TIOBE Software has declared C# the programming language of 2023 based on its long-standing popularity index. The TIOBE Programming Community Index shows year-over-year trends in programming languages based on search engine volume.
As of January 2024, the top three programming languages were Python, C, and C++. However, they all lost popularity throughout 2023 in TIOBE's proprietary ranking system. Other important changes between January 2023 and January 2024 are as follows:
- C# had the highest year-over-year growth at +1.43%.
- JavaScript rose from seventh to sixth place.
- PHP rose from tenth to seventh place.
- Visual Basic fell from 6th to 8th place.
- SQL fell from eighth to ninth place.
- Scratch rose dramatically from 20th place to enter the top 10 at 10th place.
C# wins the 2023 programming language of the year award
“C# is taking market share away from Java and is becoming increasingly popular in domains like web application backends and games (thanks to Unity),” wrote TIOBE Software CEO Paul Jansen in the TIOBE Index release. from January. “C# is free to use and evolves at a constant pace, making the language more expressive with each new version. C# is here to stay and could soon even overtake Java.”
Scratch and Fortran scored the second and third highest points in 2023, at 0.83% and +0.64%, respectively. Fortran is a very old language that remains a staple for digesting large amounts of data in university research environments.
SEE: TIOBE Index Top 10 Programming Languages List for January 2024 and Previous Months (TechRepublic)
Jansen noted that, over the course of 2023, Kotlin became a permanent resident in the top 20 because it is a viable competitor to Java and because it is relatively easy to learn and write.
Look out for Dart and TypeScript in 2024
Jansen noted that it is very difficult to predict which programming languages will increase in popularity enough to reach the top 20. For example, Julia briefly reached the top 20 in August 2023, but did not stay there.
“The Julia language is not formally or officially documented, while the language evolves with each release,” Jansen said. “This makes it difficult for tool vendors to create tools for the language.”
Jansen sees Dart, with its companion SDK app, Flutter, created by Google, and TypeScript as possible contenders to enter the top 20 in 2024.
“The latter is already widely used in the industry, but for some reason it is not yet appearing in the TIOBE index,” Jansen wrote.
