Top 10 Most-Popular Programming Languages to Learn in 2020

In this technological world, there are more than 600 programming languages used to develop software, application, and framework. The demand for programming languages varies every year and new programming languages are regularly introduced with more attractive features.

Web developers and programmers need to get updated with the latest trends in technology. What are the emerging languages? What are the new features added to them? Which language can they use to build advanced software and applications?

In this article, we have decided to introduce you with the top 10 most popular programming languages of 2020. It will be based on different metrics such as trends, popularity, key features, real-life examples, etc.

Source: www.spectrum.ieee.org

Popular Programming Languages

1. Python

Python is described as a highly readable object-oriented programming language with automatic memory management. It is the most accessible language that can be written with English keywords, whereas other languages use punctuation in their syntax. This language can be used to fix simple as well as complicated problems. According to Data Bridge Market Research, the market growth of Python is assumed to reach at a potential growth rate of 21.10% in the interval of 2020 to 2027.

Key Features:

• Python is a highly productive, simple, and powerful coding language.

• It is deemed as one of the most suitable programming languages for beginners as it is user-friendly and written in English.

• Various known applications and software, including Reddit, Instagram, and YouTube have been designed using Python.

• It is also used for web development, 3D rendering, and scientific computing.
• It has first-class integration with C/C++ and can seamlessly offload the CPU heavy tasks to C/C++.

Popularity:

In the last few years, Python is growing at a faster pace and become a popular language among developers. According to programming language ranking site PYPL, Python gained popularity as the number one programming language in 2020.

Source: www.tiobe.com

Python Application in Real World:

• Web Scraping Applications

• Access to Database

• Data Science and Data Visualization

• Open Source Frameworks and Tools

• Game Development

• Web Development
• Desktop GUI
• Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

2. Java

Java is known as a general-purpose programming language. It is used for projects related to network security, cyber-attack prevention, and fraud detection. It offers robust frameworks and development tools for mobile app development.

Key Features:

• Java is considered as the most secure programming language.

• Java provides a multi-paradigm, feature-rich, interpreted programming language with high developer productivity.

• Java is popularly used because it is a write-once and run-anywhere language. While other programming languages like C, C++, etc. which are compiled into platform-specific machines.

• Java can be easily extended as it is based on Object Model.
•  It can be used on any platform such as laptops, mobile phones, gaming consoles, etc.

Popularity:

Java is one of the most popular programming languages and in-demand skills in 2020. It becomes the 3rd most demanding programming language just after five years of its release. It is continuously running on the top chart for last some years. Also, It is assumed that there are more than 9 million Java developers all around the world.

Source: www.scand.com

Java Application in Real World:

• Java Web Applications

• Android Application

• Embedded Space

• High-Frequency Trading Space

• Big Data technologies

• Enterprise Applications
• Distributed Applications

3. C

C is known and popular language from the last two decades, which is one of the oldest programming languages. There are modern languages such as C++, Java, and Python are originated from C language.

It is used by the developers for writing software and application codes. It is known for building high-performance computing systems where speed and flexibility are required. C is also used for the base of various known operating systems such as Linux, Windows, and OSX.

Key Features:

• C language is portable as programs which are written in it can run and compile on any system with either none or small changes.

• It is determined as the fastest and most powerful programming languages.

• It gives full control over the underlying hardware.

• It is used for various applications such as system programming, photo editing software.

Popularity:

Despite the popularity of higher-level languages, C continues to empower the programming industry for more than 47 years.

Source: www.tiobe.com

C Application in Real World:

• Operating Systems

• Graphics and Games

• Network Device

• Embedded Systems

• Computation Platforms

• Database design

• New Programing Platform

4. C++

C++ is an object-oriented programming language developed from C. The main difference between both of the languages is that C++ supports the use of “objects.” This makes C++ as the former priority for the developers in the designing of GUI and graphics-based software.

Key Features:

• C++ program can be written in simple English language so that it is easy to understand by developers

• Similarly to Java, C++ is also constantly modernizing and adapting new features with changes in Hardware or Ecosystem.

• C++ can run on every platform and take advantage of every kind of hardware, whether it is GPU, TPU, Container, Cloud, Mobile devices, or Microcontroller.

• C++ is used in performance-critical and resource-constrained systems.

Popularity:

C++ is considered as the second oldest programming language in this list. According to TIOBE,  It ranked 4th in the programming language.

Source: www.tiobe.com

C++ Application in Real World:

• GUI Based Applications

• Advanced Computation And Graphics

• Cloud/Distributed System

• Database Software

• Operating Systems

• Enterprise Software

• Games
• Browsers

5. JavaScript

JavaScript is a dynamic programming language used in web development for adding interactive elements to web applications and browsers. There are multiple software developers who prefer JavaScript for front-end development.

It is also used to built animations, web graphics, and control for the web interface. The main benefit of using javascript is it supports all modern browsers. Developers can also use Javascript for backend development with the help of Node.js.

Key Features:

• Codes in JavaScript are written don’t include variables and uses only objects to perform the operations.

• JavaScript is the foremost language used in Browser programming.

• JavaScript holds the ability to control operations updated on servers.

• JavaScript includes various in-built functions such as NAN(), Number(), parseFloat() and parseInt(), and more

Popularity:

JavaScript is known as one of the top-demanded programming languages used in front-end because of its universal use in all platforms and mass adoption. Whit more than 1.6 billion web sites all over the world, JavaScript is used to build 95% of them. By the integrity of this fact, most of the computer devices use JavaScript such as Android phones, iPhones, Apple Mac OS, Linux, etc.

