Open source programming languages

To assess the most popular languages, the number of new projects on GitHub gives a good forecast.

Such figures were calculated in 2014 by the site redmonk.com based on the number of new projects added annually...

Languages open source

Here are the rankings and trends that are emerging ...

  1. JavaScript.
    It is constantly expanding using HTML 5, numerous frameworks and extensions, as well as Node.js on the local server or computer.
  2. Java.
    Another always popular language, albeit ancient, thanks to several factors. The language itself changes over time. The virtual machine serves as a platform for many other languages, which also contributes to Java, as its classes are shared among all languages... In addition, Android is helping to increase the number of developers.
  3. Ruby.
    Losing speed since 2009. This can be attributed to the Java JIT virtual machine, which became very fast, which replaced Rail, with Node.js, which appeared in 2009.
  4. PHP.
    Losing speed too, although the new versions swallow some of the language's flaws. JavaScript and Java compete with it.
  5. Python.
    It grew until 2010, where its decline began. What happened in 2010? The Go language appeared. More and more Python developers are switching to this new language, which has the advantage of compiling so quickly that you don't see the difference with the interpreter. And much faster on executions. But new projects do not have to be open.
    Julia also begins to compete with Python.
  6. S.
    Still progressing slightly, despite numerous languages that claim to replace it.
  7. C++
    Losing speed since 2010. Will it compete with Go? Or through all languages
    8. .
  8. C #.
    Little progresses. Perhaps at a disadvantage due to the existence of Codeplex, another open source project hoster specializing in this language. The open source Roselyn platform is expected to increase its popularity in the future.
  9. Objectively-S.
    Progressing thanks to iOS, although most applications on the smartphone are not open and free.
  10. Pearl.
    He remains in the top 10. What can be attributed to its fall since 2009? Perhaps artificially to the fact that he was one of the first languages ​ ​ to end up on GitHub when his own system, CPAN migrated to GithHub. When other languages ​ ​ joined it, it lost its meaning. But this reflects a real disappointment in any case, since very few new projects use this language, which Python or Go or even PHP profitably replace
    11. .

These statistics do not reflect the overall popularity of languages, but only those used for open source projects. Here C++ is at a disadvantage compared to interpreted languages, since many programs are distributed only in binary form.

However, we see that the languages spoken the most are not necessarily the most used...

2015 update

Here is the number of active projects on GitHub (source GitHut - with one t) for each language. The previous table is based on new projects, not the number of active ones.

  1. JavaScript.
  2. Java.
  3. Python.
  4. PHP.
  5. Ruby.
  6. C++.
  7. S.
  8. C #.
  9. Objectively-S.
  10. R.
  11. You go.
  12. Pearl.
  13. CoffeeScript.
  14. Swift.
  15. The Rock.
  16. Haskell.
  17. Lua.
  18. Klojura.
  19. Matlab.
  20. Grovey.

I only use common languages, not specialized scripting tools. It can be seen that Ruby and Perl are declining not just by comparing the two lists, but year-on-year in terms of the number of active projects. Input R, the language of statistics in the top 10 instead of Perl.