Programming languages tend to be relatively boring compared to other aspects of the IT world. Change doesn’t occur very often. Most likely, if you were old enough to be coding 20 years ago, the programming languages you learned are still the ones you’re using today.
Although the programming language world has not undergone any drastic changes in recent years, some trends require attention when it comes to languages that are becoming more popular and those that are losing popularity.
While other programming languages are losing popularity, Python remains on top. Let’s see where things stand in 2022 for programming languages.
- Python
According to TIOBE Index, Python remains undisputed on top of the programming language scale. However, it doesn’t mean that Python is the only tool developers should learn, but it certainly means that the demand for Python developers will remain high in the near future.
- Java
Java has always been one of the most popular programming languages. For quite a while, Java used to be more popular than Python.
But not anymore. Despite its widespread use, Java’s popularity has been declining in recent years.
- PHP and PERL going out of use?
According to TIOBE Index, PHP is no longer among the top 10 languages. Meanwhile, Perl just barely cracks the top 20.
Given the use of PHP in platforms like WordPress, it is hard to imagine it falling off the map completely. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that Web developers will choose PHP for new projects nowadays.
PERL on the other hand will probably go completely out of use.
- MATLAB
Like Perl, MATLAB is an interpreted programming language that does not seem to be used much as a programming language for serious applications. You could probably find Matlab only in college courses.
MATLAB applies to real-world fields such as statistics. However, it is hard to argue that most of those use cases are best served by this language. Still, it has strongly positioned itself on spot 16 on the TIOBE Index for the past couple of years at the very least.
- R
In the last few years, some people predicted that Python would kill R, the language that is commonly used for data analysis.
However, that hasn’t happened. R remains still very popular.
R currently holds the 11th spot on the TIOBE Index.
- C, C++, and C#
Their popularity has not wavered, and there is no indication that it will.
Amazingly, C is still so widely used a half-century after its invention. C++ and C# are not as old as C, so their popularity is not as surprising.
- Go and Rust
For more than a decade, Go and Rust have been among the most talked-about programming languages. While Go is excellent for microservices development, Rust can make the applications safer. However, it is quite unlikely that either Go or Rust will ever grow in demand in the foreseeable future.
Final words
Overall, the world of programming languages in 2022 is not very different from last year. However, notable trends are evident, from Java’s slow decline to PHP’s and Perl’s rapid decline. We probably won’t see any major programming languages disappearing in 2022 but we are likely to see a rise in demand for Python and MATLAB.
