Many developers regularly review their skill trees and career choices. Nowadays, there are many sources of "Best Programming Language" selection data. Does this provide us with a reference?
Foreigners like to do research the most. Let’s take a look at the Stack Overflow Developer Survey.More than 56,000 developers from 173 countries participated at the end of 2016. According to a survey released by Stack Overflow, the
most commonly used technical language:
JavaScript — 55.4%
SQL — 49.1%
Java — 36.3%
#C# — 30.9%
PHP — 25.9%
Python — 24.9%
C++ — 19.4%
AngularJS — 17.9% (JavaScript framework)
Node.js — 17.2% (server-side JavaScript)
C — 15.5%
Developers’ favorite languages are:
Rust — 79.1%
Swift — 72.1%
#F# — 70.7%
Scala — 69.4%
Go — 68.7%
Clojure — 66.7%
React — 66.0%
Haskell — 64.7%
Python — 62.5%
C# — 62.0%
The language developers fear the most:
Visual Basic — 79.5%
WordPress — 74.3%
Matlab — 72.8%
Sharepoint — 72.1%
CoffeeScript — 71.0%
LAMP — 68.7% (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP )
Cordova — 66.9%
Salesforce — 65.4%
Perl — 61.3%
SQL — 60.3%
Technology directions that developers are interested in learning:
Android — 15.8%
Node.js — 14.8%
AngularJS — 13.4%
Python — 13.3%
JavaScript — 11.9%
React — 9.2%
Swift — 8.7%
#MongoDB — 8.1%
Arduino / Raspberry Pi — 8.0%
C++ — 8.0%
Most frequently asked, discussed, and voted on technology directions on Stack Overflow:
JavaScript — 16.6%
Java — 14.7%
Android — 11.5%
Python — 11.4%
#C# — 11.1%
PHP — 8.6%
jQuery — 6.7%
C++ — 6.6%
HTML — 6.6%
iOS — 6.3%
PYPL (Popular Programming Language Index) Frequency of searches for programming language-related tutorials:
Java — 23.1%
Python — 14.4%
PHP — 9.7%
#C# — 8.4%
JavaScript — 7.7%
C — 7.1%
C++ — 7.0%
Objective—C — 4.4%
R — 3.4%
Swift — 3.0%
TIOBE Index The best programming languages based on search engine data:
Java — 17.3%
C — 9.3%
C++ — 6.3%
C# — 4.0%
Python — 3.5%
VisualBasic.NET — 3.0%
JavaScript — 2.9%
Perl — 2.7%
Assembly Language — 2.7%
PHP — 2.6%
The fastest rising language in 2016 was the Go language, rising from no one on the list to 13th (2.3%). Although Java occupies the top spot with a gap nearly twice that of C language, it still dropped 4.19% in 2016.
What does the survey tell us?
In fact, nothing.
The data results look interesting, but they are always contradictory, and the methods of data collection are always limited:
Search engine data is more useful for older, more problematic languages and more popular ones. Broader languages are more beneficial
Online surveys will be limited by special audiences. Most of Stack Overflow's developers are relatively more proficient programmers, and it is easier to ask questions in popular languages and frameworks.
Historical usage patterns are less and less reflective of future trends. Node.js did not exist ten years ago. Twenty years ago, Perl and C were still the most commonly used language choices for server-side development.
For example, Java ranks higher than PHP in all survey rankings, but Java is usually used in teaching and developing control threads, desktop and native Android applications.While PHP is used in 82.4% of web servers, Java is used in only 2.7%.
Beyond Data, Advice from Other Programmers
Many "Best Programming Languages" articles attract a lot of attention and comments, and everyone has their own the opinion of. However, no developer has experience in every language (although there are people who know multiple languages).
Everyone’s choices are biased. People tend to side with the language they are using, otherwise they themselves have to make changes.
Other people's development experience is very useful information, but maybe you don't have the same needs as him, or his set of experience is not applicable to you.
There is no "best language"
If you learn to drive, this skill can be used to drive a bus, truck, or tractor :) Similar , computer language is actually the application of input, output, variables, loops, conditions and functions. Once you have learned the basics of a language, it will be easy to learn another language. The biggest difference is just the change in grammar.
Are you asking the right question?
Those experienced developers know their situation well. They know the gaps between their skills:
If you spend a long time manually manipulating form data, then Invest in learning the macro language;
If you develop a web page but are not satisfied with its layout, it is obvious that improving your CSS knowledge is your next step;
If You are developing a server application that needs to store data. Learning SQL will be a reasonable choice; It's like: What should I wear? Without knowing your age, gender, body type, tastes, preferences, country, local weather, customs, occasions... no one can give the answer.
If you want to get advice on learning a language, ask a few questions:
Although the suggestions given may not necessarily apply to your situation, here are some tips. For programming learners:
1. If you spend most of your time doing front-end, try some back-end stuff. Choose the one that interests you among PHP, Node.js, and Ruby, and then add SQL to your skill tree;
2. If you are a back-end developer, learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Browser interfaces and data forms such as JSON are helpful.
3. The framework is not the essence, the learning of basic language is. No matter what trend is blowing in the circle or what tools are popular, knowledge is priceless.
4. Even if you don’t plan to become a full stack, at least know and master a few more languages. This can help you understand the work of others, which is very helpful for projects and teams.
5. Best of luck, stop procrastinating and stop worrying about which language you should learn: Just start coding!
Related recommendations:
If you are new to web development, which one should you learn, php, python or ruby?