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

201–210 of 467 posts

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#201

Post by PaulRobinson »

IshKebab wrote: post #190
PaulRobinson wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By far the most useful and helpful is job ads: it literally defines the demand side of the programming language market. Yes, that does not show us how much code is running out there, and some companies might have huge armies with very low churn and so the COBOL stacks in banks don’t show up, but I can’t think of a more useful and directly measurable way of understanding a languages real utility.

Yeah except job adverts have enormous lag behind what's actually popular. For example we used Rust quite a lot at my previous company but we didn't advertise for Rust developers at all. Also then you're looking at which languages were popular in the past whereas the interesting stat is which languages are being used to start new projects.

Interesting might not be the same as useful.

If I'm trying to figure out which language to learn next, knowing what I can get paid for might be more useful, even if it's not that "interesting".

If lots of projects are starting up in Rust, but I can't get interviews because nobody is advertising, how useful is learning Rust?

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#202

Post by iainmerrick »

nromiun wrote: post #102

Anything short of a big AI winter is not going to move Python from its top spot. As Python has become the first choice of output code for LLMs its dominance is only going to grow.

Is Python really the first choice of output code? I'm not saying you're wrong, I just don't know the answer and I don't know where to look to find out.

I would have assumed it might be JS and more specifically React -- isn't that what you often get if you ask an LLM to "make an app that does such-and-such"?

(Experimental anecdata: I just asked Gemini to write an app and it gave me a single HTML file with embedded JS, no TS or React, Tailwind for CSS.)

(Edit to add: then I asked it to "write some code" instead of "write an app", and this time it went with Python.)

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#203

Post by makeitdouble »

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.

> There are more people writing PHP and Ruby than HTML?

Intuitevely I'd say yes.

In most jobs I've been in, the ratio of backend/system devs to front end devs has been from 3:1 to 20:1 depending on the size. Provided I'm on the backend side and would choose companies accordingly, but still.

Even for web first services, there will be a flurry of people who won't touch a line of html/rendering.

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#204

Post by usrbinbash »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #120
pornel wrote: post #26

It's hard to find good data sources for this, especially that StackOverflow is in decline[1]. IEEE's methodology[2] is sensible given what's possible, but the data sources are all flawed in some ways (that don't necessarily cancel each other out). The number of search results reported by Google is the most volatile indirect proxy signal. Search results include everything mentioning the query, without promising it bei…

By far the most useful and helpful is job ads: it literally defines the demand side of the programming language market. Yes, that does not show us how much code is running out there, and some companies might have huge armies with very low churn and so the COBOL stacks in banks don’t show up, but I can’t think of a more useful and directly measurable way of understanding a languages real utility.

> the most useful and helpful is job ads

That would certainly be the case, if it were not for the fact that [fake job postings][1] are a thing.

[1]: https://globalnews.ca/news/10636759/fake-job-postings-warnin...

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#205

Post by kamaal »

roywashere wrote: post #97
pornel wrote: post #26

It's hard to find good data sources for this, especially that StackOverflow is in decline[1]. IEEE's methodology[2] is sensible given what's possible, but the data sources are all flawed in some ways (that don't necessarily cancel each other out). The number of search results reported by Google is the most volatile indirect proxy signal. Search results include everything mentioning the query, without promising it bei…

Plus TIOBE had Perl enter the top 10 suddenly this year but I do not see any new developers. And Ada too! Where are all those Ada programmers?

>>Perl enter the top 10 suddenly this year but I do not see any new developers.

Perl is almost as active as Javascript. And more useful than Python.

https://metacpan.org/recent

I write Perl to do all sorts of thing every week. Its strange its not in the top 5 list.

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#206

Post by fuzztester »

christophilus wrote: post #24
fuzztester wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your impression of Hare? I had looked at it recently while checking out C-like languages. (Others included Odin and C3.) I read some of the Hare docs and examples, and had watched a video about it on Kris Jenkins' Developer Voices channel, which was where I got to know about it.

I like it much more than Zig, and while I like Odin’s syntax more, Hare is more focused on the types of tooling I want to build, so I find Hare’s stdlib preferable. Give it a spin. It’s a simple language.

I started reading the Hare tutorial again because of your comment. Looks good so far.

Just one note for anyone else wanting to check it out:

There are a few sections in the tutorial which are empty and marked as TODO. E.g. "Using default values" and "Handling allocation failure" (the empty sections seen so far, there may be others below).

Still going to check the language out.

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#207

Post by melasadra »

Java still so popular after all this time. I've been re-learning java using the excellent University of Helsinki's MOOC course.

Was thinking of learning some spring boot and create a small project or two to reinforce what I've learned. However it feels like tutorials for spring boot is of so much lower quality compared to newer language/frameworks like JS/React/Python. Often times it's just a talking head over a powerpoint presentation talking for 30 minutes.

Could people recommend me a good tutorial for spring boot (or anything java that is being used in enterprises)?

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#208

Post by spapas82 »

What's really interesting is the place of Elixir (below Cobol and ABAP) and more of less the same as Ada. This is very controversial when comparing it with other indexes where, for example Elixir is the most beloved programming language or the language that most people wanna use. Also compare it with the number of Elixir posts on the front page of hn.

Any idea how could it be explained?

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#209

Post by watwut »

melasadra wrote: post #207

Java still so popular after all this time. I've been re-learning java using the excellent University of Helsinki's MOOC course. Was thinking of learning some spring boot and create a small project or two to reinforce what I've learned. However it feels like tutorials for spring boot is of so much lower quality compared to newer language/frameworks like JS/React/Python. Often times it's just a talking head over a powe…

I think that java has more of a written culture then make the video culture.

Re: Top Programming Languages 2025

#210

Post by Perz1val »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #60
armSixtyFour wrote: post #7

huh. This seems to suggest there are more Rust jobs than Ruby. Wild considering how insanely popular Ruby was 10 years ago.

This just doesn't feel true to me. I've been looking for a Rust job for years, and the only thing I can ever find is crypto scam listings. Meanwhile the Ruby on Rails jobs are plentiful and from real companies.

I speculate it goes this way: 1. Some people at a Java company get excited about Rust 2. They write some microservices in Rust. They're now having "Rust jobs" 3. The company hires more Java devs to replace the people that now maintain the Rust side of things 4. When in need there are internal shuffles to replace those Rust devs

It can't go forever, but as far as I can tell the usage in corporate has started not long ago. You'll have Rust jobs, but they'll be the same shit as Java jobs. There was a study done like a year ago that showed across the board decline in developer satisfaction with all the "new and shiny" JS frameworks. I 100% think that when companies will inevitably start hiring people to maintain those legacy Rust "internal sideprojects" the same will happen. It is when a not driven by passion workforce, people who complete taks and features instead of doing the "provably correct thing" have a go that technologies get vibe checked. We will see which way it goes.

Post reply on HN