Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Top Programming Languages 2025

spectrum.ieee.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 467 posts

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#81

Post by noisy_boy »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #67

Java at #2? Is it really still being used much for new code in this day and age? Or is its popularity mostly due to so much legacy code out there to be maintained?

It is a good choice if you want to use a non-Microsoft stack language (yes C# can be developed on Linux but the quality of the development experience on Linux isn't same as Windows) and want a vast ecosystem. Golang is too verbose due to lack of exceptions and the size of its ecosystem of third-party packages isn't anywhere as close to Java's. Swift is very nice but issues with ecosystem exist there too. Too steep a learning curve with Rust so more difficult to find developers. Modern Java has improved a lot compared to, say, Java 8 with record types, pattern matching, multiline strings etc. The pace of new features coming to Java has been quite high in recent times. Plus there is always the network effect.

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#82

Post by akkad33 »

gt0 wrote: post #30

I'd like to see some clarity in these stats, it can't just be me that finds it hard to believe that there are significantly more Python jobs than Java. I wonder if job listings are saying "Python, C++" or something, so that's a point for Python, even though, the job is < 1% Python just for test rigs or something.

You'd be hard pressed to find a job posting in ML/ data analytics where python is not in the requirements

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#84

Post by pjmlp »

js8 wrote: post #56
zenmac wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Python got popular cause of LLM AI thing. It is a shame, cause it is quite slow. I had some good time with jython back in the 2 days, but really wished something more elegant (nim/rust/ocaml) has taken over this AI thing instead of python. One thing is for sure, don't get tight down to one language cause it is popular today. Go with whatever make sense for you and your project.

> And Python got popular cause of LLM AI thing. Not really, Python got popular in 2000s because it was the only sane of the three choices - Perl, Python, TCL. You must be young.

The magic word for Python's fame is Zope, the respective article on Dr. Dobbs, until then I never noticed it.

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#85

Post by oaiey »

pipeline_peak wrote: post #83

What’s going on with Swift? Seems surprisingly less popular considering it’s the official way to develop for Apple. Is it something to do with frameworks like React?

Swift is a nice for one use case. The use cases outnumber the popularity in that niche.

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#86

Post by obezyian »

kstrauser wrote: post #59

I’m skeptical. There are more people writing PHP and Ruby than HTML? And HTML is a programming language? Those two very surprising results make me doubt the others. Elixir behind OCaml? Possible, I guess, but I know of several large Elixir shops and I haven’t heard much of OCaml in a while.

A couple of Java programmers from my first job were stopped by police while drinking in a park.

When asked what they do for a living, they said they were programmers.

Then the police officer went:

– Oh, I see. HTML.

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#87

Post by pjmlp »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #67

Java at #2? Is it really still being used much for new code in this day and age? Or is its popularity mostly due to so much legacy code out there to be maintained?

Yes, outside HN praises of Elixir, Gleam, and co, corporations run on boring technology, maybe with exception of what the FE folks pick up on each project.

They work, have great tooling, and do whatever is required for customers.

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#88

Post by ystvn »

ppeetteerr wrote: post #43
torben-friis wrote: post #22

As a backend dev (mostly working in fintech) I feel weirdly unable to find a target language to move to. After working with Node and Ruby for a while I really miss a static type system. - Typescript was limited by its option to allow non strictness. Nothing catches my eye, as it’s either Java/.Net and its enterprisey companies or Go, which might not be old but feels like it is, by design. Rust sounds fun, but its use…

Java is maturing into a syntactically nice language, albeit slowly, and it's the backbone of many medium and large companies. You might have trouble finding small companies using anything but JS/Ruby/Python. These companies align more with velocity and cost of engineering, and not so much with performance. That's probably why the volume of interpreted languages is greater than that of "enterprisey" or "performance" l…

> Java is maturing into a syntactically nice language, albeit slowly, and it's the backbone of many medium and large companies.

I've heard about Java initiatives to improve it, but can you point to examples of how how Java "is maturing into a syntactically nice language"?

I'm tempted to learn it, but wonder whether it would really become nice enough to become a 'go-to' language (over TS in my case)

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#89

Post by oaiey »

akkad33 wrote: post #79
insane_dreamer wrote: post #67

Java at #2? Is it really still being used much for new code in this day and age? Or is its popularity mostly due to so much legacy code out there to be maintained?

Yes. Many startups using Java in europe

And for simple reasons: no experiments in tech stack. No friction in hiring. Static typing (which sorts out JS and Python) and then you are there.

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#90

Post by lmm »

torben-friis wrote: post #22

As a backend dev (mostly working in fintech) I feel weirdly unable to find a target language to move to. After working with Node and Ruby for a while I really miss a static type system. - Typescript was limited by its option to allow non strictness. Nothing catches my eye, as it’s either Java/.Net and its enterprisey companies or Go, which might not be old but feels like it is, by design. Rust sounds fun, but its use…

Scala is the best language I've ever used - all the good parts of Typescript and all the good parts of Java or Rust. And fintech is one of the few niches where you might still be able to find a job using it.
Post reply on HN