It's no secret that programmers are one of the highest paid professionals in the world. Russia is no exception. Good programmers are appreciated here too. And if you are interested in a fast growing and lucrative career, you might want to learn and become a computer programmer.
In order to help you with this choice, I have collected data from various job search sites. While this is not a complete list, it does provide insight into the most in-demand programming languages (sought after by employers).
9 most in-demand programming languages of 2016
It is not surprising that SQL tops the list, as it is used almost everywhere and in a wide range. Database technologies such as MySQL, PostgreSQL and Microsoft SQL are used in servers for large and small businesses, hospitals, banks, universities, etc. Indeed, almost every computer and person with database access is ultimately about SQL. For example, all Android phones and iPhones have access to a SQL database called SQLite and many mobile applications developed by Google, Skype and Dropbox use it directly.
Java
The tech community recently celebrated Java's 20th anniversary. It is one of the most widely adopted programming languages, used by about 9 million developers and operates on 7 billion devices worldwide. It is a programming language used to develop all native Android applications. The popularity of Java developers comes from the fact that the language has long-term compatibility, which ensures that old applications continue to work now and in the future. The only difficulty is that this language is quite difficult to learn, especially for beginners.
JavaScript is another of the most popular and powerful programming languages and is used to bring web pages to life, making them interactive. For example, JavaScript can be used to add effects to web pages, display pop-up messages, or create games with basic functionality. It's also worth noting that JavaScript is the scripting language of the World Wide Web that is built into all major web browsers by default, including Internet Explorer, FireFox, and Safari. Almost every site includes some JavaScript elements, which adds to the demand for JavaScript developers. In recent years, JavaScript has also begun to be used as the basis of Node.js, a server-side technology that enables real-time communication, among other things.
C # (pronounced C-Sharp) is a relatively new programming language developed by Microsoft for a wide variety of enterprise applications that run on the .NET Framework. Evolution of C and C ++, C # is simple, modern, secure and object-oriented.
C ++ (pronounced C-plus-plus) is a general-purpose object-oriented programming language based on the "C" language. Developed by Bjorn Stroustrup at Bell Labs, C ++ was first released in 1983. Stroustrup maintains an extensive list of C ++ applications. The list includes Adobe and Microsoft applications, MongoDB databases, most of Mac OS / X and is the best language for learning the performance of mission-critical applications such as "twitch" game development or audio / video processing.
Python is a general-purpose programming language named after "Monty Python". Python is simple and easy to read (for those who know English). It is a great language for beginners and seasoned professionals. There are many programming courses for Python, 8 out of 10 computer science departments teach coding with Python. Due to the use of the Python language in education, there are many libraries created for Python related to math, physics, natural processing, etc.
Created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994, PHP was not intended to be a new programming language. Instead, it was created to serve as a set of tools to help its creator maintain his personal web page (in PHP). Today, PHP is a server-side scripting programming language that can be used to create web pages written in HTML format. PHP is a very popular language because it is easy for novice programmers to use, but it also offers many advanced features for more experienced ones.
Like Java or C, Ruby is a general-purpose programming language. Ruby on Rails is used to write web applications and also provides integration with the web server and database. Ruby on Rails has many positive qualities, including rapid development and a wide variety of libraries. It is used by many companies ranging from small startups to large enterprises. Hulu, Twitter, Github, and Living Social use Ruby on Rails for at least one of their web applications.
In 2014, Apple decided to invent its own programming language. The result is Swift, a new programming language for iOS and OS X for developers. The developers claim that many parts of Swift are familiar to them from C ++ and Objective-C experience. Many companies in the west, including American Airlines, LinkedIn, and Duolingo, have switched to Swift, and the language will continue to grow in popularity in the coming years.
Any master has a complete set of tools, each of which is suitable for a specific task. Likewise with programming, there will never be just one language, and each language will evolve and improve over time to keep pace with innovation.
This is why, if you are interested in becoming a developer, it is important to be well versed in several programming languages so that you can be versatile and adaptable, and continue to learn languages throughout your career.
6181 people took part in the survey, 20% of them took part in previous surveys, 60% did not take, another 20% cannot remember. 91.5% of respondents live in Ukraine, 8.5% - abroad. Raw survey data and R scripts are available on GitHub.
