Engineering and Technology

Last September, I’ve write about the top 5 most popular programming languages in 2013. Now I’m going to post the 10 most popular programming and scripting languages in 2014.

This list doesn’t surprise me, Java is still on the top, partly because it can be use to create web applications, desktop programs, mobile applications, etc.

Read the whole article and share your insights about this list on the comment section.

1. Java

Java is very popular from the past many years, and now in 2014 it’s still the most popular programming language. You can use Java in creating web applications, desktop programs, and mobile applications, remember ”WORA”? Demands for experienced Java programmers are very high and pays awesome salary. And if you’re a novice programmer, you might better try to learn Java.

2. JavaScript

JavaScript is not related to Java even though it does have “Java” in its name. It is most commonly used as part of web browsers, whose implementations allow client-side scripts to interact with the user, control the browser, communicate asynchronously, and alter the document content that is displayed. It is also being used in server-side programming, game development and the creation of desktop and mobile applications. AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and jQuery are 2 of the most popular JavaScript techniques and JavaScript library used today by many most visited websites.

3. PHP

With its current latest stable release (5.5.9), PHP is still one of the most popular server-side scripting languages today. Rasmus Lerdorf developed its first version in 1995. Originally known as Personal Home Page, it now stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, which is a recursive backronym. PHP is now installed on more than 244 million websites and 2.1 million web servers.

4. Python

Designed with an emphasis on readability and compact syntax, Python is a dynamic, highly flexible language commonly used for both scripting and developing applications.

Its design philosophy emphasizes code readability, and its syntax allows programmers to express concepts in fewer lines of code than would be possible in languages such as C. The language provides constructs intended to enable clear programs on both a small and large scale.

5. C++ (C plus plus)

C++ is a general purpose programming language that is free-form and compiled. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises both high-level and low-level language features. It provides imperative, object-oriented and generic programming features.

C++ is implemented on a wide variety of hardware and operating system platforms. As an efficient performance driven programming language it is used in systems software, application software, device drivers, embedded software, high-performance server and client applications, and entertainment software such as video games. Various entities provide both open source and proprietary C++ compiler software, including theFSF, LLVM, Microsoft and Intel. C++ has influenced many other programming languages, for example, C#and Java.

6. C# (C sharp)

Originally developed by Microsoft for the .NET initiative, C# is a modern, general-purpose, object-oriented programming language used to develop software components for deployment in distributed environments.

C# is intended to be a simple, modern, general-purpose, object-oriented programming language.Anders Hejlsberg leads the development team for C#. Its most recent version is C# 5.0, which was released on August 15, 2012.

7. Objective-C

Objective-C is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style messaging to the C programming language. It is the main programming language used by Apple for the OS X and iOS operating systems and their respective APIs, Cocoa and Cocoa Touch.

Originally developed in the early 1980s, it was selected as the main language used by NeXT for its NeXTSTEP operating system, from which OS X and iOS are derived. Generic Objective-C programs that do not use the Cocoa or Cocoa Touch libraries, or using parts that may be ported or implemented for other systems can also be compiled for any system supported by GCC or Clang.

Objective-C source code program files usually have .m filename extensions, while Objective-C header files have .h extensions, the same as for C header files.

8. Ruby

Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, object-oriented, general-purpose programming language. It was designed and developed in the mid-1990s by Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto in Japan. Its latest version is Ruby 2.1.1, which was released on its 24^th anniversary last February 24.

According to its authors, Ruby was influenced by Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp. It supports multiple programming paradigms, including functional, object-oriented, and imperative. It also has a dynamic type system and automatic memory management.

9. C

The predecessor of the other popular programming languages (C++, C#, Java, Objective-C), C programming language nowadays is still used by many developers, and C compilers are available for the majority of available computer architectures and operating systems. Dennis Ritchie initially developed C between 1969 and 1973 at AT&T Bell Labs.

10. Perl

Perl is a family of high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. The languages in this family include Perl 5 and Perl 6.

