In January, the operators of the monthly TIOBE Programming Community Index not only announced the monthly ranking, but also the programming language of the year 2022. The title is given to the language that has recorded the highest increase in the ranking over the course of the year. After Python in 2021, C++ is now on the throne for 2022.
Python leads in January, but C++ ruled in 2022
The programming language Python has always been at the top of the rankings of the TIOBE Community Programming Index in recent years and was thus named programming language of the year for the second time in a row in 2021. With the announcement of January rankings TIOBE has now also announced that C++ has been chosen as the winner for 2022. A development that was already apparent in November 2022, when C++ ousted the programming language Java from third place in the monthly list.
The ranking of the top ten programming languages as seen by the TIOBE Programming Community Index in January 2023.
The creators behind the TIOBE index attribute this popularity to the fact that C++ offers excellent performance and that it is a high-level object-oriented language. It is therefore possible to develop fast and extensive software systems (over millions of lines of code) in C++ without inevitably ending in a maintenance nightmare.
Another reason for the rise of C++ is the “recent” and constant release of new language standards with interesting features. The first milestone was C++11 in 2011, which was the first major change since 1998. Adoption of this new standard took a few years because there were no C++ compilers supporting the new language definition. Because of C++11, C++ has been slowly climbing the TIOBE index after the programming language had steadily dropped in the ranking since 2001. The second milestone is the recent release of the C++20 standard, which introduced modules, for example. According to the creators of the TIOBE index, the version will probably bring C++ further up the TIOBE index in the next few years.
What else happened in 2022
Performance seemed especially important in 2022. C++ competitor Rust has climbed back into the top 20, up from 26th a year ago. Lua, known for its easy integration with C, rose from 30th place to 24th place. F# is another language that made an interesting jump: from 74th place to 33rd place in one year. Promising languages like Kotlin (29th to 25th), Julia (28th to 29th) and Dart (37th to 38th) still have a long way to go before they make the top 20, according to Paul Jansen, who CEO of TIOBE Software in his comment on the January index.
In the message on the TIOBE website not only lists places 1 to 20 of the popular programming languages in January, but also provides a list with the complete top 50 programming languages. However, this overview is only published unofficially, since the makers at TIOBE consider the possibility that they have overlooked a language. Anyone who has the impression that a programming language is missing from the list can report it directly to TIOBE via email.
(fms)
