Most used programming languages...

When I read Steffen’s comment on David’s statement on Java as a fail it got me thinking about is there some statistics on language usage…and here we go…some recent post of a german computer magazine here

The ranking seems like this in Q3/2021 =>

 1. JavaScript	
 2. Python	
 2. Java
 4. PHP	
 5. CSS	
 5. C++	
 5. C#	
 8. TypeScript	
 9. Ruby	
10. C
11. Swift
12. R
13. Objective-C
14. Shell
14. Scala
16. Go
17. PowerShell
18. Kotlin
19. Rust
20. Dart

TypeScript is the Microsoft attempt to make JavaScript half-way sensible. I.e. you write TypeScript – which is similar to Java or C# – and then it gets “compiled” (or better: transpiled) into JavaScript. Retains some developer sanity while fighting the various browser “challenges”.

The most frightening thing in this list is certainly that PHP is still in the Top 100.

BTW, the probably most-cited “which programming language is the most popular” index is the TIOBE index: https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/

1. JavaScript

I think that can be explained by the script kiddies that seem to assemble most web sites these days having graduated from use of pre-built scripts to the dizzy heights of lego style copy-paste.

It has a lot of locations it’s used, often for no good reason.

Which elevates Java.

Quite interesting that TIOBE Index…I’m happy to read Assembler is at 9th coming up from 14th…though only 2% …I wonder if those 2% are only embedded stuff from car industry or similar or some OS coders…

The list at the top of the page seems like it was compiled by/using people who like to use trendy languages. CSS (which isn’t even a real language!) five places above C is just gibberish. And no PHP on that list even though it is still used a lot. Ignore that bit, I’m a twat…

The TIOBE index is more interesting. C in its rightful place, PHP up there too. Fortran still hanging in there.

Visual Basic is sixth, and classic Visual Basic is twelfth? Is this for real?!
I notice that the squiggles down under the list suggest that broadly C and Java are losing ground while Python is gaining…but not in a way that would suggest a direct change. Perhaps there are just fewer geeks these days.
As for Visual Basic, that squiggle didn’t seem to exist until 2020. I wonder if lockdowns got people to dust off some ancient projects?

And no PHP on that list even though it is still used a lot.

4. ??

tiobe – trying to get my head round SQL as a programming language as opposed to a query language (clues in the name really)

4. ??

🤦🤦🤦 I swear it wasn’t there the first time I read it…

trying to get my head round SQL as a programming language

Well, you create complicated phrases and data falls out.
It’s about as realistic as calling CSS a programming language. ;-)

If we really want to see RISC OS getting greater adoption, it’s Python3 we should be concentrating on. It’s not just a popular beginners language, but it’s being used by professional engineers for some vastly complex stuff (from personal experience; video conferencing servers).

Chris Johns has done a superb job of bringing new Python3 versions to RISC OS, but there is still a lot of optimisation that needs to be done to get it to run at the same speed as it does under Linux on the same hardware. And even more importantly we need to develop Python modules for writing RISC OS applications. It could make writing WIMP programs so quick and easy, no one in the right mind would ever touch BASIC again.

It could make writing WIMP programs so quick and easy, no one in the right mind would ever touch BASIC again.

Just what I said about Lua nineteen years ago.

I do a lot of SQL in my job, and it’s closer to programming than CSS could ever be. I write complex stored procedures for use in web pages accessing, inserting and updating records in databases, processes to read data from flat files, parse it, mix in some values from other tables and insert the processed data into tables or other output files such as invoices, reports, etc. That’s more like programming than a lot of the web page construction routines that many languages seem to be used for now.

I do a lot of SQL in my job, and it’s closer to programming than CSS could ever be.

I wouldn’t disagree. CSS is very low down the scale, possibly off the bottom

Where is BASIC on the list?

Just what I said about Lua nineteen years ago.

The RISC OS integration in Lua is great, it’s only that I never meet the language in a profession capacity that stopped me getting in to it.

Where is BASIC on the list?

Nowhere and sinking fast – and that’s V_spitB, proper BASIC left the building before the millennium.

proper BASIC left the building before the millennium.

Since the lists are PC centric, I think you can reliably say that proper BASIC was never in the building.

Visual Basic is on the TIOBE Index at position 6 and 12 for whatever it’s worth accounting for a share of about 6% in that list in total, in the other one zero…when I look at the younger engineers in our office or my friends who like to code it’s either C or Python…so I second David J. that Python is kind of crucial to attract a younger generation.

Since the lists are PC centric

They are? The list that Kuemmel posted above appears to be the RedMonk list, which is based on languages used in GitHub projects and discussed on Stack Overflow¹.

