Java is #1 Programming language

The first time I heard about Ruby was when one of my friend gave a seminar on it. That was way back in 2004. Later "Ruby on Rails" caught on. We have seen PHP's popularity increase. At the same time C# and ASP have emerged much stronger from the Microsoft. And Ajax technology pushing the Web 2.0 jargon to extrme limits. We now have a debate if it will evolve to Enterprise technology or not. There has been big words about Java missing the RIA (Rich Internet Application) wagon. Lets see, which language has fared in the market?

The TIOBE Programming Community mantains a programming language popularity index and its updated on a monthly basis. Its based on a combination of factor like availability of skilled engineers, courses and third party vendors. They have also make use of the search engines to calcuate the popularity. Here is the list taken from the TIOBE site :

1. Java
2. C
3. Visual basic
4. C++
5. PHP
6. Perl
7. C#
8. Python
9. Javascript
10. Ruby

Java topping the list is not a surprise, but it shows how popular and demanding Java is in the market compared to others. Interesting part is to see PHP and Ruby down at 5th and 10th position. Ruby has started to loose share to PHP for sure, but PHP has two rival's Java and C#. I am sure C# in the form of ASP.Net will catch on soon. I would say new developers should look at one server side technology and work on the design (CSS,Javascript,Ajax,Flex,Flash etc) as well. Its hard to get an expert on both side.

You can get the complete list of language populaity here. But remember that this list doesn't show the best language. Instead it shows what is popular. Many of my friends ask ask which language is study.. I would say, learn on core technology Java or .Net. But never stop there. You need know a combination to be known as the best!