Java Still The #1 Programming Language - Barely

According to the October 2011 TIOBE Programming Community Index - Java is still the #1 programming language out there - even though it slipped 1% from September. Hot on its heels is the old standby C.

Java has been the top language for over 10 years (except a few months were C took over). This makes total sense. The thing that really surprised me was the fact that Objective-C (the language used by Apple and iOS) came in at... #6. #6! For a language that is really only useful for building native Apple OS (OS X and iOS) applications.

That means that Objective-C beats out (in order): Visual Basic, Python, Pearl, JavaScript and Ruby.

Whoa.

Talk about marketplace "disruption."

Now, Android is based on Java - but so are a LOT of other internal and external applications - so it's sort of hard to extract the mobile developers from that total.

However, since Objective-C is really only widely used in Apple products - it's pretty significant. I wonder if it's because other than Java and PHP (#4), the other top languages are C-derivatives: C (#2), C++ (#3), and C# (#5).

So if you're a developer - or you're in school studying Computer Science - brush up on your C pointers and memory management - because it looks like that's where the money will be for the immediate future:

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How To Build Simple, Complex Software

Judging from the response I got from yesterday's blog posting about customer-centric design - I thought I'd do a more practical follow-up. The feedback that I got went something like this: "Yeah, well, ok - but how do we accomplish customer-centric design (in processes as well as our software)?".

Ruh Roh, Scooby - Here Comes ARAX

Ruby (with or without Rails) - looks like it's getting a Microsoft-sponsored update in Silverlight that will allow it to have AJAX-like interaction - sans the JavaScript.

Right now, if you want to have AJAX type of functionality - you can still do it within Ruby - although most developers use RJS (Ruby JavaScript) utility to write Ruby and then have RJS generate the JavaScript code for execution in the browser.

Ummmm.... right. If you're going to have a client-code dependency like Flash - it seems to me that it's probably not a good idea to be beholden to Microsoft. I mean, the whole reason people use Ruby is because it's open source and cross platform - right?

So... if people lean on Silverlight to be the client-side goo to execute these AJAX calls - what happens if Microsoft decides to only update the Windows version, and allows the Mac and Linux versions to fall behind (feature-wise)? Not that it's happened before with... ahem... Office for Mac or anything...

While I think it's a good idea to help developers of all languages bring it to the browser, I'm not sure this strategy is all that it's cracked up to be. Plus, I really don't see this group of heavily Unix (including loads of Mac developers) group relying on technology from the Evil Empire to solve their coding woes.

It would be good, though - if the major browser makers (or some astute, cross platform, named vendor - e.g. Adobe) would built-in support for such a scheme.

If they did - then we could have a whole new crop of acronyms: APhAX (PhP), ACFAX (ColdFusion), ALAX (Lasso), ANAX (.NET)...

Let's just stop the insanity here. There will always be languages that are not ECMA scripting. In fact, ALL languages except JavaScript are different. Let's face facts: JavaScript is here to stay - and even becoming 2.0 (soon according to Brendan Eich the guy that made it up back in the Netscape Navigator days).

It's really all up to the browser folks - and hopefully they'll all just agree to support the same stuff, the same way. The last thing in the world we need is a new generation of browsers that are even MORE incompatible.