Python stakes claim to be programming language of the year
Python consolidates its place as a long-term top-three programming language.
There appears to be a resurgence in interest in 35-year-old programming language C++ , which has risen to third place in Tiobe’s index for April 2019.
C++ was created in 1985 as an extension of C and the latest standardized version, C++17, has support from a range of major C++ compilers, including Microsoft Visual Studio, GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), and Clang.
The International Organization for Standardization’s C++ group, Working Group 21 (WG21), is this year working on finalizing ‘C++20’.
Microsoft’s Herb Sutter, who chaired WG21’s meeting in February, said C++20 “will be C++’s largest release since C++11”, which was released in 2011 and the first version that had been standardized. Two of the most important features coming to C++20 are ‘modules’ and ‘coroutines’.
C++ in April 2019 had a share of 8.83 percent in Tiobe’s ratings, up 1.62 percentage points on the corresponding month a year ago.
The ratings are based on results in Google, Bing, Yahoo, Wikipedia, YouTube, and Baidu. The index is meant to indicate a language’s popularity among developers. However, it doesn’t say anything about which is the best programming language or the language that has the most lines of code written in it.
C++ this month overtook the increasingly popular Python for third place. Python usage has grown massively among developers in the past few years.
Tiobe analysts noted that C++ reclaiming third spot from Python by no means indicates Python is on the decline. Python this month had a share of 8.166 percent, and it was up by an even larger 2.36 percentage points year over year.
“Python is scoring all-time highs almost every month. It is just that C++ is also getting more and more popular,” Tiobe wrote.
C++ is still a long way off from its status in the early 2000s, when it had a market share of over 15 percent.
Tiobe attributes its lower share these days to the “the complexity and the delay of releasing the new language definition C++0x pulled the language back at that time”.
“That new language standard, eventually named C++11 after its release in 2011, has made the language much simpler, safer and more expressive at the same time.” according to Tiobe.
“It took some extra years before the C++11 standard was adopted because the community had to wait for proper compiler support. But now that the C++11, C++14, and C++17 standards are supported by the most important C++ compilers, ie, Gcc, Clang and Visual Studio, the popularity of C++ is reviving.”
Tiobe’s top-10 languages this April in descending order are Java, C, C++, Python, Visual Basic .NET, C#, JavaScript, SQL, PHP, and Assembly Language.
C++ is back in third place, having swapped positions with Python.
Image: Tiobe
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