As we near the end of 2022 now seems as good a time as any to look at what programming trends have appeared in 2022.
As we near the end of 2022 now seems as good a time as any to look at what programming trends have appeared in 2022.
We will start of by looking at what is popular and what’s not with developers both in terms of their web searches / questions and their likes and dislikes. We will also consider the number of jobs adverts for particular programming languages
The TIOBE index says that their monthly assessment of programming popularity is “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.”
As such it is quite wide ranging and encompasses a range of different inputs. The most recent table shows that.
This gives Python as the most popular language with C and Java in the number 2 and number 3 spots. One of the interesting things about this table is that it indicates the change in popularity of a language since the last index was published. This shows Python, and C have significant increases in popularity but interestingly interest in Java is increasing (although some have tried to say Java is dying off).
What is notable perhaps is languages such as Go, R, ruby and Rust do not make the top 10 in the index. Go is at 11 with a small decrease in popularity, R is 12th but Ruby and Rust are down in 19th
and 20th position. Kotlin, Scala and TypeScript are not even in the top 20!
This index is created by analysing how often language tutorials are searched on Google so it has the potential to highlight new and upcoming languages as developers may be trying to learn them. However, as can be seen below, the top ten in this index are very similar to the TIOBE index:
The index again has Python at the top and Java in second place. With other top ten languages including JavaScript, and C / C++ also listed. However, it also includes R, TypeScript (which is a big mover) and Swift.
Interestingly if we look at those languages hovering just outside the top ten then we see Go, Kotlin, Rust and Ruby are all there (although interest in Kotlin has fallen):
This suggest that these newer languages are attracting a lot of interest from those wanting to learn a new language.
Interestingly a similar patterns is presented by Statista for the most used programming languages among developers worldwide in 2022 (see https://www.statista.com/statistics/793628/worldwide-developer-survey-most-used-languages/) as shown by the following graph:
Another graph from Statista provides information on the most used web frameworks of 2022:
In modern software web development, the framework used is as important as the language choice (which is primarily JavaScript versus TypeScript). Looking at the most used web frameworks Node.js is the out and out winner (particularly as Express is essentially an extension toNode.js). Interestingly although more modern frameworks such as React.js and Vue.js are in the top ten, jQuery (which has been around a very long time) is still up there in third position. Also interestingly the Python oriented frameworks such as Django and Flask round out this top ten list.
The most popular programming languages from the developers’ point of view are given by another Stack Overflow generated table (see https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2022/):
In this table, Rust comes out as the most loved language on the stack overflow developer’s survey with 86.73% loving it and only 13.27% hating it. Other languages commonly appearing in other indexes include Typescript, Python, Go and SQL which are also in the top ten.
However, there are some languages here that have not appeared in any of our other indexes or surveys. Languages such as Elixir, Clojure and Julia. Interestingly an old stalwart Delphi also appears in the top ten.
Finally, Kotlin and Swift (mobile development languages) make it into positions 11 and 12 in this list.
Another interesting trend to look at relates to job adverts for specific programming languages. The ITJobsWatch site shows that the top five languages listed for jobs, as might be expected, include JavaScript, Java, Python and C# plus SQL. What might be surprising is the order, with JavaScript top rather than JavaScript.
However, look further down the list and newer languages such as TypeScript (8th), Go (12th) and Kotlin (14th) start to come in. Interestingly older languages such as C (6th) and C++ (7th) are still in demand.
For several years now we in the industry have been waiting to see languages such as Julia or Dart start to appear in various top ten language indexes, but that doesn’t seem to be happening. Most indexes still have some combination of Java, JavaScript, Python, SQL etc. in their top ten. Languages such as Kotlin, Go and particularly TypeScript are growing in both demand and interest but still rank way behind the old stalwarts.
Interestingly of the languages that developers like to use, it is Typescript, Kotlin and Go which are both liked by developers and for which demand is growing.
What is clear that as a software developer you need to keep up with the changes within programming languages. This is particularly true if you want to stand out from the crowd with a wider range of skills than perhaps the basic JavaScript, jQuery, Java and SQL. These technologies are of course in demand but newer web frameworks, newer programming languages, newer libraries will probably help developers to stand out from the crowd.
What you should learn in terms of programming languages depends on what you are aiming to do. If you want to work within the data analytics / data science fields then Python (and possibly R) are your primary choices. However, if you want to work on native mobile application development then you will be looking at Swift (for iOS) or Kotlin (for Android).
However, if you are interested in just getting started with a programming language then languages such as JavaScript, C# and Java will stand you in good stead. Beyond this, databases are an integral part of almost every application and this having a knowledge of SQL is always beneficial.
If you wish to explore some up-and-coming languages then you could do worse than explore Go, TypeScript and possibly Rust.
If you are already a seasons Java, Python or JavaScript developer then developing a skillset in C or C++ will also probably prove advantageous.
For any of these languages there are many books available, online courses (free and commercial) as well as instructor lead courses. Each has cost implications, with free online material obviously being the cheapest and instructor led courses being at the higher end of the scale. However, instructor led courses (whether online or in person) can often be the most time efficient way to learn a new language.
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