The King is Challenged – By the Uncle
According to Tiobe Programming Community Index as of April 2010, Java is no longer the most popular programming language. C is; Not due to a sudden increase in popularity of C, but rather a cause of Java’s ongoing decline.
After more than 4 years C is back at position number 1 in the TIOBE index. The scores for C have been pretty constant through the years, varying between the 15% and 20% market share for almost 10 years. So the main reason for C’s number 1 position is not C’s uprise, but the decline of its competitor Java. Java has a long-term downward trend. It is losing ground to other languages running on the JVM. An example of such a language is JavaFX script that is now approaching the top 20.
It’s important to point out, thought, that only the language part of Java is losing ground. As Tiobe Software indicates in their comment, the JVM is as hot as ever with all kinds of cool language evolution occurring.
Another interesting note to make about the april index is that Delphi is once again among the top ten. I’m really happy about that, although it means my old prophecy of a hasty decline kind of puts me in the corner (although I’ve already taken it back).
A third point is the giant leap of Objective-C, from 42:nd to 11:th most popular language. This is a combination of iPhone’s popularity and the fact that Objective-C is the only OO alternative allowed on that platform, besides C++.
Cheers!