Brief summary
- Java is still the most widely used programming language; the gap between Java and C # is widening.
- JavaScript has entered the top three, displacing PHP from it.
- The use of Scala has resumed its growth.
- The Objective-C / Swift ratio is still 80/20.
Main development languages in 2015
And here are the dynamics over the past 6 years:
We can see that Java continues to lead the market and the upward trend continues. The use of C # is still declining.
Top news from this poll- JavaScript is on the third place. Most likely, this means that the era of PHP dominance in the initial web development sector is gradually passing. Now it makes sense for aspiring web developers to look towards JavaScript.
You can also note the increase in the proportion of Python's. Perhaps this is due to the growing role of data science components in projects where Python is traditionally used as a gluing language. There has been a slight increase in the use of Scala. The situation with Swift is interesting - strong growth is visible, but the process of replacing languages is far from complete: almost 80% of iOS development is still Objective-C.
Let's see how much statistically significant changes in the popularity of a particular language in comparison with previous polls. As a reminder, we call changes statistically significant if, with a 95% probability, data from two surveys cannot be collected from data from different groups within the same Gaussian population. So, compared to the last survey, statistically significant changes have occurred in JavaScript, Ruby and Swift. There's also the rise in popularity of Clojure in the Long Tail. But in comparison with the one before last - there are a lot of changes. Basically - the processes associated with the obsolescence of some technologies (C #, C ++, Objective-C, ActionScript, Perl) and the appearance of their replacements (JavaScript, Swift, R, Go).
Note that the majority of participants (89%) can identify one main programming language in which they write the most.
Preferred technologies
The situation here is quite interesting: on the one hand, we note a repetition of the same tendencies, on the other, a few oddities.
It can be seen that fewer people focused on Java last year than now. On the other hand, we are seeing a decrease in Scala choices for the next project. However, if we do not take into account the "blowout" of the past and the year before last, then the natural growth of Scala's prospects continues. You might think that a significant part of the Java community was not sure about the prospects of their language and thought about switching to Scala, which they did last year. And some still came to the conclusion that Java is preferable.
You can also notice that here Swift is already higher than Objective-C. Go also continues to gain traction. It can be noted that Erlang and Сlojure have a strong core of supporters.
Let's look at the satisfaction index - will people working in such and such a language think of starting the next project in it:
In the first group, we see Swift and Scala, which share the title of "ideal language"; you can also note the rather high rating of Go compared to the neighboring poll. And the languages that users of systems on which have to think about migration are CoffeeScript and Perl.
What do people writing in Perl think of the language in their next project? It will be primarily JavaScript and Python. An interesting question is where people who now use PHP want to go: 60% would stay to write in this language, 10% would switch to JavaScript, approximately 8% each - to Java and Python, 3-4% - to Ruby and Go ... The main directions of migration from 1C are Java and Python.
Additional languages
There are no particular surprises here. The only thing is that the share of C has stopped falling, and the share of C ++ has begun to grow - perhaps this is due to the growth of hardware projects.
Your projects
Here, as we can see, the main trends persist. The trend to watch out for is the rise of Python, Go, and R.
