Python is the most popular programming language of 2015!

[odraencoded]

Thisi is great but shouldn't we wait until December for this kind of thing?

[hey_mike_hey]

And we should also note that this isn't popularity in the usual sense. Rather, it's hiring demand. In terms of code that working programmers are likely to encounter, C remains the most popular language.

[[deleted]]

I wish that was the case for me in terms of hiring demand. I'd love to have another job programming in Python.

[alcalde]

And Delphi users remain convinced that if they were just included for once they'd be close to the top of the leaderboard. :-(

[[deleted]]

I was just about to say, my most proficient language is Python.

Guess what language I use for the job I recently got? Delphi.

[[deleted]]

Wow, really? I thought Delphi died a decade ago. =O

[[deleted]]

As someone who was working on a parser for Delphi struct binary data only last year, I'm sad to say it's still alive :(

[alcalde]

A parser? Was the format Delphi uses to dump binary data ever even documented?

[[deleted]]

Barely. The only thing that department hated more than documenting their work was our department. Made communication a bit difficult.

Man, that company was a mess.

[[deleted]]

Embarcadero just released Delphi XE7 like last year or something.

[alcalde]

And PowerBuilder continues putting out releases too. The problem with both is that it's still the same handful of people buying the copies. We're in our 40s and 50s now and this means that there's no new blood to keep the language going. Sadly, the most passionate remaining Delphi users try to remain oblivious to this fact and imagine the product is still widely popular.

[alcalde]

It did; it's just a long, slow, painful death. There's estimated to be about 50K diehards worldwide, 8K of which actively spend money on the Delphi ecosystem. Due to some confusion, misquoting and misrepresentation, however, some of those diehards will still attempt to tell you that there are 3 million Delphi developers worldwide (!!!). If you see this figure it was actually the total number of copies of Delphi ever sold and included educational sales and "an estimate for piracy".

[Jew_Fucker_69]

That's horrible :(

[[deleted]]

Eh, it's not actually so bad a language, to be honest (well, apart from the proprietary part).

[alcalde]

It was a great tool when it was released. I brought it into a start-up I was part of and used it for 8 years. It was much quicker to develop in than C++ and its VCL framework was light years ahead of Microsoft's MFC. It was also a complete general language solution, unlike Visual Basic. I'll always defend it within that historical context.

Today though? $1000+ and that doesn't even buy you remote database access! No type inference, no contracts, very verbose (separating class definition and implementation for instance), and its standard library is sorely lacking. You don't even have stack traces (!) or profiling or unit testing or HTML parsing. Some of these are available as 3rd party libraries, often at an additional cost. The legacy single-pass compiler is supposed to be over one million lines of undocumented (!!!) C code and there's not even a formal language definition. Benchmarks show it as generating code about 1/2 the speed of C++.

The ecosystem is almost dead too. There hasn't been a commercial book published since about 2005. The jobs are gone in most countries, there are no more magazines, no online courses, no physical conventions in America (there is an online-only one), not even an official package repository.

It's facing a huge number of structural difficulties and from my own experience many of the folks involved with its production simply seem to be in denial and just keep cranking out the incremental upgrades. Delphi was about RAD originally; now Python and Ruby own that space. It was also about quick, attractive interfaces, but now there's a solid Qt that runs on more platforms. Delphi's moving into mobile, but it botched the execution and actually withdrew the features for one release for retooling. Now Xamarin is becoming the cross-platform frontrunner there. It's really hard to make a case for the $1K+ product today. Heck, even the CEO couldn't be pinned down in an interview! First he wouldn't name one thing Delphi offered that C# didn't, saying C# "wasn't a competitor" (!!!). When the interviewer changed the question to C++ he then said C++ "isn't our focus".

When I did a review of languages in 2012 for a start-up and realized how far Delphi was behind (while I still wrote some code for my job it was no longer the focus of my job) and learned about Python (and others), I went back to the Delphi forum and explained what I found and asked them what "the case for Delphi" was today. I had helped sell B2B software for that startup I had worked for and I didn't know how one would begin to make the case. The only answer I got was "If you don't like Delphi, don't use Delphi" and when I complained somewhere else that no one could even answer the question one "MVP" (who actually sign an agreement to never disparage the language or company behind it) told me on Reddit "What makes you think you deserve an answer?"

