2017’s Top 10 Programming Languages: Python Ranks No. 1

Megalith

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IEEE Spectrum released their fourth interactive ranking of programming languages this week, and Python has earned the top spot, nudging out C and Java, which took second and third place respectively. Ruby has dropped out of the list completely, while Swift has entered at tenth place.

Python has continued its upward trajectory from last year and jumped two places to the No. 1 slot, though the top four—Python, C, Java, and C++—all remain very close in popularity. Indeed, in Diakopoulos’s analysis of what the underlying metrics have to say about the languages currently in demand by recruiting companies, C comes out ahead of Python by a good margin.
 
My six year old is learning some python soon. Getting him into Linux right now with his raspberry pi.. I'm sure the pi has helped with it's popularity.
 
my 6 yr old and 9 year old have been learning scratch on rpi's at school, now are bugging me to help them learn python. i thinks whats rpi peeps have done to encourage education is brilliant.
massive difference from the 90s when i went to school and wanted to learn programing in the end blitz basic on the amiga was my way out but i had to teach my self.
 
Which sounds like a "performance critical" component, which means naib already covered that.

Well gosh you just got me in the corner now. I asked to be shown an engine made out of plastic and you are saying that because the intake manifold is plastic you have met the requirements. The point is, saying one language is superior to other languages is not useful. Likewise there is no one speaking language that is better then all the rest, there are languages that are more popular or more practical, but it's not because they are better in absolute terms. Ask people which is better Python or C, and the debate is not going to start with memory cleanup or syntax, it's going to start with "Well, what are you trying to do?"
 
Python....when scripting languages are called programming languages...smh.
 
It is impressive how long C and C++ have stayed relevant.

Not really... how else are you going to do any high performance, optimized, "low level"(i.e. Hardware specific) programming at a reasonable abstraction layer?
Maybe functional languages can provide an even higher abstraction layer with similar performance in the future (due to ridiculous compiler efficiency potential). But then try teaching all these webdev js/jq/ruby kiddies how to follow the functional programming paradigm :p

Fwiw, I program mostly in C, C++, and Python depending on what I am doing (sometimes a mix)
 
It is impressive how long C and C++ have stayed relevant.

Why wouldn't it be relevant? What are these other "languages" written in? C/C++. Even Java is a derivative of C/C++. Most of these other programs are nowhere near as efficient or flexible as C/C++ either. Linux, Windows, and MacOS kernels are all written in C/C++ and assembly. Not sure how much more "relevant" you can get.

Where I currently work, they are shifting away from all the JAVA/Python and going back to C++. The sad this is they are finding a lot of programmers graduating from universities in the last ~10 years really lack any C++ core fundamentals, much less advanced algorithms and mostly were only taught JAVA.
 
Academics love Python and the IEEE is largely a academic type organization. I would think there would be different results if the entire population of devs were randomly surveyed.

EDIT: Also, Python was the first language I learned. Also, I now hate writing python.
 
Well gosh you just got me in the corner now. I asked to be shown an engine made out of plastic and you are saying that because the intake manifold is plastic you have met the requirements.

Bad analogy is bad, unless your idea of a game is one of those anime pron "novels" that have been clogging up Steam leately, 3D is a central and performance critical component in games.

In fact, it's the most important, as it's the system that displays feedback to the player.

The point is, saying one language is superior to other languages is not useful. Likewise there is no one speaking language that is better then all the rest, there are languages that are more popular or more practical, but it's not because they are better in absolute terms. Ask people which is better Python or C, and the debate is not going to start with memory cleanup or syntax, it's going to start with "Well, what are you trying to do?"

The whole reason why there are so many languages is because each one works well for at least one type of situation while being worse at others.

There absolutely are better or worse languages for a given problem. Interpreted languages like Python or Java are not good solutions for real-time 3D graphics, and not real-time components in general. You can make it work, but you can also drive a nail with a screwdriver given enough time.
 
Where I currently work, they are shifting away from all the JAVA/Python and going back to C++.

Is this for binary purposes? How well does C++ handle Regular Expression? I think at this point nearly all languages handle regex (some retrofitted)? For data handling, I can't imagine life without solid regex, but for binary stuff it probably isn't as big a deal.
 
Which one should I learn first. Python, C or Swift?

I want to build native apps. I need to move on from building just websites. I'm leaning towards Swift.
 
Which one should I learn first. Python, C or Swift?

I want to build native apps. I need to move on from building just websites. I'm leaning towards Swift.

Mac user? Python is a good overall language for getting stuff done quickly. C is the exact opposite. It gives you vastly more freedom, but has a ton of pitfalls, and can get beginners in trouble really quickly. Swift is somewhere in between. As far as native Mac apps, you still have Objective C which XCode supports. It's on it's way out, but it's there, and transitioning from C to Objective C or vice versa isn't too bad.
 
Mac user? Python is a good overall language for getting stuff done quickly. C is the exact opposite. It gives you vastly more freedom, but has a ton of pitfalls, and can get beginners in trouble really quickly. Swift is somewhere in between. As far as native Mac apps, you still have Objective C which XCode supports. It's on it's way out, but it's there, and transitioning from C to Objective C or vice versa isn't too bad.
Yeah I just read Objective C is being replaced with Swift. And Python as you pointed out is good to learn also.
I have to get out of just doing web. The larger projects are looking for apps to complement their website.
 
Without knowing from where the data was gleaned it's hard to say with any accuracy that python is truly on top. Where I work in the backend/REST world python (3.+) has a place for producing testable production code quickly (as well as node.js). You have to have developers that can effectively leverage python threading + async and it's a pretty decent solution that scales well.
 
Is this for binary purposes? How well does C++ handle Regular Expression? I think at this point nearly all languages handle regex (some retrofitted)? For data handling, I can't imagine life without solid regex, but for binary stuff it probably isn't as big a deal.

It is because C/C++ handles memory and resources far better than Java or interpretive languages. When you are building complex systems that need to run a ton of different apps but need to fit into a small space, you need to squeeze every last drop of resources out of the system you are using. Java doesn't let you do that, but C/C++ does.
 
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