IT Skills: Top 10 Programming Languages for 2023
If you’re working in enterprise IT (or looking for a job), you probably need to know at least one of these programming languages.
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If you asked a group of 100 developers which is the best programming language, chances are good that most of them would give you a variation on the same answer: It depends.
There is no one perfect programming language that is best for every situation. If you want to develop a web application, you’ll probably use a different language than if you were developing a mobile application. Teams creating video games for consoles write in different languages than teams writing database driven, B2B software. Data scientists use different tools than application developers who use different tools that DevOps experts writing automation scripts.
So, if you’re wondering which programming language you should learn in order to get a new job, you probably first need to ask yourself what kind of job you want to have.
That said, lists that rank the top programming languages aren’t completely worthless. They offer an overview of where technology markets -- and technology jobs -- are heading. A whole host of organizations publish lists of the top programming languages based on different criteria.
While it has been a couple years since InformationWeek has published a language ranking, the 2023 list draws from many of the same sources as in previous years:
The Tiobe Index -- One of the most well-known lists of languages, this monthly ranking orders languages based on how often people search from them on 25 different search engines.
The PYPL Popularity of Programming Languages Index -- Also a monthly list, PYPL uses similar criteria but relies only on Google searches for coding tutorials.
RedMonk Programming Language Rankings -- Updated twice a year, this rating relies on an analysis of GitHub repositories and Stack Overflow discussions.
Github Octoverse -- Developers of all kinds rely on Github to manage their codebase, and this annual report examines which languages appear most often in Github repositories.
Stack Overflow -- Very popular with developers, this website surveys users to find out which languages they love, hate, and use.
Indeed.com -- This job search site bases its list on which languages appear most often in its job postings.
Coding Dojo -- Similarly, this bootcamp also bases its ratings on employment opportunities.
Combining and comparing all these different sources results in a more comprehensive view than any one source provides on its own. The slides that follow highlight the 10 languages that scored the best across the most recent rankings from all these sources.
Rank in 2021: 7
Despite falling a few spots in information week’s 2021 list, R was still highly ranked on both the Tiobe and PYPL lists. On the Tiobe list it actually went up from 2021, increasing from 16 to 12, while on the PYPL list it held steady at No. 7. R fell in this year’s list mainly because Coding Dojo left it off their list after ranking it highly in 2021.
Unlike most of the other programming languages on this list, R is not a general-purpose language, rather it was designed to excel at a few specific tasks, particularly statistical analysis, data mining, and data visualization. For this reason, R is widely used among data professionals, and it continues to be popular as the data science field grows.
Rank in 2021: 8
Swift held steady in the rankings at No. 8, the exact same position it occupied in 2021. Interestingly, Swift also kept the exact same ranking as 2021 in both the Tiobe and PYPL lists where it again ranked 15th and ninth respectively.
Swifts’ consistency owes to the fact that it has established itself as the language of choice for developing apps on iOS and macOS operating systems, while remaining fairly uncommon outside of Apple platforms. Apple created Swift in 2014 to be a faster, more reliable, and easier to use replacement for Objective C, and it has since become developers’ preferred language to develop apps for the iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and Apple Watch. Swift also supports Linux, Windows, and Android, but is rarely used on any non-Apple platform.
Rank in 2021: 11
TypeScript fell just outside the top 10 in InformationWeek’s previous list. However, its continued growth in popularity has earned it a spot in this year’s rankings. Currently, TypeScript sits in the top 10 in almost all lists, and it would surely be higher if not for being ranked No. 43 on the Tiobe index.
TypeScript describes itself on its website as “JavaScript with syntax for types.” It is an open-source language designed to make JavaScript development more efficient by introducing optimal types and enabling the implementation of planned features of future JavaScript. Developers like TypeScript because it makes it much easier to work with JavaScript.
Rank in 2021: 9
Go went up two spots in this year’s rankings. It was ranked 11th in both the Tiobe and PYPL lists, up from 14th in 2021.
