What’s the Best Programming Language to Learn in 2015?

There are a number of data sources including code repositories, Q&A discussions, job advertisements, social media mentions, tutorial page visits, learning video views, developer surveys and more. Data is published at different times, none can be considered accurate and all have flaws — but they can be useful for spotting industry trends.

GitHut

GitHut is a relatively new resource which analyzes 2.2 million active repositories on GitHub. The top ten:

1. JavaScript
2. Java
3. Python
4. CSS
5. PHP
6. Ruby
7. C++
8. C
9. Shell
10. C#

Source:Githut

RedMonk

RedMonk’s language ranking for 2015 determines popularity by analyzing activity on both GitHub and StackOverflow. Their results:

1. Javascript
2. Java
3. PHP
4. Python
5. C#
6. C++
7. Ruby
8. CSS
9. C
10. Objective C

Credit:Redmonk

Jobs Tractor

Jobs Tractor language trends analyzes many thousands of job postings on Twitter. The latest figures from September 2014:

1. Java
2. Objective C
3. PHP
4. SQL
5. Java(android)
6. C#
7. JavaScript
8. Python
9. Ruby
10. C++

TIOBE Index

The TIOBE Index rates languages on the number of skilled engineers, courses and search engine rankings.

1. C
2. Java
3. C++
4. Objective C
5. C#
6. Javascript
7. PHP
8. Python
9. VisualBasic.Net
10. VisualBasic

 Completely Unscientific Meta-Survey Ranking

If we combine these four surveys, we arrive at this result:

1. Java
2. JavaScript
3. PHP
4. Python
5. C/C++
6. C#
7. Objective C
8. Ruby
9. Visual Basic

I combined C and C++ and ignored CSS and shell scripting. CSS isn’t a programming language as such although preprocessors come close. Shell scripts are useful regardless of whatever technologies you adopt but you won’t find jobs where it’s the only language you need.

Educational resources are likely to affect results. For example, Python is commonly used to learn programming in schools and colleges. Many thousands of students are asking questions and completing projects but, in my experience, Python jobs are rare compared to PHP or Ruby despite it being higher in several charts. Java has a similar advantage since it has a variety of uses in education, web, desktop and mobile development.

Demand for native app developers remains high especially in the job-related surveys. RedMonk reports that Swift jumped 46 places to number 22 in less than six months. However, app development is a young discipline. There are far more job vacancies in web and desktop programming but they are easier to fill so adverts are possibly removed sooner.

There is no “best” language

Few developers have the luxury (or tedium?) of working with a single technology.

If you’re considering client-side JavaScript, you won’t get far without a solid understanding of HTML, CSS, image formats, tools and browser quirks. Server-side NodeJS, PHP, Ruby, .NET and Java developers normally require an understanding of web servers, HTTP, SQL/NoSQL databases and data-exchange formats such as XML and JSON. Even those writing a basic native mobile or desktop app on a single platform require web connectivity, data store, IDE and build tool experience.

The more technologies you know, the more you need to know.