JavaScript Is Still The King — Top 21 Programming Languages Of 2016

Short Bytes: RedMonk is here with the latest edition of its bi-annual list of the top programming languages. Compiled with the help of data obtained from GitHub and StackOverflow, this list tells us about the usage and discussion of a language on the web. Just like the previous years, JavaScript continues to top the list, followed by Java and PHP.

New programming languages are invented every day and a few of them gain popularity to become programmers’ favorite. Some of them are able to pass the test time and establish themselves as an evergreen language.

To get an idea of the programming languages that continue to rule the web, you need to follow the latest trends that include the popularity of a programming language, job opportunities and demand, highest paying technologies etc. At fossBytes, we keep writing about all the changing patterns, trying to paint a clear picture.

Continuing the same, today, we are sharing the RedMonk Programming Language Rankings. These rankings, based on the June 2016 data, were just released and made available for analysis. If you are acquainted with RedMonk’s rankings, they release the top programming lists bi-annually and they have been doing so since late 2010.

These rankings are a collective measure of the discussion and usage of a programming language. To do so, data from StackOverflow and GitHub has been taken into consideration. Apart from showing the current pattern, usage and discussion numbers also give us a glimpse of the future trends.

Also Read: 6 New Programming Languages You Need To Learn In 2016

For being included in this list, a programming language must be ‘observable’ on GitHub and StackOverflow. Based on this data, here is the chart showing the top programming languages of 2016:

For more clarity, here’s the list of top 21 programming languages of 2016:

#1. JavaScript
#2. Java
#3. PHP
#4. Python
#5. C#
#5. C++
#5. Ruby
#8. CSS
#9. C
#10. Objective-C
#11. Shell
#12. R
#13. Perl
#14. Scala
#15. Go
#16. Haskell
#17. Swift
#18. Matlab
#19. Visual Basic
#20. Clojure
#20. Groovy

Taking a look at this list of the top 21 programming languages of 2016, we observe that JavaScript continues to rule the web, followed by the programming languages Java and PHP. If we compare the list to Redmonk’s previous top list, there’s no change in the top 10 positions.

The data also shows an increase in the adoption of Swift, Rust, TypeScript, Go, R, Julia, and Elixir. If you are interested in the historical data of the past few years, here it is: