Top 20 Most Popular Programming Languages to Learn 2020 - tekinika

Image source/RedMonk

In the first time since 2012, Java is not in one of the two top spots in RedMonk's programming language popularity list.

Python is now firmly the second most popular programming language, for the first time knocking Java out of the top two places in RedMonk's language popularity rankings.

RedMonk's influential programming popularity rankings are based on GitHub and Stack Overflow data. 

The company combines them "for a ranking that attempts to reflect both code (GitHub) and discussion (Stack Overflow) traction", says RedMonk analyst Stephen O'Grady, who notes "all numerical rankings should be taken with a grain of salt".

While RedMonk's June 2020 rankings don't show much change compared with the March list, O'Grady considers Python the big winner in this edition simply because it hasn't moved from second place while Java has fallen a spot. 

Microsoft-backed TypeScript, a superset of JavaScript for big projects, also retained its spot as the 9th most popular programming language in RedMonk's rankings. The question now is whether it will drop out of the top 10, as Apple-backed Swift did – it's now in 11th spot – or rise to join the top five programming languages. 

As O'Grady notes, TypeScript's type safety features and Microsoft's code editor Visual Studio Code (VS Code) are probably helping its performance. 


RedMonk's June 2020 top 20 most popular programming languages are:

1. JavaScript
2.  Python
3. Java
4. PHP
5. C++
5. C#
7. Ruby
7. CSS
9. TypeScript
10. C
11. Swift
12. Objective-C
13. R
14. Scala
15. Go
15. Shell
17. PowerShell
18. Perl
19. Kotlin
20. Rust

We'll be watching to see where this up-and-coming language heads.