What’s the Best Programming Language to Learn in 2017?

Many of you will reflect on your skill set and career choices as we embark on the new year. There are numerous sources of “best language” statistics, so that's where we'll begin …

Stack Overflow Developer Survey

More than 56,000 developers in 173 countries completed the Stack Overflow Developer Survey during 2016. Here are the most-used technologies:

1. JavaScript — 55.4%
2. SQL — 49.1%
3. Java — 36.3%
4. C# — 30.9%
5. PHP — 25.9%
6. Python — 24.9%
7. C++ — 19.4%
8. AngularJS — 17.9% (JavaScript framework)
9. Node.js — 17.2% (server-side JavaScript)
10. C — 15.5%

The survey also asked what developers loved most:

1. Rust — 79.1%
2. Swift — 72.1%
3. F# — 70.7%
4. Scala — 69.4%
5. Go — 68.7%
6. Clojure — 66.7%
7. React — 66.0%
8. Haskell — 64.7%
9. Python — 62.5%
10. C# — 62.0%

and what developers most dreaded:

1. Visual Basic — 79.5%
2. WordPress — 74.3%
3. Matlab — 72.8%
4. Sharepoint — 72.1%
5. CoffeeScript — 71.0%
6. LAMP — 68.7% (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP)
7. Cordova — 66.9%
8. Salesforce — 65.4%
9. Perl — 61.3%
10. SQL — 60.3%

Perhaps more useful are the technologies developers are interested in learning:

1. Android — 15.8%
2. Node.js — 14.8%
3. AngularJS — 13.4%
4. Python — 13.3%
5. JavaScript — 11.9%
6. React — 9.2%
7. Swift — 8.7%
8. MongoDB — 8.1%
9. Arduino / Raspberry Pi — 8.0%
10. C++ — 8.0%

Stack Overflow Top Tech

Stack Overflow also collated statistics for questions, answers and votes:

1. JavaScript — 16.6%
2. Java — 14.7%
3. Android — 11.5%
4. Python — 11.4%
5. C# — 11.1%
6. PHP — 8.6%
7. jQuery — 6.7%
8. C++ — 6.6%
9. HTML — 6.6%
10. iOS — 6.3%

PYPL Popularity

The PYPL Popularity of Programming Languages Index uses data from Google Trends to determine how often language tutorials are searched online:

1. Java — 23.1%
2. Python — 14.4%
3. PHP — 9.7%
4. C# — 8.4%
5. JavaScript — 7.7%
6. C — 7.1%
7. C++ — 7.0%
8. Objective—C — 4.4%
9. R — 3.4%
10. Swift — 3.0%

TIOBE Index, January 2017

The TIOBE Programming Community Index rates languages using search engine results to provide a ranking percentage:

1. Java — 17.3%
2. C — 9.3%
3. C++ — 6.3%
4. C# — 4.0%
5. Python — 3.5%
6. VisualBasic.NET — 3.0%
7. JavaScript — 2.9%
8. Perl — 2.7%
9. Assembly Language — 2.7%
10. PHP — 2.6%

The biggest riser during 2016 was Go, which leapt from nowhere to 2.3% (#13). Java fell 4.19%, but it remains almost double C's score.

What Do Surveys Tell Us?

Surprisingly little. Results are interesting but often contradictory, and data collection methods are limited:

• Search engine results can favor older, more problematic or more widespread languages. Few would expect VisualBasic to appear above JavaScript.
• Online surveys are limited to a specific audience. Stack Overflow is populated by reasonably knowledgeable developers who have encountered problems in popular languages and frameworks.
• Historical usage patterns do not necessarily indicate future trends. Node.js did not exist a decade ago. In the mid-1990s, Perl or C were the most viable options for server-side development.

For example, all surveys rank Java higher than PHP. Java is often adopted for education and used to develop command line, desktop and native Android applications. Yet WordPress powers 27.3% of the web and is written in PHP. PHP is used on 82.4% of web servers compared to just 2.7% for Java.

PHP was developed for the web and has a more widespread adoption on the platform. There's nothing wrong with Java but, if you want a web development career, PHP could serve better. Probably. Depending on where you live and work. And the industry you work in. And what you do.

Surveys are flawed, so perhaps we can seek …

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by Craig Buckler via SitePoint