Python Was Crowned Programming Language King of 2020

Python was crowned programming language king of 2020 (for the fourth year in a row!) as highlighted in this TechRadar article and the latest survey from programming watchdogs TIOBE — the title is attributed to the programming language that gains the most popularity within one year.

We asked frequent GOTO speaker and one of Ireland’s most experienced developers Eamonn Boyle why he thought Python was so loved by devs and what might attribute to its growing popularity. Here is what he had to say:


What do you think of Python?

Eamonn: Python is not my favorite language in the world. I’m statically typed through and through but you can’t deny the language’s continuing growth in popularity. As Python 3 is now accepted after a very long backlash for breaking changes, the community and industry is firmly behind it.

What do you think Python’s growth in popularity can be attributed to?

Eamonn: The increase in industry use can be attributed to a few things:

• The increased prevalence and importance of data science and ML now. Python has shone here due to its use within the academic community that developed these methods and dynamic languages are great for consuming data.


• Also, we are now more often writing in the small. Systems are now composed of many small, independent serverless functions or microserives. Here, Python’s lack of static typing becomes less of a disadvantage.


• Finally, its ease of use and ubiquity makes it a great choice for first time programmers – easy to use but also very powerful with a great standard library, functions as first class citizens and a large community.
  

Do you think Python will remain on the top spot?

Eamonn: It’ll be interesting to see if Python can maintain the top spot. The Chinese year of the Snake may not be until 2025, but lately it seems like every year is the year of the Snake.

Take a look at more stats around languages that are growing in popularity, including R and Groovy, and see where C and C++ stand on the TIOBE Index for January 2021.

Source: https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/