled from school in 5th grade, which corresponds to 1997. At that point I was already programming and I’m from 1985.

[Picuino]

It is strange that a language ‘for children’ is in 16th place and this might seem to detract from the credibility of the ranking. But... Scratch is a great language for kids to learn programming. It has concepts of imperative programming, subroutines, variables, event-driven programming, parallel (concurrent) programming, and so on.
We won't be able to make very serious programs with scratch, but we will be able to do something very important: learn easily. I really like that Scratch is in 16th place in popularity.

Now I use Scratch to teach programming to my students, but I wish I could have had that language at my disposal to learn programming when I was young.

[SiliconWizard]

This index is all about "popularity" in the "what people search online" sense. So the list is neither surprising, nor indicative of particular usefulness or even relevance, especially in the professional world.

[aeberbach]

Who decided that COBOL gets a dinosaur as its icon? That's just mean! I'm happy to see it coming back, I may end up doing it. Pretty surprising to see Ruby so high, or to see Kotlin so far below Swift. I would have guessed the latter two to be reversed.

[golden_labels]

It is strange that a language ‘for children’ is in 16th place and this might seem to detract from the credibility of the ranking.

I appreciate TIOBE for providing the index. I do, because I love when organizations can take a lighthearted approach, have fun, and aren’t focused on optimizing system down to the last penny. But too often I see TIOBE Index discussed as something serious, of real value, providing deep insight.

One may create any ranking they wish. But it’s not neccessarily useful. Nor represents what people assume it does. TIOBE Index at least reveals their methodology. Which I count as a huge advantage. Most rankings just claim the use of Expert Magic Dust™. Unfortunately even most openly explained and perfectly calculated ranking may not represent anything of use. Worse, if it resembles useful data until one looks closely. It’s like looking at a smortnet-generated image or PR text. At a first glance it makes total sense. But the closer you look, the more you see it makes no sense or has no real content.

“The index can be used to check whether your programming skills are still up to date”: do you consider your programming skills to not be up to date, because Scratch surpassed a language you use? “to make a strategic decision about what programming language should be adopted when starting to build a new software system”: PHP is falling fast, we should use Scratch for websites. “Rewrite it in Scratch” is the new “Rewrite it in Rust”, given Rust is even less popular now. “(…) is an indicator of the popularity of programming languages.” Obvious, right? Until you realize that “popularity” is a nebulous concept. And how popularity — understood in any way you wish — corresponds to your skills being up to date?

Take it as a fun anecdote? Great. Discuss it with any degree of seriousness? Eee… nah. This is the same kind of fun I had when producing the chart in attachment. Shows what Google suggested for prefix “I’m N years old and…”; just note that the original was in Polish and this is a rough translation, hence it’s a bit awkward.

But... Scratch is a great language for kids to learn programming. It has concepts of imperative programming, subroutines, variables, event-driven programming, parallel (concurrent) programming, and so on. (…)

That I don’t deny. My comment wasn’t about Scratch. Certainly not criticizing it.

[brucehoult]

People love things looking sciencey and rationalistic. Without ever considering, if they make any sense.

Indeed.

Where do these rankings come from?

Wikipedia: "The index is calculated from the number of search engine results for queries containing the name of the language. The index covers searches in Google, Google Blogs, MSN, Yahoo!, Baidu, Wikipedia and YouTube."

Actually, TIOBE tells us exactly:

Basically the calculation comes down to counting hits for the search query

+"<language> programming"

https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/programminglanguages_definition/

Ok, that's some kind of measure of current popularity. Even if simply in the sense of, as Stroustrup says "There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses."

There are other organisations who report programming language popularity by the number of job advertisements. And others by projects or commits on github.

[brucehoult]

At what age did you start programming and with what language?
In my case 12 / BASIC and I wish it had been Scratch instead of BASIC.

Access to computers didn't exist for kids when I was 12 in 1975.  Certainly not in the rural far north of New Zealand.

I wanted to learn, but even the library in the nearest small city had virtually no books on programming. Amazingly, the most informative source I found was Encyclopaedia Britannica. BYTE magazine started publishing in 1975 and often had program listings in various languages and assembly languages. Electronics Australia and Electronics Today International and Wireless World had construction projects based around the latest microprocessors, and program code for them.

Actual, physically touching a machine to program it:

1978 (age 15): HP97 desktop calculator with mag card storage at a friend's high school

1979: bought my own TI-57. 50 program steps, 8 memories. It was possible to program something like finding the root of an equation, or Simpson's rule integration. Richer friends got TI-58 or Casio FX-501 both with much bigger program/data space. We all tried each others' machines

1980: FORTRAN on B1900 minicomputer, mostly punched cards but sometimes in person late at night with our teacher

1980 December: BASIC on Apple ][. Got frustrated by its limitations and slow speed withing days and taught myself 6502 machine language by reading the ROM listing in the back of the manual

1981: Pascal on PDP-11/34. Also assembly language.

