You will have noticed, it is always the same language that comes up. However, I told you at the beginning of this article that there are several hundred different programming languages! This is not trivial. We have chosen to offer you only the most popular languages. Indeed, you will have a better chance of succeeding as a freelance developer if you are proficient in one of these languages. Also, it will be easier for you to find documentation, help, and be sure that the language and its frameworks will be maintained for at least several more years. On this subject, let's see together which are the most popular languages in 2021. For this, we will look at two sources: The TIOBE index: which measures the popularity of programming languages each month based on the number of results returned on search engines; The Github Octoverse which features a list of the most popular languages based on contributions from its users.
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With the exception of C which stole the first position from Java (which therefore passed second), there is no change in the top 5 compared to 2020. By analyzing the ranking more in depth, we notice a surge of R languages , Groovy and Assembly, as well as a drop in the ranking of Swift or Ruby - drops to put in perspective, the former not undergoing a big change in percentage, the latter continuing to progress, but less quickly than others.
We can notice that some languages, among which Java, C and C ++, have long been among the most popular. Conversely, some languages popular in 1986 are hardly used anymore, such as Ada or Lisp.
Another major change over the years has been the slow decline in custom php application development - although this appears to be leveling off. It is mainly due to the use of new back-end technologies, Node.js and Python to name a few.
Speaking of Python, we can only see its breakthrough. The language and its various libraries can be used, as we have seen, for web development, AI or IoT. The complementarity of this language and its simplicity have therefore propelled it into the top three.
