Last year was a year that saw a lot of changes in the world of programming languages. Mobile phones continued to emerge as a popular platform for programming, and when it came to applications and data use, the most popular platforms were cloud based. PCs and laptops got a lot more computing power though the multiple core processors and RAM, which also ended up affecting the programming languages and how they were used. Whether it be scripting languages like Ruby on Rails, Python or Pearl, or other languages like C# and objective-C, there was a lot of change in how they were being utilized.
The changes in the use of languages are monitored through the Tiobe index. This index observes the frequency at which different languages and language products are mentioned and then expresses them in terms of percentage of the total mentions. Tiobe index showed that for 2011, the maximum growth was seen for Objective-C. This can be easily understood from the fact that Apple products like the iPhone, iPod, iPad and even Macs have been quite popular. This has resulted in an increase in demand for Objective-C skills.
Impact of Mobile Phones
The impact of smartphones is most clearly visible on languages like Java. In the 90’s, Java was pretty much the most popular language for management development platforms. This changed in the new century as more options became available. But, with the introduction of Android platforms in the market, Java again received a boost. In 2011, it did not increase when compared with the previous year, but did not decline either. JVM languages like JRuby, Scala, and Groovy are pulling developers away from servers and desktop platforms. Android is being used to fill this void that is being created.
Ruby and Python
You have to understand that as mobile computing grows in popularity, developers have to lay more stress on the programming language that is used. This is because, for mobiles, the programming language should be closely linked with the hardware. The reason behind this is that with mobile phones, codes have a small base and the main focus is to make use of every feature that is offered by the hardware of the phone. A scripting language has difficulties in doing this and as a result most of the scripting languages were on a decline this year. However, the case was not so straightforward with Ruby and Python.
Ruby saw a decline on Tiobe and on Ohloh.net figures as well, which tracks the lines of codes submitted in a particular language. On the other hand Python did not see any drop at all in the number of lines of codes submitted. This means that use of Python did not decline and it still remains a popular language. That is why a Python training course is still very important for many developers. This particular trend of going away from the scripting languages was more evident in the .NET domain. C# saw tremendous growth and was only behind Objective-C in the Tiobe index. This is only a single year, so the results cannot be described as trends, but it is safe to say that mobile computing has had a significant impact on the use of programming languages.
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