Programming languages keep pace with the latest technological advancements. Although millions of people continue to use old-school programming languages, modern programming languages are managing and processing data in more efficient ways, especially today with the increasing development of artificial intelligence. The latest update to the TIOBE Index reveals significant changes in the software development landscape. While traditional programming languages remain popular, many developers are seeking technologies that can handle the vast amounts of modern digital data. Traditional languages such as C, COBOL, Fortran, and assembly still have a place, but they no longer occupy the center stage.
The TIOBE index is a monthly indicator of the popularity of programming languages maintained by the Dutch company TIOBE Software BV. Its "popularity" data comes from search results from more than 20 websites, including Google, Amazon, Wikipedia and Bing.
In October 2024, Python continued to retain its position as the most popular programming language, growing +7.08% in the past month to occupy 21.90% of the market share. C++ ranks second with a market share of 11.60%, followed by Java with a market share of 10.51%. However, the classic C language is losing market, currently ranking fourth with a market share of 8.38%, a decrease of 3.70%.
Paul Jansen, CEO of TIOBE Software, said that the amount of digital data in today's technology world is growing at an unprecedented rate, which is driving an increasing demand for tools that can efficiently process and operate on this data. What programmers now need are languages that can handle large amounts of bits and bytes well, perform complex calculations, and provide high performance.
Jansen said Python is easy to learn and safe, but it's not fast enough. As a result, software engineers are "frantically" looking for more powerful alternatives. C++ can be a candidate, but is not safe enough for memory management tasks. Rust is an interesting new language that is quickly making its way into the top ten of the TIOBE index, although it is not easy to learn.
Mojo is a programming language created by Chris Lattner in 2023 and entered the TIOBE index for the first time in October 2024. Jansen describes Mojo as a hybrid of Python and Swift with faster performance. Currently, Mojo ranks 49th with a 0.15% share, and is particularly suitable for low-level programming on artificial intelligence hardware such as GPUs without using NVIDIA's proprietary CUDA API for parallel computing.