The Top Programming Languages 2016
Rank.Language Types — Spectrum Ranking%
1.C — 100%
C is used to write software where speed and flexibility is important, such as in embedded systems or high-performance computing.
2.Java — 98.1%
Designed to allow the creation of programs that can run on different platforms with little or no modification, Java is a popular choice for Web applications.
3.Python — 98%
A scripting language that is often used by software developers to add programmability to their applications, such as engineering-analysis tools or animation software.
4.C++ — 95.0%
Essentially a version of C with built-in support for “objects” — self-contained modules of code and data — C++ proved to be a natural fit for software driven by graphical user interfaces.
5.R — 87.9%
Designed for programming statistical analysis and data-mining applications.
6.C# — 86.7%
Created by Microsoft for developing software for the .NET framework, which supports many applications running on Windows.
7.PHP — 82.8%
A scripting language primarily designed to support dynamic websites.
8.JavaScript — 82.2%
A scripting language used primarily to add functionality to Web browsers on the fly, allowing the creation of complex Web pages.
9.Ruby — 74.5%
A scripting language designed to offer greater support for objects than other such languages.
10.Go — 71.9%
Created by Google, Go has built-in support for programs that need to exchange information while running concurrently on different computers.
11.Swift — 70.1%
Apple’s latest language for creating iOS and OS X software. The language is compatible with existing Objective-C code and was open sourced this year to increase adoption among coders.
12.Arduino — 69.9%
Based on Processing, the native language for the Arduino microcontroller has become the basis of a huge number of home-brew and prototype devices.
13.Assembly — 68.6%
Writing assembly code requires considerable expertise, but it allows the creation of high-speed software that can run directly on a computer processor.
14.Matlab — 68.5%
A scripting language for MathWorks’ Matlab computing environment, Matlab is designed for numerical computing tasks, such as engineering or scientific simulations.
15.Scala — 66.9%
Programs written in Scala, an alternative to Java, can run on the same “virtual machine” as Java programs.
16.HTML — 65.6%
A specialized language for describing the appearance and content of Web pages.
17.Perl — 58.5%
A scripting language often used as the “glue” in complex systems.
18.Visual Basic — 56.8%
Microsoft created Visual Basic to allow rapid development of Windows applications but no longer supports it. A descendant, Visual Basic.NET, which is still supported, works with the more modern .NET framework.
19.Shell — 54.2%
A catchall term for a number of frameworks that allow scripting of operating system command-line instructions.
20.Objective-C — 53.4%
Adding support for objects — self-contained modules of code and data — to the C language, Objective-C was Apple’s favored language for writing applications for OS X or iOS, but this may change with the introduction of Swift.
21.Cuda — 53.2%
Created by graphics-chip maker Nvidia, Cuda allows programmers to tap the power of GPUs for general-purpose computing.
22.Lua — 52.1%
A scripting language often used to make other applications programmable, especially in the animation and gaming domains.
23.Processing — 50.5%
Originating at MIT, Processing has been developed to make it easy for artists, designers, and hobbyists to generate visualizations.
24.SQL — 49.8%
A specialized language designed to query and manipulate databases.
25.Haskell — 44.1%
Designed for applications where reliability is important.
26.Rust — 43.3%
With its first stable version released this year, Rust is designed to make concurrent systems easier to program reliably.
27.Fortran — 42.2%
Created in the 1950s, Fortran is designed for high-performance scientific and engineering computing.
28.Delphi — 42.1%
A derivative of Pascal used for Windows applications, owned by the Embarcadero Delphi company. Open-source implementations under the rubric of Open Pascal exist for other platforms.
29.D — 38.9%
Intended as a successor to C++, D is still a relatively new language.
30.LabView — 35.7%
Created by National Instruments, LabView is designed for data acquisition and industrial control.
31.VHDL — 35.4%
A hardware description language used in the creation and analysis of electronic circuits.
32.Lisp — 34.9%
Created in the 1950s, Lisp became widely used by artificial intelligence researchers, but it has seen a decline in more recent years.
33.Julia — 32.8%
Julia is designed for statistical and scientific computing while retaining compatibility with legacy libraries written in Fortran or C.
34.Ladder Logic — 28.1%
Intended for the development of industrial programmable logic controllers.
35.Erlang — 28.0%
Created by Ericsson for embedded telephony applications, the release of Erlang as an open-source language in 1998 boosted its popularity among programmers developing applications that have to handle many concurrent tasks.
36.Verilog — 26.7%
A hardware description language used in the creation and analysis of electronic circuits.
37.Prolog — 26.1%
Originating in the artificial intelligence community, Prolog is primarily used as a teaching and research tool.
38.Clojure — 24.1%
An attempt to revive Lisp by making it compatible with the same “virtual machine” that supports Java programs.
39.SAS — 23.4%
A data- and statistical-analysis language.
40.Ada — 22.0%
Originally designed for the U.S. Department of Defense, Ada is used for applications where reliability is critical, such as aerospace control systems.
41.Cobol — 19.2%
Created in the late 1950s for business and financial applications, COBOL software still drives critical systems in many large institutions.
42.ABAP — 17.0%
A business programming language created by SAP.
43.Scheme — 16.2%
Originally a teaching language, this variant of Lisp is still used for applications such as the App Inventor for Android, which allows the rapid development of mobile applications.
44.J — 12.3%
Primarily used for analytics and mathematical programming.
45.TCL — 11.4%
A scripting language intended for rapid prototyping and supporting the Tk graphical user interface used primarily with Unix systems.
46.Ocaml — 3.2%
An object-oriented language with an emphasis on supported software reliability.