Final table
| № | Language | Market share, % | Change from last survey | Working now | Additional | In their projects | Satisfaction Index |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Java | 26.3 | 1439 | 804 | 1603 | 0.78 | |
| 2 | WITH# | 15.4 | 846 | 511 | 1005 | 0.80 | |
| 3 | JavaScript | 13.8 | 2.76 | 761 | 2876 | 1914 | 0.71 |
| 4 | PHP | 13.1 | 722 | 603 | 1014 | 0.60 | |
| 5 | Python | 8 | 437 | 790 | 816 | 0.72 | |
| 6 | C ++ | 6.4 | 353 | 553 | 611 | 0.61 | |
| 7 | Ruby | 3.5 | -0.8 | 196 | 178 | 280 | 0.73 |
| 8 | Objective-C | 3.2 | 175 | 170 | 201 | 0.46 | |
| 9 | C | 1.3 | 72 | 390 | 222 | 0.33 | |
| 10 | 1C | 1.2 | 68 | 41 | 61 | 0.22 | |
| 11 | Scala | 1.0 | 57 | 151 | 177 | 0.89 | |
| 12 | PL-SQL | 54 | 304 | 63 | 0.20 | ||
| 13 | Pascal / Delphi | 52 | 85 | 166 | 0.25 | ||
| 14 | Swift | 48 | 173 | 165 | 0.90 | ||
| 15 | T-SQL | 40 | 588 | 159 | 0.20 | ||
| 16 | ActionScript | 31 | 44 | 64 | 0.32 | ||
| 17 | Perl | 22 | 73 | 41 | 0.18 | ||
| 18 | R | 16 | 68 | 55 | 0.44 | ||
| 19 | Erlang | 16 | 31 | 34 | 0.56 | ||
| 20 | Go | 14 | 133 | 142 | 0.79 | ||
| 21 | CoffeeScript | 11 | 186 | 66 | 0.18 |
Additional information
An interesting comparison with last year's survey. Erlang has waited for its young punks, unlike Basic. The most mature R programmers (median 34; not so many), and the youngest - CoffeeScript again;)
It is also interesting to see the dependence of the general development experience on the programming language:
That is, the median experience of developers in Coffe, Java, C #, Ruby, Erlang, Swift and R is 3 years. At the same time, the age of R developers is one of the highest, that is, it can be assumed that people came to development after mathematics. But for Go and Pascal / Delphi - the majority of developers with more than 10 years of experience, this despite the fact that Go is a relatively young language.
Some more interesting information is provided by the ratio of general development experience to experience. There are two languages where these values are the same - 1C and Pascal / Delphi.
Let's see how the development experience has changed over time:
That is, more than 25% of programmers have a year or less of work experience behind them.
A mosaic of work experience versus work experience in the current language:
91% of developers are located in Ukraine, 8.5% - abroad. The distribution of developer ages is, as expected, asymmetrical. In Ukraine, the median age is 27, while abroad it is 29:
The prevalence of languages is also different:
As for education, most people still started with Pascal, although the trend of using next generation languages in teaching is already growing. This situation does not change even in a sample of people under 25:
Programming languages are developing fast enough, new languages are replacing old ones. You must always keep your finger on the pulse of events in order to remain a good specialist. I think every programmer does not want to be outsiders in their field. We have prepared an article where we analyze in detail the top programming languages that will be popular in 2018. You can read the English version of the article top programming languages in 2018 to learn here.
The basis of our analysis is statistics from the resource Stackoverflow. Each year they prepare a report on the most popular programming languages. More than 50,000 developers from all over the world are participating in the survey. To track the dynamics, we collected data for 2017, 2016 and used data from Google Trends. And we have already published an article about programming languages in 2019, and what is better for a beginner to learn. Read and educate yourself. Let's take a look at each programming language and try to understand which programming languages to learn in 2018.
Javascript
It is one of the most popular programming languages. It has been in first place for several years in a row. The dynamics show that this trend will continue in the future. It is the most cross-platform programming language that allows you to develop desktop, web and mobile applications.
Javascript has many convenient and flexible libraries. Among the most popular is React.js. Angular.js and Vue.js. The latter library is only gaining popularity. Vue has good performance and is one of the easiest to learn. However, it will be difficult for her to reach such a high level of popularity as other libraries. The market has already been split between React and Angular. 
The React library was developed by Facebook. It is one of the most popular javascript based ones. React allows you to develop mobile apps, websites and SPA (single page application). React is significantly easier to learn compared to Angular 2.
Angular is developed by Google and has been undergoing a lot of transformations lately. At first everyone used Angular 1, several years ago Angular 2 was released, which is more productive, more convenient and faster. Google is currently developing Angular 4. It should replace Angular 2 and become the leader among javascript libraries. Let's see what happens. In general, Angular is difficult for beginners and is well suited for developing web applications for large companies. Besides the above libraries, there is a very popular node.js.
It allows you to develop the server side in Javascript. This is the best solution if you want to develop a back-end using js. As you can see, javascript is a universal programming language. Has good flexibility and performance. This is what makes it one of the most popular on our list. I think in the future this trend will keep its dynamics.
