What is the most popular programming language on the world's largest software development platform?

by Alper Çuğun

There are many different kinds of programming languages used to describe computer programs, each of which has its own features, advantages and disadvantages. GitHub, a software development platform closely related to such a programming language, is summarizing "the most popular programming language in 2018".

The State of the Octoverse: top programming languages ​​of 2018 | The GitHub Blog
https://blog.github.com/2018-11-15-state-of-the-octoverse-top-programming-languages/

For GitHub sharing the source code, programming language is the core of the service, and GitHub analyzed that "Which programming language is most used or popular?" In conducting this investigation, GitHub examined the number of authors of repositories tagged in a specific language and the repository themselves.

This is the image showing the transition of the popularity of major languages ​​used since the survey began in 2008. As of 2018, the largest repositories on GitHub were created with JavaScript , followed by Java · Python · PHP · Ruby ·. JavaScript has been increasing the number of repositories since 2008, and it can be seen that Java and Python are increasingly popular in recent years. In the survey this time, it seems that we investigated about one million repositories.

Also, this figure shows the top ten popular programming languages ​​from 2014 to 2018. Top JavaScript and Java have not changed for 5 years, Python and PHP account for 3rd and 4th place as well. While C ++ has also settled in 5th or 6th position, Ruby, which occupied fifth place until 2015, fell to 10th in 2018, falling from the top ten. C #, which was ranked 8th in 2014, is ranked fifth in 2016, keeping sixth in 2018. C language and shell also keep constant demand, but Objective-C disappeared from ranking last in 2016, Instead, TypeScript which is a variant of JavaScript developed by Microsoft appeared in ranking, and in 2018 It was seventh in place.

In general, new programs are likely to be written in JavaScript, Java, and Python, but the possibility of being written in Ruby is low, and GitHub will continue to open up the gap between major programming languages ​​in the future thinking about.

Also, if you look at images that represent popular languages ​​by region, you can see that TypeScript is popular in South America and Africa. This phenomenon is said that the development community of South America and Africa is relatively young to the North American and European developer community is affecting.

Looking at the rapidly growing programming language ranking as of September 30, 2018, Kotlin that appeared in 2011 has grown greatly, and PowerShell adopted in many projects of large companies also gained in popularity It is.

As a feature of the popular programming language in 2018, GitHub first pointed out that static typed programming languages ​​are popular except for Python. This means that individual developers will improve security and efficiency when working on large projects. It also says that emphasis is placed on whether or not it is thread-safe .

In addition, GitHub focuses on interoperability as well. One point why TypeScript gained popularity was pointed out that there is a point that "it can be integrated with JavaScript in coexistence". One of the reasons that languages ​​such as Rust and Kotlin gained popularity is said to be interoperable, and the advantage that the system can be built beyond the existing community is great.

Finally, GitHub said, "Of course these programming languages ​​are open source projects and are actively managed and maintained by GitHub," and open source languages ​​improve feedback by turning feedback among communities I can do it.