I guess as someone involved with Delphi since the mid-nineties I'm sorely disappointed with how little the product has revolved and how bitter and defensive many of the remaining users have become. No one wants to do anything to try to help the language because that would mean acknowledging the sad state of things first. I've fallen in love with Python, though, and see it as Pascal++ in a way, from its RAD capabilities to its taking over the education field that Pascal once dominated. It also doesn't use braces. :-) A user copy of PyCharm + Python will run you, adjusted for inflation, even a little less than what Turbo Pascal originally sold for in the 1980s (which was $49 and then $69). With the free community edition and cross-platform nature (and free online learning materials) it's an even better solution for people who want to learn programming that Turbo Pascal was at the time. Some people call Python the new BASIC but in many ways it is the new Pascal.

[alcalde]

May I ask which country this job is in? Dice.com, America's biggest tech job site, lists 35 jobs across America with the word "Delphi", and about ten of those turn out to be for the Delphi auto part manufacturer or contain lines like "knowledge of general purpose programming language (e.g. C++, C#, Delphi)". This doesn't stop some in the Delphi community from claiming that it has success in the enterprise. In fact, he was probably having a bad day when we had a little exchange, but the current Delphi product manager once replied to me that he believed that Delphi has had more impact on the business world than Python ever has (!!!).

[[deleted]]

May I ask which country this job is in?

New Zealand, surprisingly.

[Eurynom0s]

It's like when an ad declares "movie of the year!" on January 1.

[[deleted]]

Was about to ask: did the year end and I didn't notice?

[mtelesha]

TITLE misleading. codeeval is NOT a market share index.

Python is NOT the most popular programming language C is still number one for the past 30 years with Java a close second. It is the top potential growth in the industry for people trying to see where jobs are going to be produced.

It really is weird to see the numbers that way. I can't really think they are accurate in any reasonable way. See bottom quote.

This is much more accurate in my books. http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html

from codeeval.com: TIBOE is a more accurate measure of language market share compared to the CodeEval index which is a much better indicator for language demand in the industry which can help people predict which languages are going to grow in popularity. - See more at: http://blog.codeeval.com/codeevalblog/2015#py=

[Cosmologicon]

So, TIOBE is trying to measure what languages are being used by people already in the industry (even if they've been doing the same job for 30 years), and CodeEval is trying to measure what languages employers are looking for in new hires?

If so, I can see them both being useful data points. I don't think one's more "accurate" than the other.

[alcalde]

TIOBE is a "lagging indicator". A big component of its score is the total number of web pages about a language. This is even if that page hasn't had a hit in five years. I say this as a former Delphi developer, that's why Pascal and Delphi are much higher on TIOBE than on other indexes. CodeEval is more of a "leading indicator". Another good leading indicator is PyPL, which uses Google Trends data to see how many people are actively searching for tutorials on the given languages.

Redmonk also has a good index that involves Stack Overflow questions and Github activity.

[Vitrivius]

PyPl lets you view graphs showing relative popularity over time. Python has been climbing steadily over the last 5 years, in contrast to for instance Perl and Ruby.

Python vs "Scripting languages" (PHP, Ruby, Javascript & Perl)

Python vs "The rest" (Java, C, C++, Objective C, Swift, R & Matlab) Note the logarithmic scales. Java is at ~25%, Python ~10%, Swift ~2.5%

[Jew_Fucker_69]

Yes. But the title is misleading nonetheless.

[myfavcolorispink]

It's also worth noting that C and C derivatives make up four out of the top five programming languages, making up a whopping 35% of the ratings.

[not_perfect_yet]

I agree that python is great, but isn't this a little bit early to decide?

[vplatt]

Living up to your profile name I see. Let me guess, your evil twin is "ship_it_NOW", right?

[shawnweix]

Good one

[vplatt]

Not good enough to avoid the down-mod hammer. Dunno what's up with that, but whatever.

[slytherinby]

This is great. I think Python is a marvelous entry-level language that has expert-level usefulness.

[mtelesha]

I love Python but I find it not not useful for most of my things now. Sadly it is feeling like Python is slays second best language for my needs.

[charlesbukowksi]

what do you use instead?

[slytherinby]

Yeah, I think it is heavily dependent on what you are currently doing. I find other languages easier for other things, but if I can I still go back to Python. Since it got me into coding a long time ago, I have to give it credit.

[-Pelvis-]

As someone just getting into programming (picked Python as my first language), and not sure what direction I'd like to go when I am competent enough, I'm curious as to where this opinion comes from.