Source: www.tiobe.com

JavaScript Application in Real World:

• Web Applications

• Presentations

• Server Applications

• Web Servers

• Smartwatch Apps

• Mobile Apps
• Flying Robots

6. C#

C# a general-purpose and object-oriented programming language. It was developed by Microsoft to offer coding support to the .Net framework. It contains the functionalities of both C and C++. The programming language is used for various Microsoft applications and programs that are based on the .Net frameworks, like Bing, Windows, and MSN.

Key Features:

• C# is an efficient language to manage the system. The whole garbage is automatically collected in C#

• As similar to Java, C# is also platform-independent and runs on Windows, Linux, Mobile devices.

• It is helpful for developing web applications, desktop applications, and web services

Popularity:

The C# language is one of the well-known languages in development.  As per reports by Glassdoor, a C# .Net developer makes roughly $79,954 on average throughout the U.S. This in-demand language ranked 5th on the TIOBE site.

Source: www.tiobe.com

C# Application in Real World:

• Windows client applications

• Backend services

• Native iOS and Android mobile apps

• Windows services

• Web applications

• Web services and Web API

• Windows libraries and components

7. GO

Go is an open-source programming language that was developed by Google in 2007. It is used to build minimal web applications, APIs, and web servers. It is also known as one of the fastest-growing programming languages of the past few years. It includes various useful features such as C-like semantics, memory management, high performance, and modern data structure support.

Key Features:

• Go provides a CSP based message-passing concurrency via Goroutine (lightweight Green thread) and Channel. It has language-level support for Concurrency.

• The most precise feature of Go is its language design and simplicity. It has successfully combined the productivity of Python and the power of C.

• Go developers can write and run system programming with the safety of Java, Python, and it has an embedded garbage collector.

Popularity:

Go language is continuously growing and gaining a meteoric rise in popularity. It ranks high on the top 20 programming languages and has outstripped various existing languages. According to the TIOBE index ranking, it ranked 14th.

Source: www.tiobe.com

Go Application in Real World:

• Cloud services

• On-demand services

• Media platforms
• News outlets

8. R

R is an open-source language that allows the programming of complex statistical analysis and visual graphics applications. It runs on various operating systems, including Linux, Windows, and MacOS. It is also available for free download and supports a number of robust features.

Key Features:

• R has a very comprehensive development environment meaning it helps in statistical computing as well as software development.

• It can produce static graphics with production quality visualizations and has extended libraries providing interactive graphic capabilities.

• It contains several packages that enable it to interact with databases like Oracle, Open Database Connectivity Protocol, MySQL, etc.

• It is helpful to perform simple and complex mathematical and statistical calculations on data objects of a wide variety. It can also perform such operations on large data sets.

Popularity:

According to the Tiobe index’s list, R is known to be in the 20 most popular languages. R is known as the most popular language among data analysts and data scientists after emerging in the 1990s and filling the demand for machine learning and handling large datasets.

Source: www.tiobe.com

R Application in Real World:

• Finance

• E-Commerce

• Healthcare

• Social Media
• Banking

9. Ruby

Ruby is object-oriented scripting programming languages. There are top organizations such as Github, Scribd, Groupon, Motorola are working on this well-known programming language. This general-purpose language is helpful to redefine existing parts and allow users to alter the codes which are not appropriate as per them. This language doesn’t need any variable declaration, and it uses English keywords and some punctuation.

Key Features:

• Ruby is known as the most disruptive and influential server-side web development framework.

• It has combined some of the best features of programming languages successfully such as object-oriented, dynamic, functional, garbage-collected, and concise.

• It is helpful in some of the largest software projects such as Twitter, GitHub, Airbnb, and has excellent tooling and framework support.

Popularity:

TIOBE has ranked Ruby as the 11th most popular programming language in January 2020 with a hugely positive move:

Source: www.tiobe.com

Ruby Application in Real World:

• Web applications

• Web servers

• System utilities

• Database work

• Backups

• Parsing
• Biology and medicine

10. Dart

Dart is a general-purpose programming language that is objected-oriented and supports Strong typing. It is known as the second programming language.  Dart can run where JavaScript runs means virtually everywhere such as Web, Mobile, Server.

Key Features:

• Dart is helpful for the developers for higher productivity in the project. It is broadly productive and helpful by developers because it is using new features such as clean, simple, terse syntax.

• It also provides strong typing and object-oriented programming. It is also a second language in this list which fits the ‘Scalable JavaScript’ tag.

• It is one of the few languages which supports JIT compilation (compilation during Runtime) and AOT compilation (compilation during creation time). Thus it can target JavaScript runtime (V8 Engine), and it is useful to compile to fast Native code (AOT compilation).

Popularity:

According to Github Octoverse, Dart was the fastest-growing Programming language in 2019, and its popularity has five-folded in last year.

Source: www.tiobe.com

Dart Application in Real World:

• Flutter apps

• web or mobile app

• Desktop Applications
• Server Applications

Conclusion

In this article, we have listed the top 10 most popular programming languages to learn in 2020. Now, it’s your choice where you want to land your career or choose the right programming language for you. Get an insight to all the details we mentioned, and choose accordingly. So, make sure you should hold a good command on a specific language you choose for programming.

Enjoy coding!

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