Even though the talks like Java is Dead, Java is not good, Java lacks this and that, are increasing these days, Java still holds its position as the most popular language, according to TIOBE programming index. As of November, Java has around 18% of popularity, amongst the other languages. This is 2% decline from when I last wrote about Java’s popularity.
According to TIOBE’s November rankings, here’s where the first three languages are standing.
| Position | Language | Ratings |
| 1 | Java | 18.373% |
| 2 | C | 17.315% |
| 3 | PHP | 10.176% |
It’s interesting to see that C and Java is just separated by 1% in the popularity ratings. Apart from that, PHP is rapidly gaining more fame, thanks to the wide use of AJAX applications and development, where PHP is most preferred language.
But, take a look at Java’s numbers. Its declining month by month. What I think as the reason for the decline in Java’s popularity is:
- The language has almost reached its matured state and more people started exploiting Java’s negatives, such as lack of closures, etc.
- Programming World is moving towards the new era of languages like Scala, Ruby and these new languages started getting more maturity.
- Popularity of Web 2.0 applications helped the associated languages, such as JavaScript, PHP, to gain more fame and use.
Do you think of any other reasons for Java losing its popularity?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Java is popular. Because it gave me the power to code for me
After thinking a lot; I have stared learning Python. Java is good but I think I need Python
Browsing about the reasons people think Java is popular, I came across
http://www.scism.lsbu.ac.uk/jfl/sanjose/reasons.html
which is about a poll done with some users 18 months after Java’s launch
-an early poll. We can consider this poll as being representative of the
feelings of the day about Java.
The first six reasons were then:
1. Applicability for the Web
2. Cross-Platform Capability
3. Safer than C++
4. Hyped
5. Removes undesirable features from C++
6. Free of charge tools
However, in recent times, people have noticed several alternatives that
satisfy (1,2 and 6). Python and Ruby are just two of them.
Three and five can be rewritten together as “Java is easier to program than C++”,
and yet it has a C-like syntax, which many people like. Yet, the same tools
that satisfy 1, 2 and 6 are actually easier to program than Java -for most
programmers anyway.
If we remove this very early reasons, what we are left with is (4) and the
newly found knowledge of Java’s hunger for resources
well said.
I agree with the languages like Python and Ruby are slowly getting more market share. But, I feel, still the indian enterprises/big IT companies are not yet ready to adopt these web2.0 languages. They are struck with Java mainly because they’ve invested a lot of money in developing tools and infrastructure for Java language.