If you are looking to write your first line of code, you are probably wondering which are the most widely used programming languages or how many programming languages exist. If you want to enter this world or open up to better job fields, you must know which are the best programming languages and, thus, decide what technology to learn, especially if you are starting your career in the web development industry.
Today, more than ever, you will find many programming language options for creating large software and hardware projects. Some will help you more than others, but this will depend on what you are looking to solve.
1. Python
Created by Guido Van Rossum in the 90s, this multi-paradigm and multipurpose language was conceived as a “side-project” like many technologies on this list of most used programming languages. Python has gained a lot of relevance in very popular industries such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, among others. In 2008 it had a great growth when big changes and new functionalities were introduced in its version Python 3. In fact, the popularity of Python has increased by 30.17% in 2021 compared to 2020, according to the PYPL index. Therefore, we will continue to see great advances and projects brought to reality thanks to this programming language .
2. Javascript
If you are already in the world of web programming, you will surely know that this is one of the most powerful and flexible programming languages. It was created 25 years ago during the “war of web browsers” by employees of the Netscape company.
According to the TIOBE Index, JavaScript has consistently ranked in the top 10 most used programming languages worldwide and one of the most popular for several years. This object-oriented, prototyping, and multiparadigm programming language is interpreted, that is, it does not require compilation, since it is designed to run in the browser.
And it is worth mentioning that JavaScript is supported by a huge community. It is the most widely used web programming language in the world, since practically all websites — even if they were built with another language — have some JavaScript in them.
That is why its great relevance when we talk about the front-end. In addition, large companies have led efforts creating frameworks such as ReactJS from Facebook, AngularJS from Google or NodeJS, which allow code is written in JavaScript to run on the server side, that is, designed for the back-end.
3. Java
Java is one of the most disruptive programming languages in history, since in the 90s many companies developed their tools mainly in C ++, which was complicated and dependent on the platform on which it was developed. James Gosling and his team created technology that promised to be easier to learn. That is why it is one of the most widely used programming languages today.
This is an object-oriented programming language independent of its platform, so the code that has been written on one machine will also run on another, even with different operating systems thanks to the Java Virtual Machine (or JVM for its acronym).
4. TypeScript
The growth of TypeScript was exponential in 2020 since Stack Overflow studies at the beginning of that year showed that this relatively new language would be located in the last places of popularity, but at the end of the year, it was among the first 5 most used programming languages in the world.
This language compiles into native JavaScript and becomes TypeScript code, going through the same JS processes without the browser ‘finding out that this happened. In addition, this programming language offers a complete description of each component of the code and can be used to develop large applications with strict syntax and fewer errors.
This technology created in 2012 by Microsoft has many functionalities or mechanisms of object-oriented programming, making any application or site built with this programming language more scalable.
5. PHP
This great multipurpose programming language was created in the 90s, initially thought of as a Common Input Interface (or CGI) by Greenlander Rasmus Lerdorf, who used it to maintain his own website (hence the name of this language: “personal homepage”). Since then, PHP has evolved to become the programming language that it is today, used mainly to develop applications on the server-side, guaranteeing stable web pages with good performance.
Today we see PHP in sixth place in this 2021 programming language ranking, as its popularity has been declining since the arrival of JavaScript in the same decade. However, we must thank this programming language very much, since it has been the technology that has given life to many great tools and platforms that we continue to use today, such as WordPress, Facebook, Gmail, Wikipedia, among others.
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