SQL
It is a programming language used to manipulate data in a relational database. Knowledge of SQL is a must for database design, which is used by most websites. Whether you like it or not, you need to know the basics of SQL.
Java
Java is very popular in the financial and banking industry. Primarily due to its speed of work and the level of security. Java developers are highly valued in the labor market due to their scarcity. This programming language is quite difficult to learn and not always easy for beginners. Among other things, Android applications are developed in Java. This is the main reason for such a significant popularity of this language. According to Google Trends statistics, the dynamics is going down. Whether it's worth starting to learn this programming language is up to you. 
C #
One of the most advanced and convenient programming languages. It is the primary development language for the Microsoft .NET platform. C # is very similar to Java, but it still has a number of advantages. It should be noted separately that C # is more difficult to learn than Java. This is not the best solution for newbies.
Python
Until recently, PHP was more popular than Python, but now it's safe to say that Python is gaining the trust of young developers. It has a huge number of benefits. First of all, it is laconic and understandable. Thus, Python is a great place to start for aspiring developers. Convenient code structure makes it easy to develop a project and further maintain them. For businesses, this means cost savings. Python is one of the few server-side languages that is showing growth dynamics. 
PHP
The most used programming language for the server side. According to statistics, PHP is used by about 240 million websites. PHP has good flexibility and performance. It can be used for small business sites as well as for large projects with high load. There are many PHP frameworks available. They have good speed and high security. Our company, Merehad, prefers this particular programming language. In our work, we use the Laravel framework for developing large web applications. The main disadvantages are the inability to develop desktop applications and server components. Like most server-side programming languages, it is losing its popularity. 
C ++
One of the most difficult programming languages. It will be difficult for a beginner to figure it out and many try to bypass him. But along with this, C ++ has high performance. It allows you to create applications and programs for almost any purpose.
TypeScript
TypeScript is developed by Microsoft. In a short time, he gained popularity. TypeScript is a flexible and efficient programming language that is based on Javascript. The founders of TypeScript have put in a lot of effort and continue to add new solutions to improve performance and usability. Unsurprisingly, Javascript is trying to implement them. If you're a beginner, it's worth looking into as it will continue to gain traction in 2018. 
Ruby
It is a dynamically imperative object-oriented programming language. It is used in web development in conjunction with the Rails framework. Ruby is a super high level language. It has a simple and clean syntax. Ruby is highly scalable and easy to maintain. Like PHP, it allows you to develop ecommerce platforms. Beginners can start learning the language. The main drawback is poor documentation and slow growth in popularity. 
Swift
The language was developed by Apple and was intended to replace Objective-c. Swift has improved code readability, more features over objective-c, and increased security. It is gaining popularity and is now surpassing objective-c. In my opinion, this programming language has good prospects. 
Objective-C
The language was developed back in the early 90s. It was a symbiosis at the time of the C and Smalltalk programming languages. He was a great success in his time, but gradually began to lose popularity. Swift has replaced this language, but many developers are in no hurry to say goodbye to Objective-c.
The tech sector is booming. If you've used your smartphone or computer at least once in the past few years, you've probably noticed this.
As a result, programming skills are in high demand, and the position of a programmer is paid much higher than any average specialty. Even outside the IT world, knowledge of at least one programming language is a serious plus on a resume.
The relevance of languages differs by area of employment. Financial and corporate systems must be complex and highly organized, requiring languages such as Java or C #. Web pages and programs focused on media and design will need dynamic, generic, functional and non-verbose languages such as Ruby, PHP, JavaScript, and Objective-C.
What it is: An imperative general-purpose language developed in the early 70s, C is the oldest and most widely used language, and other popular languages such as C #, Java, JavaScript, and Python are built on. C is mainly used for writing operating systems and embedded applications.
Since C provides the foundation for many other languages, it is recommended that you learn C (and C ++) before moving on to others.
3. C ++
What it is: C ++ is an object-oriented middle-level language originally designed to enhance the C language. Programs such as Firefox, Winamp, and Adobe products are written in C ++. It is used to develop system and application programs, high-load server and client applications, and video games.
4. C #
What it is: Pronounced "C-Sharp", C # is a multi-paradigm programming language developed by Microsoft as part of their .NET platform. C # is a universal language used for software development for Microsoft and Windows platforms that combines the principles of C and C ++.
5. Objective-C
What it is: Objective-C is a general-purpose object-oriented programming language used by the Apple operating system. It is written on Apple's OS X and iOS, as well as their APIs, and can be used to create applications for the iPhone, which has created a huge demand for this once-outdated programming language.
6. PHP
What it is: PHP (Hypertext Processor) is a free server-side scripting language built for developing dynamic web pages and applications. It can be directly embedded into the HTML source of a document, instead of a separate file, making it a popular programming language among web developers. Over 200 million websites are powered by PHP, including WordPress, Digg and Facebook.
7. Python
What it is: Python is a high-level server-side scripting language for websites and mobile applications. It is generally believed that this is a fairly easy language for beginners, due to its readable and compact syntax, which means that developers can write fewer lines of code to express an idea than they could using other languages. It runs web apps for Instagram, Pinterest and Rdio using the Django framework and is also used by Google, Yahoo! and NASA.
8. Ruby
What it is: A dynamic, object-oriented server-side scripting language for websites and mobile applications. Ruby was designed to be a simple and easy-to-write language. The Ruby on Rails (or Rails) framework is written in it and is used by Scribd, GitHub, Groupon, and Shopify. Like Python, Ruby is seen as a fairly beginner-friendly language.
Software developers are in great demand nowadays. In some companies, even intern programmers are paid high salaries. IT companies are competing with each other for talent.
And the cadres, in turn, are fighting for a place in the sun. The success of those and others will depend on how well they manage to keep their finger on the pulse, be in trend, use promising technologies and programming languages. To understand what to focus on and in which direction to go, software developers and their employers study various studies and popularity ratings - be it business models or the same technologies and programming languages.
However, some players in the IT market turned out to be entrepreneurial and created projects dedicated to ranking and trends. For example, this week GitHub posted its own ranking of the 15 most popular programming languages. Popularity was, of course, measured by the number of pull requests on GitHub over the past year.
GitHub currently has 5.8 million active users, 331,000 organizations, and 19.4 million repositories.
No. 15 - TypeScript:
The language owes its appearance to Microsoft. It is designed as a web application development tool that extends the capabilities of JavaScript. The main developer of the TypeScript language is Anders Hejlsberg, who previously contributed to Turbo Pascal, Delphi and C #. TypeScript 2.0 will be released soon.No. 14 - Swift:
Homemade language - from Apple. It was created for iPhone applications in 2014. However, Swift has managed to gain popularity in such a short time.Taxi service Lyft rewrote its iPhone app in this language and reported a "huge leap forward" in productivity.
More recently, a new Swift Playgrounds app has been released - the easiest way to get to know the Swift language. At least that's what Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software, is sure of.
No. 13 - Scala:
This programming language was released in 2001. Big companies like Airbnb and Apple picked it up. In their opinion, it is easier and faster to write applications for their needs in it, rather than in the boring Java language.Scala, which supports the object-oriented and functional paradigms, was originally designed to translate to Java and .NET bytecode. Over time, the Scala-to-JavaScript translator, Scala.js, also appeared. However, in May 2016 it became known that a compiler was being created within the framework of the Scala Native project, which promises to speed up the execution of applications written in this language.
No. 12 - Objective-C:
The original C was so liked by people that he had followers. In particular, some of them were inspired to create Objective-C, which was released to the public in 1983. Of course, new ideas and elements of the Smalltalk language were added to it, but the letter C crowns its name for a reason.Objective-C is especially widespread among developers for Apple platforms. So far, he holds these positions, but Swift threatens to oust the descendant of C soon.
No. 11 - Shell:
This is the ugly duckling among other members of the list: Shell is not so much a language as an interpreter of commands for performing certain actions in operating systems of the UNIX family. Its scripts are used, for example, to automate software updates. It contains standard constructs for loops, branching, function declarations, and so on.No. 10 - Go:
Developed internally by Google. Initial development for Go began in September 2007, with Robert Grismer, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson leading the way. The language was officially introduced in November 2009.Go was designed as a systems programming language for creating highly efficient programs that run on modern distributed systems and multi-core processors. It can be seen as an attempt to create a replacement for the C language.
During development, special attention was paid to ensure highly efficient compilation. Go programs are compiled to object code (although an interpreter is available) and do not require a virtual machine to run.
No. 9 - C:
This is the language they are now trying to find a replacement for. The C language was developed by Dennis Ritchie in 1972 at Bell Labs. It is the forerunner of programming languages such as C ++, Java, C #, JavaScript, and Perl. For this reason, learning this language leads to understanding other languages as well. The C language is used for developing low-level applications, since it is considered the closest to the hardware language, second only to the assembly language.No. 8 - C #:
C # belongs to the Microsoft family of programming languages and was developed in 2000 and was part of the first release of the .NET framework. The C # language combines the robustness of C ++ with the advanced features of Java. So if you know Java well, you can easily switch to C # and vice versa.The C # language allows you to develop almost any application that is bundled with the Visual Studio IDE.
No. 7 - CSS:
Cascading Style Sheets (cascading style sheets) - a formal language for describing the appearance of a document written using a markup language.It is mainly used as a means of describing, decorating the appearance of web pages written using the markup languages HTML and XHTML, but can also be applied to any XML documents.
No. 6 - C ++:
C lacked object handling. To solve the problem, C ++ was developed in 1986, which is one of the most widely used languages in the world. Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Winamp and the Adobe product line were developed with C ++. In addition, some modern games and operating systems were developed in C ++ due to their fast processing and compilation speed. Also, C ++ developers are in huge demand in the job market.No. 5 - PHP:
PHP is one of the most widely used languages for developing dynamic websites. PHP was developed in 1995 and is a server-side scripting language, which means that PHP code is processed on the server, and the end result is rendered to the user in plain HTML.PHP is an open development language, so thousands of modules have already been written that can be modified to the required functionality.
However, ill-wishers are on the alert: Jeff Atwood. the founder of Stack Exchange, once wrote that PHP is not even a programming language, it is a bunch of unrelated pieces of functionality.
No. 4 - Ruby:
Ruby is a simple and readable programming language focused on developing web applications. Developed by Yukihiro Matsumto in 1995, the Ruby framework has been used to develop Github, Scribd, Yammer, Shopify, and Groupon. Ruby combines some of the capabilities of Lisp, Pearl, and Eiffel. Ruby has a good job market and developers are getting paid well.No. 3 - Python:
Python is another high-level programming language and is often considered the lightest language due to its simplicity, readability, and syntax. Python was developed by Guido Van Rossum in 1991. Python hasn't been used as widely in the past, but has become especially popular in recent years thanks to Google's investment. Nowadays, some very well-known and reliable sites run in python, especially pinterest.com, instagram.com and rdio.com. Like PHP, Python can be used to develop web applications.No. 2 - Java:
Java was developed by James Gosling in 1990 at Sun Microsystems. Java further enhances the capabilities of the C ++ language. The peculiarity of Java is that it is the first purely object-oriented programming language. Java was developed on the principle of WORA (Write Once Run Anywhere or "once you write code, you run it everywhere"). It's about Java portability. You only need to compile the Java source code once and then run it on any machine with a JVM (Java Virtual Machine) installed and then use.No. 1 - JavaScript:
Server-side scripting languages are ideal for developing complex web applications, but each such task puts a heavy load on the server. Therefore, the developers delegated some of the functions to the client side and used JavaScript. JavaScript is a programming language that runs in the client's browser and processes commands on the end user's computer, not the server, resulting in reduced server load and increased application speed. JavaScript was developed by Netscape and there are hardly any sites that don't use it.
The growth in popularity of the language is indicated as a percentage. Its place in the ranking is determined by the number of user pull requests. The rating reflects the popularity of programming languages in repositories.
JavaScript, C #, and Go have seen double audience growth, according to GitHub. And the audience for Swift and TypeScript has grown 3.5 times.
The TIOBE index distributed places a little differently: in the first place was the Java language, followed by C, C ++, C # and Python. And the leader of the GitHub rating here takes only 6th place.
