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Programming languages: Python rides high but Groovy is cool again with developers

Groovy sees a jump in popularity after years on the periphery of Tiobe's top 50 programming-language rankings.
Written by Liam Tung, Contributing Writer

Java-compatible language Groovy has re-entered the top 20 most popular languages, according to Tiobe's search engine-based rankings. 

Groovy, which came to life in 2007, hasn't been a top-20 language in Tiobe's index since 2016 but in the February listing it is now at 19th place, up from 49th last year. 

Groovy hit its stride as a language for writing scripts for popular continuous-integration tool Jenkins, but it's also been buoyed by the Gradle open-source build-automation system. According to Tiobe, these days more 'glue' software is being written in Groovy. 

The top 10 however largely remained stable, led by Java in top spot, followed by C, Python, C++, Visual Basic .NET, JavaScript, C#, PHP, SQL, and Objective-C.

The rankings are based on searches on popular websites including Google, Bing, Yahoo, Wikipedia, Amazon, YouTube, and Baidu. 

Microsoft's TypeScript dropped to 57th place this month but Tiobe reckons this is a blip and it should return to the top 50 soon. 

SEE: How to build a successful developer career (free PDF)

The PYPL PopularitY of Programming Language February ranking is also out. It's based on Google searches for language tutorials.    

According to PYPL, Python remains the most popular language, but up 5.2 percentage points from last year. It now has a share of 26.42 percent. It's followed by Java, which dipped 1.3 percentage points compared with last year and now has a share of 21.2 percent.   

The remaining top 10 are stable and include JavaScript, C#, PHP, C++, R, Objective-C, Swift, and Matlab. 

As per Dice's recently released annual technology survey, knowledge of many of the most popular languages can help developers earn the highest wages. Perl, Shell, Node.js JavaScript, Java/J2EE, TypeScript, Python, Ruby, Swift, and C# were all linked to average wages of between $110,000 and $101,000.

tiobefeb19.jpg

Groovy, which first appeared in 2007, hasn't been a top-20 language in Tiobe's index since 2016.

Image: Tiobe

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