Go is a multi-purpose programming language designed by Google and introduced to the public in 2012. Like Swift, it was originally designed to be a more efficient alternative to the C-based language that the company was currently using. Its remarkable speed and convenience made it popular among developers and it has since been used in a wide variety of different contexts, including cloud services, cybersecurity, gaming, data science, artificial intelligence, and many others.
Rank in 2021: 6
This year PHP held exactly the same ranking as it did last year. Of the lists included, RedMonk again gave PHP the highest ranking among the lists putting it at No. 4. While PHP is widely used, it fell outside the top 5 by a fairly significant margin.
Despite being one of the oldest languages on the list, PHP remains extremely common today with 77.5% of websites relying on it to some degree. PHP is an open-source, server-side scripting language that is especially popular with web applications. It can be integrated with several different programming languages and is compatible with different databases. Its ubiquity and versatility create a high demand for PHP developers.
Rank in 2021: 4
C# and C/C++ swapped rankings in this year’s list due to C and C++ being placed higher on several lists. Meanwhile C# stayed fairly constant, with most lists giving C# exactly the same ranking that they did in 2021. C# was again ranked in the top 5 by the Tiobe Index, PYPL, RedMonk, and GitHub.
Developed in 2000, C# is similar to C and C++. It is a highly versatile language with a remarkable variety of different uses, including developing video games, web-applications, and mobile applications, but it is most commonly used on Microsoft platforms for developing Windows applications.
Rank in 2021: 5
As with the previous list, C and C++ are listed together, both because they are very similar and because many organizations that do programming languages rank them together. They are both highly ranked in almost every one of the lists. Tiobe ranks C No. 2 and C++ No. 3, while Indeed.com puts them together at No. 1.
C and C++ are also general-purpose languages, but they have been around much longer than C#. C and C++ are so similar that C++ can run around 99% of C programs without making any changes. The main difference between C and C++ is that that C is a structural programming language that doesn’t support classes, while C++ is an object-based programming language that does support classes.
Rank in 2021: 3
Information Week’s top 3 programming languages all stayed the same from 2021, including Java again coming in at No. 3. Java was included in every one of the 7 lists, with the majority of them placing it either second or third. However, none of the lists ranked Java first, which prevents it from being any higher.
Java was first introduced in 1995 and has since become one of the most popular programming languages in the world. Java is very versatile, but it is especially common when it comes to mobile app development because it accounts for the bulk of Android applications. Java has many strengths that have contributed to its popularity, but one of the most important is its platform independence, meaning software only has to be written once to run on many different platforms.
Rank in 2021: 2
JavaScript came fairly close to taking the No. 1 spot on this year’s list, being ranked first in 3 out of the 7 rankings. However as with InformationWeek’s previous list, it was ranked seventh in the Tiobe Index, causing it to fall just short of the top ranking.
JavaScript is a scripting language that developers find especially useful for front-end web development. One of its biggest strengths it’s portability: JavaScript can run in any web browser. JavaScript also prides itself on being easy for beginners to learn, which is one the reasons colleges often teach it in introductory programming courses.
Rank in 2021: 1
As has been for several years now, Python is yet again the top programming language on the InformationWeek Ranking. This year none of the source lists had Python lower than No. 4, and 3 lists ranked it No. 1, including both Tiobe and PYPL.
While all the programming languages at the top of this list are fairly versatile, Python is probably the most versatile of them all, being capable of performing a variety of different tasks. It is widely used for things like web development, automation, data analysis, machine learning, software testing, and it doesn’t specialize in any one particular task. It’s also easy to use and commonly taught in college courses.
Check out other InformationWeek slideshows
Rank in 2021: 1
As has been for several years now, Python is yet again the top programming language on the InformationWeek Ranking. This year none of the source lists had Python lower than No. 4, and 3 lists ranked it No. 1, including both Tiobe and PYPL.
While all the programming languages at the top of this list are fairly versatile, Python is probably the most versatile of them all, being capable of performing a variety of different tasks. It is widely used for things like web development, automation, data analysis, machine learning, software testing, and it doesn’t specialize in any one particular task. It’s also easy to use and commonly taught in college courses.
Check out other InformationWeek slideshows
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