1982 December (to 1983 Feb): COBOL on Pr1me minicomputer, paid summer holiday job

[Picuino]

July 2024 Headline: Rust is preparing itself for the top 10

This month, high-performance language Rust jumped from position #17 to position #13 in the TIOBE index. This is an all time high for Rust. Gaining 4 positions might seem a small change, but Rust has been "the talk of the town" the last couple of years without making much progress in the TIOBE index. Rust is finally moving up. After the tailwind of the US government, which recently announced to recommend moving from C/C++ to Rust for security reasons, things are going fast for Rust. The community is growing, including the number of third party libraries and tools. In short, Rust is preparing itself for a top 10 position in the TIOBE index. --Paul Jansen CEO TIOBE Software

[SiliconWizard]

Yeah, Delphi and even Fortran are still ahead.

[mendip_discovery]

Based on searches it just shows Python is a pain to program compared to COBOL.

I did some code work with an Amiga, then DOS Batch stuff. I did some PHP/HTML/CSS stuff. I tinker with stuff. Not a real coder, my brain doesn't work that way to be good at it. I am rubbish at most things but better than most at many things.

[SiliconWizard]

Based on searches it just shows Python is a pain to program compared to COBOL.

Good point, this index being based on whatever people talk about the most online, what it shows is twofold: first, sure, that the language has traction (otherwise no one would care), but second, that the language requires a lot of support, as experience shows that most online activity on technical matters tends to be about asking questions.

So, until they are able to classify the type of content about programming languages and give more detailed indices, its real meaning has limited value, and, for all we know, may just show that, at least among maybe the top 20 languages listed, the first listed are the most problematic to work with.

[coppice]

Based on searches it just shows Python is a pain to program compared to COBOL.

I like that MACBETH language. It seems to fit perfectly:

Code: [Select]

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.


[DiTBho]

ucPython on my Casio graphing pocket calculator.
I still don't know if it was a good idea 

I used Pascal and wrote crazy stuff, even OOP,  back when Garbage was my favourite rock band(1)

Now that I do 90% of the things in C, I don't miss Pascal, but I miss the radio appearances on BeShare by Jean-Louis Gassée (founder of Be inc), when he was looking to convince people to switch to C++, and he almost did, since 90% of BeOS is written in C++...


(1) discontinued in 2007, the band reunited in 2011, but the sound is no longer the same as it was in the 90s.

[SiliconWizard]

The language HP introduced in its Prime (and actually in the 39GII just before that) is IMO a more appropriate language for a pocket calculator. But, that's not in TIOBE's index.

C++ appears to know renewed interest lately (and it's not just from TIOBE). Not sure what I think of this, but I do find it somewhat funny, as Rust proponents must not like that very much. For some fun about it all, watching conferences on C++ and on Rust these days are (often) both pretty hilarious, I recommend it, even if one has no interest in either.

When I switched from Pascal to C, I certainly didn't miss the "limitations" of Pascal, but "modern" Pascal is actually a very decent tool. It's just that there aren't many compilers available (pretty much either fpc or commercial Delphi), and it's (AFAIK) not directly possible to use it for embedded stuff. Otherwise that could be fun.

[cfbsoftware]

When I switched from Pascal to C, I certainly didn't miss the "limitations" of Pascal, but "modern" Pascal is actually a very decent tool. It's just that there aren't many compilers available (pretty much either fpc or commercial Delphi), and it's (AFAIK) not directly possible to use it for embedded stuff. Otherwise that could be fun.

I haven't tried them myself as I switched from Pascal to Modula-2 / Oberon many years ago but I do know that MIKROE sell Pascal compilers for ARM, PIC, AVR and more. e.g.

https://www.mikroe.com/mikropascal-arm

[SiliconWizard]

When I switched from Pascal to C, I certainly didn't miss the "limitations" of Pascal, but "modern" Pascal is actually a very decent tool. It's just that there aren't many compilers available (pretty much either fpc or commercial Delphi), and it's (AFAIK) not directly possible to use it for embedded stuff. Otherwise that could be fun.

I haven't tried them myself as I switched from Pascal to Modula-2 / Oberon many years ago but I do know that MIKROE sell Pascal compilers for ARM, PIC, AVR and more. e.g.

https://www.mikroe.com/mikropascal-arm

Ah, true.

Also, worth mentioning, GCC now officially supports Modula-2. I had just tested it quickly. That could be directly usable for embedded development too.