CSS is very low down the scale, possibly off the bottom

But again, if you actually go and read the methodology used, its presence makes a lot of sense. It comes directly below PHP and is up there with JavaScript, which will be using it extensively to make the front-ends for many web-based systems. And, in the sense of what GitHub and Stack Overflow will view as “languages” for the purpose of categorisation, CSS is one.

CSS does a lot of the hard work on a modern website, too — even if we don’t yet have a browser released that’s capable of showing us the results.

¹ Before anyone weighs in to say what a stupid approach that is, perhaps first go and have a read of their own discussion of their methodology and what the results are intended to mean.

If there is a case for including CSS then there is also a case for including HTML. They are both declaritive languages rather than functional, but on most counts they are similar to interpreted programming languages.

If we really want to see RISC OS getting greater adoption, it’s Python3 we should be concentrating on. It’s not just a popular beginners language, but it’s being used by professional engineers for some vastly complex stuff (from personal experience; video conferencing servers).

Indeed, Python is very important for any platform credibility. Not least because on the RPi, Python is the most important programming language pushed hard by the Pi Foundation, so RISC OS can only be a credible alternative Pi OS if a competent version of Python is available.

Next on the list would be a competent JVM, because it would immediately bring Java, Kotlin, Scala and Groovy. Nowadays, with the HotSpot JVM port for Aarch32, this should be easier than ever, but the whole OpenJDK platform is not at all easy to port (witness the grand failure of GNU Classpath). Java 2D, AWT, maybe SWT and JavaFX (which includes a WebKit-based HTML component)…

Excellent, I’ve pencilled in Druck for the Python 3 wimp integration and Steffen for the JVM port.

Isn’t the RISC OS community great, everyone so willing to donate their time.

and Steffen for the JVM port.

I would have started with it in 1998, but I always waited for Chockcino to appear. I am sure its release is just around the corner.

Seriously, probably JamVM or Zero would be a worth a shot, ignoring the whole runtime and just concentrating on the VM itself. It would be interesting to compare the performance of a simple bytecode interpreter with BBC BASIC.

The whole OpenJDK stuff is a nightmare to work with, not least because of its excessive overall size. I even failed to just rebuild OpenJDK 8 on my Windows machine.

I’m not sure I’m the best one to do WIMP, I’m more backend. I’ve written one very simple toolbox UI 21 years ago for DiscKnight, and my other stuff was using RISC_OSLib 10 years before that. A Python binding for RISC_OSLib probably isn’t what we are after.

I’m not sure I’m the best one to do WIMP, I’m more backend.

Unfortunately you’re probably the most qualified. With experience of RISC OS, Python and an interest in the end result. There’s not going to be a lot of alternative people!

A swi wrapper library might not seen that useful, but it would make writing higher layer abstractions easier.

A swi wrapper library might not seen that useful, but it would make writing higher layer abstractions easier.

I thought gerph was generating python wrappers for pyromanic by parsing the OSLib headers? He certain managed to find a few mistakes in it that regular C users hadn’t spotted.

The list I see occasionally is the one that appears in IEEE Spectrum. IIRC it is very different to the above list! ‘C’ tends to be much closer to the top, and some of the other ‘scripts’ get no-where. The IEEE lists tend to be ranked by ‘demand’ as well. e.g. One of them was by the pay levels on offer.

So I guess it depends what collection of ‘programmers’ you ask.

As for Java and Java Script being in the top 10, well that I would put down to web pseudo coders (copy and pasters) using Java Script,

I am sure there are a lot of pseudo coders in any programming language whose work is mainly backed by Copy&Paste from StackOverflow. But nowadays there is an awful lot of very serious software development happening in JavaScript (or TypeScript) – it is everywhere on the frontend and even gaining traction on the backend side of things. The Node.js ecosystem is huge, and there are a lot of powerful, actively developed frameworks available that allow you to write typical business applications in high quality with little code.

and businesses being sold on the Java portability crap.

Java has many strengths, portability only being one of them. The software I (partly) wrote that powers the output management of several multi-billion-dollar companies mainly in Germany really benefits from Java’s WORA capability. From its first release in 2000, customers run it on Windows, Linux (no matter which distribution, nearly-no-matter which architecture), AIX, OS/390 and previously on Solaris and OS/2. No matter if clients or servers. It would even run on MacOSX, honest…even the web frontend is written in Java, so the client runs on Android and iOS as well with a reasonably modern browser of choice.

Business customers really like the “run anywhere” ability of Java/Kotlin/Scala/Groovy software, because they know that they can easily switch platforms if it becomes necessary. It’s a bit like databases. You won’t get very far in the real world if you only support Oracle. Or DB2. Or MSSQL Server.