The Top 10 Most Popular Coding Languages and their Uses in 2020

TIOBE Programming Community Index: This index ranks the global popularity of computer languages based on popular search engine results, numbers of engineers employed using various languages, third party vendors associated with those languages and courses available. This data is compiled by the Dutch company TIOBE Software BV.

Feb 2020, source: https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/

The Flatiron School Software Engineering course provides introductions to Ruby, JavaScript, HTML, SQL and CSS. Through those languages (primarily Ruby and JavaScript), we covered the basics of broadly applicable coding fundamentals like the Object-Oriented vs. Functional paradigm, handling datatypes, debugging and implementing conditional logic. The rest of our learning, concerned with Sinatra, ActiveRecord, Rails and soon React, has been specific to the web development skill set. What if you have no desire to become a web developer? What else can Ruby and JavaScript be used for, and what other languages are being utilized out in the world of professional coding?

1. Java

Java was introduced in 1991 by Sun Microsystems for use in general applications and quickly gained widespread popularity. Java includes automatic memory management, a feature that is absent from preceding general-purpose languages like C and C++. The syntax of Java is similar to C and C++. Java is currently the most popular language for building general applications.

.web apps, business apps, mobile apps (Android OS), electronics software, game development

Use Examples: Blu-ray Disc software, mobile/internet app graphics (JavaFX), ThinkFree open source word processor, VLC Media Player, Facebook (back-end development), Twitter (back-end), LinkedIn,

Games: Minecraft, Runescape, Star Wars Galaxies

2. C

C was developed in 1972 by Bell Labs as a language for constructing utilities to run on Unix. C is a low level language that requires explicit memory management, making it difficult to use but highly efficient. C is still used in systems development, especially concerning operating systems, and for coding firmware. Overlap exists between jobs that are carried out in C and C++.

.embedded systems, local applications, hardware drivers, electronics software

Use Examples: certain apps within Adobe Systems, Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) for Bloomberg, kernel layer / hardware device drivers for Apple OSX

Games: Doom, Quake, Return to Castle Wolfenstein (late 90s, early 2000s PC). Almost all gaming companies utilizing C have switched to C++ or C#.

3. Python

Python is a high-level, general-purpose coding language introduced by Dutch programmer Guido van Rossum in 1991. Like Ruby, Python supports object-oriented programming and automatic memory management. Python initially gained popularity for general-purpose programming, however, it has recently become the favored coding language for specialty use in AI applications.

.web apps, back-end logic for business app, mobile apps, artificial intelligence

Games: Eve Online, Battlefield 2, World of Tanks

4. C++

C++ is a high-level, general-purpose coding language that was created by Bjarne Stroustrup in 1985 as an extension of C. C++ extended the original C language with object-oriented features. C++ is generally used for similar applications as C, including low-level hardware development and systems programming.

.embedded systems, local applications, hardware drivers, electronics software, game development

Use Examples: Google Chrome browser, Mozilla Firefox, MySQL, Microsoft Operating Systems (through XP), Microsoft Office Suite,

Games: C++ is very popular for coding games. Electronic Arts (sports titles, Call of Duty, etc) and all Microsoft games (Halo, etc) are coded in C++.

5. C#

C# is a coding language released by Microsoft in 2000 that participates in the overall .NET framework. C# is an object-oriented language that compiles directly to .NET Intermediate Language. C# was originally used for Microsoft-focused internal development, however, newer standards and frameworks have broadened the applicability of C#. C# is popular for web application and local software programming primarily with Microsoft products.

.embedded systems, local applications, web apps (Android and iOS), services/microservices, game development

Games: Assassin’s Creed series, Far Cry series

6. Visual Basic .NET

Visual Basic .NET was introduced in 2002 by Microsoft as a successor to their original Visual Basic language. VB.NET is a multi-paradigm programming language that compiles to .NET Intermediate Language, enabling developers to use Visual Basic when creating .NET applications. Despite the persistent importance and use of VB.NET, the majority of VB.NET apps are considered “legacy applications” by this point.

.local applications, web apps, general use

Games: Compatibility with C#, used in conjunction in some game development engines (Microsoft).

7. JavaScript

JavaScript was developed by Brendan Eich, an engineer at Netscape in 1995. JavaScript is a fluid language that incorporates aspects of the functional and object-oriented paradigms. JavaScript is primarily used to create dynamic functionality in web browsers. Libraries such as NodeJS can be employed to create cross-platform mobile applications entirely in JavaScript. Recently, a strictly object-oriented version of JavaScript called TypeScript has grown in popularity.

.full-stack web applications, local apps, game development

Games: Bejeweled, Angry Birds, various mobile games

8. PHP

PHP is a general-purpose scripting language that was introduced in 1995 primarily as a server-side web app scripting system. PHP interacts with HTML and was developed to extend access to HTML forms and database structures. PHP is known for being easy to learn, and subsequently is most commonly used to extend database functionality for local and web applications.

.web applications, local apps

9. SQL

Structured Query Language was released in 1986 as a domain-specific language tailored for interacting with relational database management systems (RDMS). Different versions of SQL exist across major database management systems, however, they are all similar. Although SQL is not used by itself to build applications, knowledge of SQL is integral to database interactions across fields.

.interacting with databases

10. Swift

Swift is a multi-paradigm programming language released by Apple in 2014 as a successor to Objective-C for use in building iOS applications. Despite being somewhat foisted on the iOS development community, Swift continues to rapidly gain popularity and remains the only options for building certain iOS applications besides Objective-C.

.iPad, iPhone, Apple Mobile and Desktop applications, game development

Games: Apple App Store games and apps