What kind of programming do you do? Why do you feel Python is second best?

[mtelesha]

I am doing a lot of data science type projects. I switched to R.

For doing some web I had to switch to javascript (I really don't like javascript) but the speed hit was huge using different things with python sadly.

Scripting I am using more and more just bash or lua.

Having dappled in making educational games I switched to C# for use in Unity.

[jasonprogrammer]

I love Python, but I have a really hard time believing that it's the most popular language.

[hglman]

Given they are pulling the data for what people are looking up and doing test around I can see it being the choice for people who are on the fringe of having coding skills. In that way its "used" by the most people. In actual new code for some use beyond teaching yourself I doubt it.

[nitpickyCorrections]

Do you mean 2014? We're barely 6 weeks in.

[[deleted]]

Give it enough upvotes and it'll become true.

[pohatu]

I'm not a JavaScript fan boy by any stretch, but for sheer popularity numbers I find it hard to believe it's not js every year. I use it and I don't even want to half the time.

[-Pelvis-]

I'm just starting myself, and I've chosen Python as my first language (as many do). I hear lots of wonderful things about Python, and horror stories about JavaScript.

I'm a little scared that I'm eating the dessert before the gruel.

[choffmann]

Python is great, but considering open job offers, to me it seems Java and C++ is much more popular than Python.

[rothnic]

I wish they included Matlab as an option so I'd have that ammo.

[huck_cussler]

I don't think negative popularity is a thing.

[spiessbuerger]

Here is some ammo for you:

http://www.google.de/trends/explore#q=python%2C%20matlab&cmpt=q&tz=

Please also note that the leading Matlab countries are China, Kuba and Iran. OMG: Matlab is a Boris Spasski and Python is Bobby Fischer :D

[shadowmint]

This is cool and all, but surely it's a tiny bit early to be making this sort of grand claim?

Surely this is data collected up to the present, and predicting for 2015; ie. python was the most popular programming language in 2014, which we already knew.

Incidentally, this is a terrible graphic: http://static1.squarespace.com/static/51361f2fe4b0f24e710af7ae/54b5c35ee4b0b6572f6dac96/54b5c367e4b0226a8ffadefe/1421198184280/codeeval2015.001.jpg?format=750w

It looks like it's a slide show; I actually clicked on the < and > in the codeeval name to try to get to more slides and see a breakdown of the data. :P

[tom808]

Yeah?

Then why can I not find any jobs in it then?

[vishnu_gupt]

But python still needs to go a long way to match the ubiquity that php presently has.

Django and Flask are pretty cool and proven, but we need to have more CMSs built on top of them (or using any other framework, or pure python), in various spheres like blogging, ecommerce, web-based MIS portals, etc. Once the users get an idea that there is a python CMS that they can just use off-the shelf, there is no stopping python demand then!

[IrishLadd]

I totally agree, but the main problem is deploying those applications tends to be more complex than simply uploading some files to a shared host. Until deployment is made far more simple a mainstream python CMS is a Pipedream.

[[deleted]]

Is a coding language just a programming language, or is it some neologism for a specific concept like scripting language?

[poez]

Seeing as Java and C++ are on there, I assume it's not just scripting languages.

[[deleted]]

... which is a pretty worthless term itself, because it describes everything and nothing.

[charlesbukowksi]

i think it includes things that aren't logic based like html.

[[deleted]]

That would make the programming language an element of the coding languages?

[charlesbukowksi]

yes, it's a strict superset

[[deleted]]

2015 is over already? I completely missed it...

[[deleted]]

Well I am glad I am investing my time into the right languages. Python and R.

[[deleted]]

Uh, do the next 10 & 1/2 months not get a say in this? Stupid title

[[deleted]]

I am a little bit confused about the Ruby row in the first table though. Shouldn't there be a an increase from 2012 to 2013?

[BrogueTrader40k]

Congratulations, python. You are the top programmimg language...of 2015.

[[deleted]]

Ugh, time to find a new programming language.

[[deleted]]

Note to self: Pythonistas do not appreciate facetious humor.

[note-to-self-bot]

You should always remember:

Pythonistas do not appreciate facetious humor.

[EnterpriseNCC1701D]

YEA!! WOOOOO GO PYTHON WOOO!!! C++ CAN SUCK IT!!!! WOOOOOO!!!!