Top Programming Languages 2022
This question is addressed by synthesizing data from different sources.
- Github: the top programming languages 2022 [1]
- Stackoverflow: Survey 2022 [2]
- Jetbrains: Devecosystem-2022 [3]
Another source of data that was examined was the Tiobe[4] index. However, their findings were excluded from the analysis as they deviated significantly from the other sources.
How data is collected?
Different platforms use different methods to gather data, so it is important to take them all into account. Answers are collected directly from the reports.
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Github: As a leading platform for development, github has the ability to track the programming languages that developers employ.
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Stackoverflow: In May 2022 over 70,000 developers answered stackoverlfow about which tools they’re using, and what they want. They have the favorite Loved, Dreaded, and Wanted data as well as Worked With vs. Want to Work With, which shows them, in report’s wording, precisely what developers used in the past year and what they want to work on in the following year.
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Jetbrains: The report was created based on the responses of 29,269 developers from around the world who participated in the study conducted by Jetbrains in May–July 2022. The relevant questions include programming languages used in past 12 months and planned to adopt or migrate.
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Tiobe: The ratings are based on the number of skilled engineers world-wide, courses and third party vendors. Popular search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, Amazon, YouTube and Baidu are used to calculate the ratings.
Most Popular Programming Languages Used
Table below shows top 10 programming languages used in 2022.
| Github | Stackoverflow | Jetbrains | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | JavaScript | JavaScript | JavaScript |
| 2 | Python | HTML/CSS | HTML/CSS |
| 3 | Java | SQL | Python |
| 4 | Typescript | Python | SQL |
| 5 | C# | Typescript | Java |
| 6 | C++ | java | Shell |
| 7 | PHP | C# | Typescript |
| 8 | Shell | Shell | C++ |
| 9 | C | PHP | C# |
| 10 | Ruby | C++ | C |
What Reports Tell
According to Jetbrains report, 75% of the community is involved in web development. This leads to a high demand for languages that are oriented towards the web, such as Javascript, HTML/CSS and SQL to some extend.
Javascript has been and keep continue being the most widely used programming language. It is followed by Python, HTML/CSS, SQL and Java. According to Jetbrains report, Javascript is the most popular primary language. Its cousin, TypeScript, according to Github and Jetbrains reports, is the fastest growing language in popularity.
The list from Github report seems to exclude HTML/CSS and SQL, which may be due to their classification as markup or query languages rather than programming languages. If they are not included, Python is the most popular second language. Over the past few years, Python has gained more and more users across different domains like AI, web development and education.
Java comes next, at the third place. However trend of Java is debatable. Github report claims popularity of Java is decreasing slowly. Jetbrains report claims its popularity remains the same with some fluctuations over time. According to stackoverflow’s report, Java is still popular among those learning to code. However, Loved vs Dreaded data given by Stackoveflow report shows that Java is not loved much among its users.
According to Jetbrains report, half of the developers are planning to adopt a new programming language. The most popular choises are Go, Rust, Kotlin, Typescript and Python. According to Github report HCL, Rust, TypeScript, Lua and Go are five fastest growing programming languages in last 12 months.
Key Take Aways
Web development is dominant.
Growth in cloud computing reflects to cloud related languages like HCL, Shell, Rust and Go.
Rise of AI triggers more demand for Python.
Java is still popular but its ability to maintain its popularity in the future is uncertain.
Outro
Readers are encouraged to check original reports to see real numbers.