Though Perl is not officially an acronym,there are various backronyms in use, such as: Practical Extraction and Reporting Language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions. The latest major stable revision of Perl 5 is 5.18, released in May 2013. Perl 6, which began as a redesign of Perl 5 in 2000, eventually evolved into a separate language. Both languages continue to be developed independently by different development teams and liberally borrow ideas from one another.

The Perl languages borrow features from other programming languages including C, shell scripting (sh), AWK, and sed.They provide powerful text processing facilities without the arbitrary data-length limits of many contemporary Unix command line tools, facilitating easy manipulation of text files. Perl 5 gained widespread popularity in the late 1990s as a CGI scripting language, in part due to its parsing abilities.

Resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_(programming_language)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C++

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective-C

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_(programming_language)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl

http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2014/01/22/language-rankings-1-14/

http://www.wpcentral.com/c-trend-2014

http://codecondo.com/top-5-web-programming-languages-begin-learning-2014/

http://www.slideshare.net/lyndadotcom/top-10-programming-languages-to-know-in-2014

http://www.sitepoint.com/best-programming-language-learn-2014/

Programming language is a formal language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Sometimes when someone said programming language, they are also referring to scripting language, which are separate kind of languages. In layman’s term, a programming language doesn’t need another language for it to run properly, wherein a scripting language does need another language for it to run properly.

The following are the most popular programming languages in 2013:

Source: gradleware

Java is a general-purpose, concurrent, class-based, object-oriented computer programming language that is specifically designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible. It is intended to let application developers "write once, run anywhere" (WORA), meaning that code that runs on one platform does not need to be recompiled to run on another. Java applications are typically compiled to bytecode (class file) that can run on any Java virtual machine (JVM) regardless of computer architecture.

Strengths: WORA, popularity

Weaknesses: Slower than natively compiled languages

Sample syntax:

class HelloWorldApp {

public static void main(String[] args) {

System.out.println("Hello World!");

}

C++ is a programming language that is general purpose, statically typed, free form, multi-paradigm and compiled. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises both high-level and low-level language features. Developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell Labs, C++ was originally named C with Classes, adding object oriented features, such as classes, and other enhancements to the C programming language. The language was renamed C++ in 1983, as a pun involving the increment operator.

Strengths: Speed

Weaknesses: Older and considered clumsy if compared to Java

Sample syntax:

#include

using namespace std;

void main(){

cout << "Hello World!";

}

C# is a multi-paradigm programming language encompassing strong typing, imperative, declarative, functional, procedural, generic, object-oriented (class-based), and component-oriented programming disciplines. It was developed by Microsoft within its .NET initiative and later approved as a standard by Ecma (ECMA-334) and ISO (ISO/IEC 23270:2006). C# is one of the programming languages designed for the Common Language Infrastructure.

Strengths: Powerful and fast

Weaknesses: Only really suitable for Windows

Sample syntax:

public class Hello1 {

public static void Main() {

System.Console.WriteLine("Hello, World!");

}

Python is a widely used general-purpose, high-level programming language. Its design philosophy emphasizes code readability, and its syntax allows programmers to express concepts in fewer lines of code than would be possible in languages such as C. The language provides constructs intended to enable clear programs on both a small and large scale.

Strengths: Excellent readability and overall philosophy

Weaknesses: No explicit return types

Sample syntax:

def main():

print("Hello World!")

if __name__ == "__main__":

main()

C is a general-purpose programming language initially developed by Dennis Ritchie between 1969 and 1973 at AT&T Bell Labs. Like most imperative languages in the ALGOL tradition, C has facilities for structured programming and allows lexical variable scope and recursion, while astatic type system prevents many unintended operations. Its design provides constructs that map efficiently to typical machine instructions, and therefore it has found lasting use in applications that had formerly been coded in assembly language, most notably system software like the Unix computer operating system.

Strengths: Speed

Weaknesses: Memory Management, difficult to master

Sample syntax: