These are the top languages used on SourceForge in December 2004:
Projects Language
-------- --------
14200 CeePlusPlus
13862 CeeLanguage
13359 JavaLanguage
9866 PhpLanguage
5523 PerlLanguage
3563 PythonLanguage
2024 JavaScript
2008 CsharpLanguage
1981 VisualBasic
1627 DelphiLanguage/Kylix
1564 UnixShell
1458 AssemblyLanguage
1049 PL/SQL (StructuredQueryLanguage)
832 ToolCommandLanguage
607 ObjectiveCee
512 ActiveServerPages
320 RubyLanguage
305 LispLanguage
302 PascalLanguage
236 ObjectPascal
183 SchemeLanguage
SourceForge, February 2006
17963 Java *
17533 C++
16536 C
13121 PHP
6333 Perl
4857 Python
3345 C# *
3149 JavaScript
2229 Visual Basic
2021 Delphi/Kylix
1963 Unix Shell
1637 Assembly
1176 PL/SQL
917 Tcl
805 Objective C
533 ASP
457 Ruby
406 VisualBasicDotNet *
378 Pascal
333 Lisp
298 Object Pascal
298 XSL (XsltLanguage/XpathLanguage/XslFormattingObjects) *
289 JavaServerPages *
212 Scheme
(Generated from http://sourceforge.net/softwaremap/trove_list.php?form_cat=160)
SourceForge December 2007
111749 TOTAL
27589 Java
23369 C++
20031 C
18725 PHP
7520 Python *
7150 Perl
6686 C#
6079 JavaScript
2644 Unix Shell **
2411 Delphi/Kylix *
2344 Visual Basic
1770 Assembly
1276 PL/SQL
1266 VisualBasicDotNet ****
1087 JavaServerPages ********
1085 Ruby ***
1032 Objective C *
1018 Tcl
710 XSL (XsltLanguage/XpathLanguage/XslFormattingObjects) ****
661 ASP.NET (AspDotNet)
516 ActionScript ***NEW***
501 ASP -
485 Pascal
435 LuaLanguage ***NEW***
414 Object Pascal
These were the top languages used on Freshmeat in March 2003):
4800 C
2500 Perl
2100 C++
1900 Java
1700 PHP
950 Python
500 Unix Shell
250 SQL
100 Ruby
25 C#
These were the top languages used on Freshmeat in December 2004 ( from http://freshmeat.net/browse/160/ ):
Projects Language
-------- --------
6888 C
3610 Java **
3421 C++ *
3251 Perl
2855 PHP
1714 Python
708 Unix Shell
409 Tcl
396 SQL
393 JavaScript
255 Objective C
218 Other
216 Assembly
210 Ruby
143 C#
118 Other Scripting Engines
105 Scheme
77 Lisp
77 PL/SQL
76 Delphi
62 Fortran
This kind of list was used as evidence that CeePlusPlusReigns.
One should take into account some noise factors in the SourceForge data:
- As it uses Sourceforge data, it is biased towards OpenSource projects and not necessarily indicative of popularity in proprietary systems.
- It is up to the developers to report their languages. Many projects have none of this metadata.
- Many projects report all languages used, of which one is primary and others are used for small amounts of glue. I don't think there were many projects that used primarily AssemblyLanguage, for instance.
- Many projects report for which language it is used, rather than which language it was written in. (Example: most of the ForthLanguage projects were actually Forth compilers, not applications written in Forth.)
- Many of the projects are VaporWare, MyToyProgram, or inactive for years (though this list has been culled since 2003).
Very interesting. I am astonished to see JavaScript slightly ahead of DelphiLanguage/Kylix, and more popular than all flavors of Lisp and all other flavors of Pascal combined.
-- DavidCary
In the end, this is only one data point. There are many other ProjectHosts, many language specific. Another measure (Yahoo directory links) is on ProgrammingLanguages.
And http://www.tiobe.com/tpci.htm has popularity trends over time. It uses Google for its data and appears to be aligned to the software job market, rather than the OpenSource community.
The "tpci" seems very unscientific as it uses keyword popularity as the indicator. There is no way to google for "C" without being completely overwhelmed by noise. It is also tainted by the fact that a language may have more "help pages" than a more popular language (but the language with more "help pages" would seem more popular).
None of the above have considered SpreadsheetModel as a ProgrammingLanguage. When I started to explore the MicrosoftExcelProgrammingLanguage, I found there is a huge secondary market related to education, consulting, third party tools. And the demand and pay scale for a good Excel consultant is much better than for the average website developer. I have made the wrong bet on traditional programming languages.
Moved from ProgrammingLanguages:
How to rate ProgrammingLanguagePopularity? Here is one way.
(Note, do not update this page, but use it to benchmark the current results.)
http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/dir/Computers___Internet/Programming_Languages
Rating on Sept 14,2004:
ActiveX (41)
AppleScript (12)
Assembly (88)
Basic (164)
C# (201)
COBOL (91)
C and C++ (913)
Delphi (352)
Forth (14)
Fortran (11)
Java (1631)
JavaScript (178)
Lisp (21)
Object Oriented (219)
Pascal (69)
Perl (92)
Python (49)
RPG (146)
SQL (244)
Tcl Tk (20)
Visual Basic (774)
QBasic@ (52)
Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML)@ (46)
VRML is not a programming language - at least not any more than HTML is.
Here is an attempt to gather data from several sources, while being transparent about the strengths and weaknesses of each one:
Top languages used in the GoogleCodeJam qualification round. So these are languages used in the small because people are familiar with them and they are suitable for quick problem solving (one day time limit to solve half a dozen problems).
Lang 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
C++ 10094 16288 15691 28108 25705
Java 5537 6712 7684 11239 13778
Python 2302 3342 4359 7199 9413
C 1258 1325 1869 2484 3445
C# 2062 2048 1843 2958 3177
Ruby 393 595 623 1102 1217
PHP 348 472 377 600 1048
Perl 575 605 373 566 556
Haskell 156 240 406 564 520
Pascal 292 378 293 502 431
VB 154 77 112 116 154
The subsequent rounds after most entrants are eliminated are dominated by C++ (75%), followed by Java and Python.
(From http://www.go-hero.net/jam)
See LanguagesOfChoice, PaulGraham's BeingPopularEssay, ProgrammingLanguageUsageStatistics, TheMostWidelyUsedProgrammingLanguageAtAnyLevel