Most popular programming languages — with a big tumble for Java
TIOBE has published its latest Programming Community Index, which ranks the most popular programming languages based on data from the Internet.
To compile the index, TIOBE uses search engines and online services such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, Wikipedia, Amazon, YouTube and Baidu.
Its data pool includes the number of skilled engineers proficient in particular languages and the number of courses available for a language.
Therefore, it does not make any findings about how good a programming language is or which language has been used to write the most code.
The October 2023 index showed that Python remained the most popular programming language — with a 14.82% rating, followed by C with 12.08%.
However, both of these dominating languages saw a decline in their ratings from the previous month — with Python down 2.25% and C dropping 3.13%.
Java also dropped out of the top 3 with a new rating of 8.92%, down 3.92 percentage points from its previous rating.
It was replaced by C++, which gained 0.74% to reach a 10.67% rating.
C# poised to pass Java
TIOBE Software CEO Paul Jansen pointed out that Java also had C# breathing down its neck.
“The gap between C# and Java never has been so small,” TIOBE said.
“Currently, the difference is only 1.2%, and if the trends remain this way, C# will surpass Java in about two month’s time.”
The table below shows the top 20 most popular programming languages in October 2023, according to the TIOBE Programming Community Index.
Top 20 programming languages in the TIOBE Programming Community Index for October 2023
Java and C# have been used in similar domains and have been competing for over two decades.
Jansen ascribed Java’s plummeting popularity decline primarily to Oracle’s decision to introduce a paid licence model for the programming language after Java 8.
Microsoft took the opposite approach with C# after previously only offering it as part of its commercial software Visual Studio.
“Nowadays, C# is free and open source and it’s embraced by many developers,” Jansen stated.
In addition to the paid model being a deterrent, the Java language definition has not changed much in the past few years.
Kotlin, its fully compatible direct competitor, is also easier to use and free of charge.
Java was the most popular programming language on the TIOBE index for several years, only conceding to C in certain months up to the start of 2020.
At one point, it held a share of over 25% of the community’s programming languages.
Its rapid decline in recent years could be partially attributed to Android switching its preferred app development programming language from Java to Kotlin in May 2019.
The graph below shows how the popularity of programming languages shifted on the TIOBE Programming Community Index over the past two decades.
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