Top 10 programming languages of the future - you voted! ( for techies only)

Found Read ^ | 9/7/2007 | copywryter

[SeekAndFind]

Editor’s Note: Our friends over at Red Canary (http://www.redcanary.ca/view/top-10-programming) conducted a public forum with entrepreneurs and founders, like you, to find out what will be the top (most relevant, most used) programming languages in 2013. The results are in, we think they are worth reviewing for your strategic planning, and future hiring needs. (If you haven’t yet, do check out Red Canary (http://www.redcanary.ca/) so you can vote on the #1 language yourself (http://www.redcanary.ca/view/top-10-programming). Red Canary is full of other very useful content, and we really like their tagline, “opportunity meets community,” which expresses an ethos complimentary to Found|READ’s own mission.)

While digging around in the archives of Red Canary’s predecessor-site, Editor Trevor Stafford came across a ranked list of programming languages that were most in demand by employers in 2001. So Trevor posted the top-10 languages on Red Canary and asked his readers to vote on which of these languages would be most relevant in the future. Then he conducted the poll again, with the help of other entrepreneurial groups, like YCombinator.

For your ease, I’ve published the most recent results of Trevor’s poll, first.

TOP PROGRMAMING LANGUAGES FOR 2013

Here’s the list after 2 weeks of voting and an influx of opinions from Californian startup types (thank you, yCombinator). Python is the biggest mover.

1. HTML/CSS 7.6

2. Javascript 7.3

3. Ajax 7.2

4. Python 6.9

5. Java 6.7

6. C# 6.7

7. Ruby 6.2

8. .Net 6.0

9. C++ 5.4

10. C 5.1

10 = extremely relevant

1 = irrelevant

Note: Even though Ajax and CSS/HTML are markup tools, not programming languages, I couldn’t put a list like this together without them, and I couldn’t come up with an umbrella term for everything. Future technologies? Yuck. If you wanted to get really picky you could point out that transact-sql is merely a language extension. So is PL/SQL. Javascript might even warrant an argument. Please don’t get that picky, however. One Red Canary reader asked for Haskell to be added, but it didn’t make the top 10.

Below is the list Trevor started with, based on what was most valued, six years ago.

I. MOST POPULAR LANGUAGES (BASED ON EMPLOYER DEMAND) 2001

1. C++

2. Windows NT4

3. Oracle

4. Java

5. HTML

6. ASP

7. Visual Basic 6

8. DB2

9. Cobol

10. ANSI-C

Seeing that list got me to thinking about the nature and future of coding. What languages or splinter languages would dominate the list in 2013? Certainly not Cobol and ANSI-C :) Where will .Net and Java be in 6 years? What about xml and the surging popularity of Ajax? Will PERL and Lisp coders be able to transition to Ruby? Will they need to? What about young languages like Lua?

I’m not smart enough to see into 2013’s crystal ball, so here’s a list of 20-odd languages. Assign up to 10 stars to as many languages as you like (according to how relevant they will be in 6 years).

II. AFTER 1 WEEK OF VOTING

Here are the predicted top 10 languages of 2013 after almost one week of voting:

1. Java 7.7 (avg. stars)

2. C# 7.7

3. HTML/CSS 7.4

4. .Net 6.9

5. Ajax 6.8

6. Javascript 6.2

7. Transact-SQL 6.0

8. C++ 5.5

9. Ruby 5.4

10. PL/SQL 5.4

III. AFTER 2 WEEKS OF VOTING:

1. HTML/CSS 7.6

2. Javascript 7.3

3. Ajax 7.2

4. Python 6.9

5. Java 6.7

6. C# 6.7

7. Ruby 6.2

8. .Net 6.0

9. C++ 5.4

10. C 5.1

Remember, this is not a list of today’s most popular languages, but which languages you think will be dominant in 2013.

[P.O.E.]

Fortran-77 is what we learned college (our final exams were submitted on punchcards). After a year or so, we moved up to debugging from hex dumps.

[P.O.E.]

Fortran-77 is what we learned college (our final exams were submitted on punchcards). After a year or so, we moved up to debugging from hex dumps.

[P.O.E.]

HAH! Joke’s on me. Can’t even keep from double posting on this new-fangled interweb thing.

[rabscuttle385]

What language do they teach for Artificial Intelligence a the Universities today ?

I think that UVA is still using Lisp. I could be wrong, though, since I don't plan to take an AI course...I'm more of a systems and networks person.

[Still Thinking]

It’s not your fault. Since you’re a conservative, Al Gore, the inventor of the internut, only sends an inverior version to your confuser.

[callisto]

Your kind of party?

Oooh, yes! Any cake left?

[Grizzled Bear]

Oooh, yes! Any cake left?

I tried to save you a piece, but Darks eated it!

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

I think languages are like tools - they each are good for certain tasks, either due to their innate properties as languages, or due to existence of libraries and legacy code that can be used, modified etc. You really can’t compare C to Perl or to Lisp etc. - they are all really good tools for certain tasks and terrible choices for others.

I use C every day of my life and although the latest web app is surely not going to be written in C, just as surely linux kernel code is not going to be written in Java.

[Grizzled Bear]

Welcome back, Callisto!