Based on the tags page here, C# is the big winner.
Freshmeat lists far more C projects than anything else.
+2
A:
My vote would be for c# as well. Though i am pretty sure it is still not the highest by employment numbers. Check out this article on Dice.com jobs. jobs by language Looks like java is in far more demand. Which doesnt really surprise me, it has been around alot longer so there should be a larger amount of programs and apps in it thus a very high demand for java programmers.
pete blair
2008-09-08 02:00:19
Perhaps a lot of former Java developers moved on to work as C#/.NET developers shifting the balance of open jobs resulting in more unfilled Java jobs as compared with C#.
Ray Vega
2008-10-22 20:06:14
A:
Here's a recent survey.
http://www.hurricanesoftwares.com/popularity-of-programming-languages-by-august-2008/
According to this, Java is more popular than C.
A:
I beleive VB.NET is listed as just as popular as Java by Forrester Research, and more popular than C# and C++.
From memory the VB versions of Visual Studio Express get many more downloads as well. However I'll admit this might be more indicative of VB being a beginners language (or perceived as anyway).
Mark Glorie
2008-09-08 02:13:14
+11
A:
TIOBE Programming Community Index is a pretty good indicator.
Nick Retallack
2008-09-08 02:19:11
It's a very bad indicator, see this blog entry: http://blog.timbunce.org/2008/04/12/tiobe-or-not-tiobe-lies-damned-lies-and-statistics/
Alexandr Ciornii
2009-04-03 09:59:26
It seems odd that they pull so many statistics from a handful of Google queries. I agree that it doesn't represent the trend accurately at all -- especially considering they enjoy hopping on the bandwagon of languages growing in popularity when their very own measure screams the opposite. Besides, how do they distinguish popularity by month with their simple query?
Paul Lammertsma
2009-11-25 13:29:03
+2
A:
Freshmeat has a definite bias toward the GNU world, where C is the dominant language, so it's more relevant to system level programming than higher level business applications. Java and C# have the lions share of that world these days.
Andrew
2008-09-08 04:44:03
+1
A:
One of the other breakdowns that you might want to apply to the data is by country. In my experience (I have had reason to think this but don't have any evidence currently) it seems like some languages such as Java and PL/SQL have much of their popularity stemming from India so if you're trying to determine what language to study that should be taken into account.
George Mauer
2008-09-08 04:55:18
I agree. India probably introduces such a big bias (due to the sheer number of programmers) that the survey results are inapplicable to just about any other country.
Dmitri Nesteruk
2009-01-03 18:51:36
A:
For me, popularity of a language is not by how many uses it, but by how useful it to a project or to the developer.
sasayins
2008-09-08 05:11:59
You are confusing popularity and usefulness. Popularity indeed means how many people like it or use it. What you said means usefulness. Even though I agree with you that usefulness is more important, ("popularity" != "usefulness") in any context.
DrJokepu
2009-01-03 18:15:07
+5
A:
Douglas Crockford thinks it's JavaScript: The World's Most Misunderstood Programming Language Has Become the World's Most Popular Programming Language.
See also Brendan Eich's blog post on JavaScript Popularity. (With obligatory Wicked video)
Sam Hasler
2008-09-08 10:29:51
+24
A:
I've stopped believing that this question has any real answer.
Bias: Most, if not all, sources I've seen quoted in many discussions of this issue have some degree of built-in bias.
- SO is heavily populated by folks with an interest in .Net;
- Freshmeat seems biased toward the Linux world (which tends to be heavy in C programmers);
- Any self-reporting site is going to be biased by advocacy, and some language are more "fan-oriented" than others;
- Open-job listings are about instantaneous hiring deltas, not total usage, etc.
Lack of definition: What does "popularity" mean?
- Total lines (or other volume-based measurement) of code in production use?
- The percentage of world-wide CPU cycles spent on code that came from a given language?
- Total number of programmers who know the language?
- Total number of programmer-hours spent each year coding in a language?
- Total number of programmers who would pick the language as their "favorite" (regardless of how much they use it)?
- Do hobby and educational usage count the same as production commercial usage?
Inadequacy of voting schemes: The whole "one person, one vote, winner takes all" approach often advocated is known to be flawed. For this one (which is about voting in general), look at sources such as RangeVoting.org.
As one small example of the last point, suppose there were only three languages, X, Y, and Z. Suppose that all programmers in the world were polled for their top two language preferences, and responded in "community" groups as follows:
Group Headcount First choice Second choice
#1 34% X Z
#2 34% Y Z
#3 32% Z X
Some would argue that Z is the highest-ranking language, despite not being the first choice of a majority.
joel.neely
2009-01-03 17:57:46
Among other things, given the whole spectrum of languages, is there even a purpose in comparing? I mean, take something like XQuery on one side, and, say, FORTH on the other. They fill entirely different niches. Even if you compare on number of people etc, it's totally pointless - about the same as asking whether hammers or screwdrivers are more popular.
Pavel Minaev
2009-11-28 08:39:28
I agree with your point, @Pavel. It's also true that popularity in no way equates with importance. People in the US probably talk more about their favorite TV show than about the fact that they have running water in their homes--until the city shuts down the water supply for maintenance.
joel.neely
2009-12-04 13:34:20
+1
A:
Ohloh provides quite a nice system for seeing how much usage different languages are getting over time.
Mark Davidson
2009-01-03 18:02:55
A:
It all depends on where you live and what language(s) are most in demand in that area.
Where I live, it's clearly .NET with a bias towards C#, but VB.NET crops up occasionally. Java, not so much except for "Senior Enterprise Architect" positions. Ruby and Python are virtually unheard of, and other, esoteric languages are unknown.
Wayne M
2009-01-03 18:05:22
A:
Is popular the most used? Or what would be the most used if developers had a complete free and informed choice?
I suspect there would be a significant difference.
Richard
2009-02-24 22:49:26
+1
A:
I have made my own index, basically because I needed a F# project, based on altavista, google and yahoo!, (cuil and bing fell of for several reasons).
To my surpise C# was only 9th!
But of course :
But maybe more important is the fact that legacy code has been much longer around then say Ruby or F#, that's one of the reasons Java and C are doing so well. Later on, I will post rankings based on growth, rather than on absolute numbers.. Or both, we'll see.
You can find it here (a top 100)
Oh Yeah your answer according to my method : C (followd by Java and PHP)
Peter
2009-11-27 18:03:46
A:
These days PHP is the most widely used language. Even designers knows some basics.
Dot4Pro
2009-11-28 09:13:15
A:
It depends on the context of the project.
Many enterprise projects used in business, from my own personal experience, tend to be written in Java/J2EE.
djhworld
2009-11-28 14:26:54
+2
A:
If most popular means most users, then I am sure any developer which knows what a programming language is, would say Excel is most popular. (not VBA, .NET extensions for Office)
I am shocked! Nobody had answered it until now.
I think nobody doubt Excel has more users than C, Java, PHP, VB, Pascal, etc, maybe more than all of them together. I learned that Excel is a complete programming language, not in traditional way that all of us use to work, but is a programming language. Or should I add an question about this.
bigown
2009-12-01 03:59:41