IEEE Spectrum's new programming language rating turned out to be unique

To give arguments in a debate about which programming language is more popular, discussion participants often refer to various studies. It is good that the number of such studies has been growing lately - choose any.

But what if, with the growth of all kinds of indices, lists and ratings, the disputes between the researchers themselves will intensify? What will they refer to in their argument?

The IEEE Spectrum magazine presented to the public the fruit of collective work - a new ranking of programming languages.

The permanent leaders of the rating did not fall from the podium, but still there were some surprises.
According to the publication, the researchers did not have the opportunity to “look over each programmer’s shoulder” and see what language he uses. So they went a different way: exploring chat rooms, the open source community, and job postings. The ranking also takes into account search results on Google, Twitter, GitHub, Stack Overflow, Reddit, Hacker News, CareerBuilder, Dice. In addition, the rating reflects the data of its own digital library, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) - Xplore Digital Library.

In 2016, C became the most popular programming language according to IEEE Spectrum: after two years in second place, it finally superseded Java. It is followed by Java, Python, C ++ and R. If C and Java just swapped, then the jump of the R language to 5th place is a surprise. As a result, a seemingly more popular language - C # fell out of TOP-5.



Active dissemination of R is associated with the trend of big data. With the penetration of IT systems in all spheres of human activity, the volume of all kinds of data exponentially grows: about us, our personal lives, machines, companies, customers, processes and so on. According to IDC estimates, by 2020, the global volume of digital information will increase by 10 times and reach 44 zettabytes. To store and analyze such volumes of data, new IT tools are created and sometimes programming languages ​​that are not familiar to us are used.

R is a universal programming language designed for applications in areas such as data exploration, classic statistical tests, and high-level graphics. Thanks to its vast and continuously expanding library of packages, the R language occupies a leading position in statistics and in data mining. The R language has been integrated into a number of commercial packages, such as IBM SPSS and InfoSphere, as well as Mathematica.

Initially, R was developed by Ross Ihaka, a faculty of statistics at Auckland University, and Robert Gentleman, the first letter of their names — R.

R is available under the GNU GPL.

In 2010, R entered the list of winners of the Infoworld magazine contest in the nomination for the best open source software for application development.

In fairness, we recall that the TIOBE index put this language only on the 17th position.



Python bypassed C ++ and took 3rd place. In the TIOBE index, it also rose, but by 4, shifting the long-suffering C # one position down.

The Swift programming language (from Apple) immediately crossed five lines and moved to 11th position. He first appeared in the IEEE Spectrum ranking in 2015. It could rise even higher, but the Go language (from Google) has maintained its position and closes the top 10 leaders. Although last year Go took 13th place.



On the 12th and 13th place in the ranking are Arduino and Assembler. True, Arduino is not a programming language - it is a platform for the development of electronic devices. But it shows significant growth - by as many as five positions year on year.

Shell lost many adherents and eight places at once. It has become even less popular than Perl and Visual Basic.

IEEE researchers put Visual Basic in 18th place, and in TIOBE they believe that it should be in 8th.

The top 20 also includes HTML, Matlab, Scala, and Objective-C. Researchers write that some people were extremely pessimistic about HTML. However, the markup language has not lost a high position.



Fortran, Delphi and D close the 30th with dignity. Although the TIOBE index put Delphi in 12th place.

IEEE Spectrum has been ranked for the third year in a row. This year, in the list of the most popular programming languages ​​according to IEEE, not a single new (compared to last year) language has appeared.

IEEE Spectrum is a monthly magazine. Its publisher is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Wikipedia provides an official description of the magazine:

“The IEEE Spectrum Magazine, the flagship publication of IEEE, explores the development, application, and consequences of introducing new technologies. It anticipates trends in engineering, science and technology, and also serves as a forum for understanding, discussion and leadership in these areas. ”

The TIOBE index, unlike the IEEE Spectrum, puts Java in first place and C in second.



Let someone say that C is out of date, that its wide distribution is a consequence of good luck and active PR. Let someone say that without UNIX, C would never have been created.

However, C has become a kind of standard. One way or another, it has passed the test of time, unlike many other languages. C-developers are still in demand, and the IT community recalls the creators of the language with a kind word.