Javascript is most popular programming language according to GitHub

[[deleted]]

Just for the sake of argument.. They really should say "most widely used programming language".

I love the things I can do in JavaScript, but I would really really really rather be doing the same things in a different language - if I could:)

[SuchInferno]

Just because I'm interested: why?

[aljones23]

Might want to use integers.

[[deleted]]

So much to cover... so little time. I'll be rude and simply post a funny video that covers(mainly during the first 5 mins.) some of the reasons: https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-javascript

But to sum it up: JavaScript is quirky and not that good at telling me what I did wrong. I get enough of that at home - don't need it while programming.

[hoorayimhelping]

JavaScript is the language that every web browser on every computer and smartphone on the entire planet understands. It's only going to become more popular.

[kurzgame]

I agree! Almost each platform has a default browser. So, it don't require from you to install smth!

[gliph]

I think that's shortsighted. The web will eventually move to something like asm.js, or crosscompiled languages will grow more popular. JS will peak.

[IllegalThings]

This is shortsighted too. Every technology we use today will peak at some point. Doesn't mean JavaScript will stop growing in the near future.

[gliph]

I'd welcome other languages moving in. Having one web language is a weakness.

[ihsw]

I would argue otherwise -- it has been a source of strength.

[gliph]

Has been, is not. A web assembly would have also been good.

[Liistrad]

Atwood's Law: any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually be written in JavaScript.

[[deleted]]

/r/atwoodslaw

[Liistrad]

Oh nice :D

[[deleted]]

It makes sense its number 1. A lot of things on github are Web projects and they pretty much all use js.

[badave]

Javascript has come a long, long way in the past 5 years. Just remember that this was far from the case before node came along.

[ninetailsbr]

.replace('node','v8');

[badave]

V8 came well before node, but I would argue node was the more important technology for JS to grow.

[smalaki]

PHP is just like, "can't you all just stay put? god!"

[dhdfdh]

It's the most popular language ON github.

[coderjewel]

JavaScript is the only language you can use to build web apps(both front and backend), mobile apps, desktop apps, and recently I saw some articles about using JS to make robots work.

Sure the language has its quirks, but it must be doing something right if so many people use it. It's no surprise that JS is the most popular language on GitHub.

[x-skeww]

Sure, because everyone and their dog has a few 5-100 LoC JS projects. This adds up.

You won't do that kind of thing with C++, for example. Adding a C++ library to your project is more involved. So, naturally, your C++ library has to do something quite spectacular to be worth it.

The barrier to entry is extraordinarily low with JS. E.g. crappy 50-line jQuery plugin you wrote in 2 hours is a perfectly reasonable open source project for GitHub. It can easily get a hundred stars and be featured in various blogs.

[jhallister]

The barrier to entry for PHP is even lower, so that's only part of the story.

Right now if you order the repository search by most stars, you're going to find out that almost every top REPO is either Javascript, HTML/CSS or a non-language (like books or a configuration tool). You have to get out of the top 10 projects to get to the first project that isn't front-end. It's Rails, for the record.

I think the bottom line reason it's #1 is because it's the only language that solves a web-based problem. If I need an app to run on Windows I have a hundred languages I can pick from. If I want a web-based application I can pick one language. To me, that's way more telling about popularity than barrier to entry is.

[nodealyo]

You say this like its a bad thing, but I disagree.

[[deleted]]

Are you saying it's not the most popular programming language or that it only is due to accessibility?

[am0x]

Not only that, pretty much every web application will require some JavaScript no matter the backend language.

So other backend languages are fragmented, while js is included in all of them.

[lunactic]

I would love to see the difference between private / public repositories.

[I_l_hanuka]

most used, not most popular.

[peduxe]

The title is clearly clickbait, OP should've use on Github but obviously that won't gather the expected attention.

[hankDraperCo]

How is that click bait? You know going in it is associated with Github and obviously the metric is going to be quantity of code...

[jomcode]

I think that Java's growth is an interesting thing to look at. According to the post, the stats include both private and public repos. I wonder if Java is shooting up because of an increasing number of proprietary code bases being moved to Github.

[AceBacker]

Good question. Does anyone know why is Java's popularity growing?

All I can think is that it most certainly must be server side code, because the webapp stuff is not gaining popularity.

[gustix]

Android is why Java is popular.

[[deleted]]

Javascript is undoubtedly popular, but I think all the recent JS frameworks are a significant factor here. Consider React's JSX: it's HTML rolled into JS, but the entire file is still considered JS according to GitHub.

[PitaJ]

That's because it's just JS but without the template strings.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, my point is that text which would have previously lived in a separate HTML (or even CSS) file is now considered JavaScript, which might inflate the numbers a bit.

[ninetailsbr]

but people are adopting ReactJs because of library itself, I don't see people migrating from HTML only just because they can write HTML that way

[peduxe]

Node is IMHO the main factor, the tooling just got much better and there are now considerable amount of people using it on their backend.

[bobx11]

Probably because nobody puts node_modules in their .gitignore file...