Revolutions

The latest Redmonk Language Rankings are out. These rankings are published twice a year, and the top three positions in the June 2018 rankings remain unchanged from last time: JavaScript at #1, Java at #2, and Python at #3. The Redmonk rankings are based on Github repositories (as a proxy for developer activity) and StackOverflow activity (as a proxy for user discussion), as shown in the chart below.

Compared to two quarters ago, R has dropped 2 places to #14. But as Stephen O'Grady notes, this ranking volatility is typical:

R is essentially a case study at this point for why we recommend against over-reacting to any particular quarter’s performance. R has dropped two spots previously, only to bounce back a quarter or two later. Its domain specific nature means that it is never likely to compete for the very top spots on this ranking, but it remains dominant and broadly used within its area of expertise.

You can see the complete rankings list along with discussion of the languages covered in at the Redmonk blog linked below.

Tecosystems: The RedMonk Programming Language Rankings: June 2018

Python retains its top spot in the fifth annual IEEE Spectrum top programming language rankings, and also gains a designation as an "embedded language". Data science language R remains the only domain-specific slot in the top 10 (where it as listed as an "enterprise language") and drops one place compared to its 2017 ranking to take the #7 spot.

Looking at other data-oriented languages, Matlab as at #11 (up 3 places), SQL is at #24 (down 1), Julia at #32 (down 1) and SAS at #40 (down 3). Click the screenshot below for an interactive version of the chart where you can also explore the top 50 rankings.

The IEEE Spectrum rankings are based on search, social media, and job listing trends, GitHub repositories, and mentions in journal articles. You can find details on the ranking methodology here, and discussion of the trends behind the 2018 rankings at the link below.

IEEE Spectrum: The 2018 Top Programming Languages

The new PYPL Popularity of Programming Languages (June 2018) index ranks Python at #1 and R at #7.

Like the similar TIOBE language index, the PYPL index uses Google search activity to rank language popularity. PYPL, however, fcouses on people searching for tutorials in the respective languages as a proxy for popularity. By that measure, Python has always been more popular than R (as you'd expect from a more general-purpose language), but both have been growing at similar rates. The chart below includes the three data-oriented languages tracked by the index (and note the vertical scale is logarithmic).

Another language ranking was also released recently: the annual KDnuggets Analytics, Data Science and Machine Learning Poll. These rankings, however, are derived not from search trends but by self-selected poll respondents, which perhaps explains the presence of Rapidminer at the #2 spot.

n the latest Redmonk language rankings, R has risen to the #12 position, up from #14 in the June 2017 rankings. (Python remains steady in the #3 position.) The Redmonk rankings are based on activity in StackOverflow (as a proxy for user engagement) and Github (as a proxy for developer engagement). Here's the chart from January 2018 of Github popularity ranking versus StackOverflow popularity ranking.

Here's what Redmonk analyst Stephen O'Grady had to say about Powershell, R and Typescript. (R isn't a Microsoft property, but Microsoft is a founding member of the R Consortium and incorporates R into several products including Microsoft ML Server, SQL Server and Power BI.)

Powershell (+1) / R (+2) / TypeScript (+3): Of all of the vendors represented on this list, Microsoft has by a fair margin the most to crow about. Its ops-oriented language Powershell continues its steady rise, and R had a bounceback from earlier slight declines. TypeScript, meanwhile, pulled off a contextually impressive three spot jump from #17 to #14. Given that growth in the top twenty comes at a premium, hitting the ranking that a widespread language like R enjoyed in our last rankings is an impressive achievement. From a macro perspective, it’s also worth noting that Microsoft is seeing growth across three distinct categories in operations, analytics/data science and application development. More on this later, but it’s a strong indication that Microsoft’s multi-language approach to the broader market is paying dividends.

[Update March 15] Here's a visualization of the Redmonk language rankings over time:

You can find the complete top 20 rankings and analysis of the other languages in the list by following the link below.

Tecosystems: The RedMonk Programming Language Rankings: January 2018

According to a recent analysis of Stack Overflow "Developer Stories", where programmer candidates list the technologies the would and would not like to work with, R is the least disliked programming language:

This is probably related to the fact that there's high demand in the job market for fast-growing technologies, which is a disincentive for listing them on the "would not work with" section of an online resume. As author David Robinson notes:

If you’ve read some of our other posts about the growing and shrinking programming languages, you might notice that the least disliked tags tend to be fast-growing ones. R, Python, Typescript, Go, and Rust are all fast-growing in terms of Stack Overflow activity (we’ve specifically explored Python and R before) and all are among the least polarizing languages.

Read the complete analysis linked below for more insights, including the "most liked" languages and rivalries between languages (where liking one and disliking the other go hand-in-hand).

Stack Overflow blog: What are the Most Disliked Programming Languages?

Competitive predictive modeling site Kaggle conducted a survey of participants in prediction competitions, and the 16,000 responses provide some insights about that user community. (Whether those trends generalize to the wider community of all data scientists is unclear, however.) One question of interest asked what tools Kagglers use at work. Python is the most commonly-used tool within this community, and R is second. (Respondents could select more than one tool.)

Interestingly, the rankings varied according to the job title of the respondent. R and Python received top-ranking for every job-title subgroup except one (database administrators, who preferred SQL), according to the following division:

• R: Business Analyst, Data Analyst, Data Miner, Operations Researcher, Predictive Modeler, Statistician
• Python: Computer Scientist, Data Scientist, Engineer, Machine Learning Engineer, Other, Programmer, Researcher, Scientist, Software Developer

You can find summaries of the other questions in the survey at the link below. An anonymized dataset of survey responses is also available, as is the "Kaggle Kernel" (a kind of notebook) of the R code behind the survey analysis.

Kaggle: The State of Data Science and Machine Learning, 2017

IEEE Spectrum has published its fourth annual ranking of of top programming languages, and the R language is again featured in the Top 10. This year R ranks at #6, down a spot from its 2016 ranking (and with an IEEE score — derived from search, social media, and job listing trends — tied with the #5 place-getter, C#). Python has taken the #1 slot from C, jumping from its #3 ranking in 2016.

For R (a domain specific language for data science) to rank in the top 10, and for Python (a general-purpose language with many data science applications) to take the top spot, may seem like a surprise. I attribute this to continued broad demand for machine intelligence application development, driven by the growth of "big data" initiatives and the strategic imperative to capitalize on these data stores by companies wordwide. Other data-oriented languages appear in the Top 50 rankings, including Matlab (#15), SQL (#23), Julia (#31) and SAS (#37).

For the complete announcement of the 2017 IEEE Spectrum rankings, including additional commentary and analysis of changes, follow the link below.

IEEE Spectrum: The 2017 Top Programming Languages