Editing Programming language (section)

===Measuring language usage===

Determining which is the most widely used programming language is difficult since the definition of usage varies by context. One language may occupy the greater number of programmer hours, a different one has more lines of code, and a third may consume the most CPU time. Some languages are very popular for particular kinds of applications. For example, [[COBOL]] is still strong in the corporate data center, often on large [[Mainframe computer|mainframes]];<ref>{{cite web
 |url         = http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/319269/cobol_turns_50/
 |title       = COBOL turns 50
 |date        = 2009-09-21
 |access-date  = 2013-10-19
 |author      = Georgina Swan
 |publisher   = Computerworld
 |url-status     = dead
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20131019181128/http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/319269/cobol_turns_50/
 |archive-date = 19 October 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
 |url         = http://www.developer.com/lang/other/7-myths-of-cobol-debunked.html
 |title       = 7 Myths of COBOL Debunked
 |date        = 2012-05-03
 |access-date  = 2013-10-19
 |author      = Ed Airey
 |publisher   = developer.com
 |url-status     = live
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20131019171802/http://www.developer.com/lang/other/7-myths-of-cobol-debunked.html
 |archive-date = 19 October 2013}}</ref> [[Fortran]] in scientific and engineering applications; [[Ada (programming language)|Ada]] in aerospace, transportation, military, real-time, and embedded applications; and [[C (programming language)|C]] in embedded applications and operating systems. Other languages are regularly used to write many different kinds of applications.

Various methods of measuring language popularity, each subject to a different bias over what is measured, have been proposed:
* counting the number of job advertisements that mention the language<ref>{{cite web |author=Nicholas Enticknap |url=http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2007/09/11/226631/sslcomputer-weekly-it-salary-survey-finance-boom-drives-it-job.htm |title=SSL/Computer Weekly IT salary survey: finance boom drives IT job growth |work=Computer Weekly |access-date=2013-06-14 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111026035734/http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2007/09/11/226631/SSLComputer-Weekly-IT-salary-survey-finance-boom-drives-IT-job.htm |archive-date=26 October 2011}}</ref>
* the number of books sold that teach or describe the language<ref>{{cite web|url=http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/08/programming_language_trends_1.html|title=Counting programming languages by book sales|publisher=Radar.oreilly.com|date=2 August 2006|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080517023127/http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/08/programming_language_trends_1.html|archive-date=17 May 2008}}</ref>
* estimates of the number of existing lines of code written in the language{{spaced ndash}} which may underestimate languages not often found in public searches<ref>Bieman, J.M.; Murdock, V., Finding code on the World Wide Web: a preliminary investigation, Proceedings First IEEE International Workshop on Source Code Analysis and Manipulation, 2001</ref>
* counts of language references (i.e., to the name of the language) found using a web search engine.

Combining and averaging information from various internet sites, stackify.com reported the ten most popular programming languages (in descending order by overall popularity): [[Java (programming language)|Java]], [[C (programming language)|C]], [[C++]], [[Python (programming language)|Python]], [[C Sharp (programming language)|C#]], [[JavaScript]], [[Visual Basic .NET|VB .NET]], [[R (programming language)|R]], [[PHP]], and [[MATLAB]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://stackify.com/popular-programming-languages-2018/ |title=Most Popular and Influential Programming Languages of 2018 |publisher=stackify.com |date=2017-12-18 |access-date=2018-08-29 |archive-date=30 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180830004924/https://stackify.com/popular-programming-languages-2018/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

As of June 2024, the top five programming languages as measured by [[TIOBE index]] are [[Python (programming language)|Python]], [[C++]], [[C (programming language)|C]], [[Java (programming language)|Java]] and [[C Sharp (programming language)|C#]]. TIOBE provides a list of top 100 programming languages according to popularity and update this list every month.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/ | title=TIOBE Index | access-date=24 June 2024 }}</ref>