Programming Language Popularity

These are the top languages used on SourceForge in December 2004:

Projects Language -------- -------- 14200 CeePlusPlus 13862 CeeLanguage 13359 JavaLanguage 9866 PhpLanguage 5523 PerlLanguage 3563 PythonLanguage 2024 JavaScript 2008 CsharpLanguage 1981 VisualBasic 1627 DelphiLanguage/Kylix 1564 UnixShell 1458 AssemblyLanguage 1049 PL/SQL (StructuredQueryLanguage) 832 ToolCommandLanguage 607 ObjectiveCee 512 ActiveServerPages 320 RubyLanguage 305 LispLanguage 302 PascalLanguage 236 ObjectPascal 183 SchemeLanguage

SourceForge, February 2006

17963 Java * 17533 C++ 16536 C 13121 PHP 6333 Perl 4857 Python 3345 C# * 3149 JavaScript 2229 Visual Basic 2021 Delphi/Kylix 1963 Unix Shell 1637 Assembly 1176 PL/SQL 917 Tcl 805 Objective C 533 ASP 457 Ruby 406 VisualBasicDotNet * 378 Pascal 333 Lisp 298 Object Pascal 298 XSL (XsltLanguage/XpathLanguage/XslFormattingObjects) * 289 JavaServerPages * 212 Scheme

(Generated from http://sourceforge.net/softwaremap/trove_list.php?form_cat=160)

SourceForge December 2007

111749 TOTAL 27589 Java 23369 C++ 20031 C 18725 PHP 7520 Python * 7150 Perl 6686 C# 6079 JavaScript 2644 Unix Shell ** 2411 Delphi/Kylix * 2344 Visual Basic 1770 Assembly 1276 PL/SQL 1266 VisualBasicDotNet **** 1087 JavaServerPages ******** 1085 Ruby *** 1032 Objective C * 1018 Tcl 710 XSL (XsltLanguage/XpathLanguage/XslFormattingObjects) **** 661 ASP.NET (AspDotNet) 516 ActionScript ***NEW*** 501 ASP - 485 Pascal 435 LuaLanguage ***NEW*** 414 Object Pascal

These were the top languages used on Freshmeat in March 2003):

4800C 2500Perl 2100C++ 1900Java 1700PHP 950Python 500Unix Shell 250SQL 100Ruby 25C#

These were the top languages used on Freshmeat in December 2004 ( from http://freshmeat.net/browse/160/ ):

ProjectsLanguage ---------------- 6888C 3610Java ** 3421C++ * 3251Perl 2855PHP 1714Python 708Unix Shell 409Tcl 396SQL 393JavaScript 255Objective C 218Other 216Assembly 210Ruby 143C# 118Other Scripting Engines 105Scheme 77Lisp 77PL/SQL 76Delphi 62Fortran

This kind of list was used as evidence that CeePlusPlusReigns.

One should take into account some noise factors in the SourceForge data:

As it uses Sourceforge data, it is biased towards OpenSource projects and not necessarily indicative of popularity in proprietary systems.
It is up to the developers to report their languages. Many projects have none of this metadata.
Many projects report all languages used, of which one is primary and others are used for small amounts of glue. I don't think there were many projects that used primarily AssemblyLanguage, for instance.
Many projects report for which language it is used, rather than which language it was written in. (Example: most of the ForthLanguage projects were actually Forth compilers, not applications written in Forth.)
Many of the projects are VaporWare, MyToyProgram?, or inactive for years (though this list has been culled since 2003).

Very interesting. I am astonished to see JavaScript slightly ahead of DelphiLanguage/Kylix, and more popular than all flavors of Lisp and all other flavors of Pascal combined.

-- DavidCary

In the end, this is only one data point. There are many other ProjectHosts, many language specific. Another measure (Yahoo directory links) is on ProgrammingLanguages.

And http://www.tiobe.com/tpci.htm has popularity trends over time. It uses Google for its data and appears to be aligned to the software job market, rather than the OpenSource community.

The "tpci" seems very unscientific as it uses keyword popularity as the indicator. There is no way to google for "C" without being completely overwhelmed by noise. It is also tainted by the fact that a language may have more "help pages" than a more popular language (but the language with more "help pages" would seem more popular).

None of the above have considered SpreadsheetModel as a ProgrammingLanguage. When I started to explore the MicrosoftExcelProgrammingLanguage, I found there is a huge secondary market related to education, consulting, third party tools. And the demand and pay scale for a good Excel consultant is much better than for the average website developer. I have made the wrong bet on traditional programming languages.

Moved from ProgrammingLanguages:

How to rate ProgrammingLanguagePopularity? Here is one way.

(Note, do not update this page, but use it to benchmark the current results.)

http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/dir/Computers___Internet/Programming_Languages

Rating on Sept 14,2004:

  ActiveX (41) 
  AppleScript (12) 
  Assembly (88) 
  Basic (164) 
  C# (201) 
  COBOL (91) 
  C and C++ (913) 
  Delphi (352) 
  Forth (14) 
  Fortran (11) 
  Java (1631) 
  JavaScript (178) 
  Lisp (21) 
  Object Oriented (219) 
  Pascal (69) 
  Perl (92) 
  Python (49) 
  RPG (146) 
  SQL (244) 
  Tcl Tk (20) 
  Visual Basic (774) 
  QBasic@ (52)

  Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML)@ (46)

VRML is not a programming language - at least not any more than HTML is.

DataAndCodeAreTheSameThing

Here is an attempt to gather data from several sources, while being transparent about the strengths and weaknesses of each one:

http://www.langpop.com

Top languages used in the GoogleCodeJam? qualification round. So these are languages used in the small because people are familiar with them and they are suitable for quick problem solving (one day time limit to solve half a dozen problems).

 Lang20082009201020112012

C++1009416288156912810825705 Java5537671276841123913778 Python23023342435971999413 C12581325186924843445 C#20622048184329583177 Ruby39359562311021217 PHP3484723776001048 Perl575605373566556 Haskell156240406564520 Pascal292378293502431 VB15477112116154

The subsequent rounds after most entrants are eliminated are dominated by C++ (75%), followed by Java and Python.

(From http://www.go-hero.net/jam)

See LanguagesOfChoice, PaulGraham's BeingPopularEssay, ProgrammingLanguageUsageStatistics, TheMostWidelyUsedProgrammingLanguageAtAnyLevel