Recent survey findings show Java losing attractiveness among developers

Submitted by cdas on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 13:09

Findings of a recent show that if latest developments carry on C may possibly displace Java as the most accepted programming language soon. The most recent monthly appraisal of programming languages undertaken by Tiobe Software says that in spite of the latest launch of a key upgrade to the platform, Java is fast losing its popularity among developers.

A recent website report says that the Tiobe Programming Community Index for October 2011 discovered that Java has lost much of its popularity this September, as only approximately 17.9 per cent developers using the language in comparison to 18.8 per cent in the index published a month ago. Although Java still remains the most preferred programming language, the Tiobe report says that the C language, which was graded second with about 17.7 per cent users, would become the top programming language by November provided the current trend continues.

It may be noted that, barring a few exceptions between the period mid-2004 and mid-205, Java has been occupying the top rank in the Tiobe index since 2001. Even for a few months in 2010, the C language had taken over Java. According to Tiobe managing director Paul Jansen, Java is witnessing a lasting slide. He said that from what he has been witnessing in this domain, this descending drift is possibly owing to the fact that compared to other languages like C#, the Java programming language changes/ develops extremely slowly.

Earlier this July, Oracle had released Java SE 7, (Standard Edition 7), the foremost key update in after a lapse of over five years. This release includes adjustments for multi-core processors as well as dynamic languages. It has been said that the release of Java SE 8 has been scheduled for 2013 and it is expected to include the premeditated Nashorn JavaScript engine.

As per the Tiobe index for October 2011, the top ten programming languages included C++, PHP, Objective-C, C#, Visual Basic, Perl, Python and JavaScript. In fact, while Transact-SQL and Objective-C scored record highs, with the usage ratings of 0.91 and 6.25 per cent respectively, Assembly once again entered the top 20 category and claimed the 19th spot. Visual Basic.Net ascended to the 25th spot from the 39th spot last month. On the other hand, F# slipped from 23rd to 46th position.

Tiobe's monthly index is founded on the number of expert engineers globally; classes as well as intermediary vendors, along with leading search engines companies, counting Google, Yahoo!, Bing and Wikipedia are used to work out the ratings.