Google's system language Go is ranked #8 in the TIOBE Index for February 2024. This is the third time it has entered the Top 10. However, it is now in the highest position it has ever had to date.

When Go moved into 10th place on the TIOBE index in March 2023 I thought it might stay there. But no, it was ousted the following month. Now it is back and in eighth place which gives it a better chance of staying on the chart.

Looking at Go in isolation on the TIOBE index you might be puzzled to see that its latest percentage rating is 1.73%. This is  well below its maximum of 2.36% which it achieved in July 2017 after having been above the current rating for the previous ten months. This, however, corresponded to positions between 20 and 16 in the ranking, although the year on year increase in share resulted it becoming TIOBE Language of the Year for 2016.

What you have to remember is that the index weighs the popularity of one language against the rest while the percentage ratings look at the share each has. Looking at the complete Top 10 chart for the early part of its history three languages - Java, C and C++ were well separated at the top of the chart. C++ then dropped out but over time the shares of Java and C also dropped. Recently Python has overtaken all other languages - but its highest ever share was 17.08% in October 2022. Compare this to 26.49% for Java and 20.71% for C at their peaks

For February there are five languages relatively close to one another at the top of the chart - Python (15.16%); C (10.97%); C++ (10.53%); Java (8.8%) C# (7.53%) - and four in a cluster at the bottom - PHP (1.51%); Visual Basic (1.51%) Go (1.73%); SQL (1.83%) - with JavaScript (3.17%) being in the middle at #6 which is JavaScript's highest ever position.

But it is Go that has been given this month's pride of place by Paul Jansen who uses the headline, "The Go programming language enters the top 10." and continues with:

When it was launched by Google in November 2009, Go was an instant hit. These were the days that everything that Google did was magic... So when Google announced its first own language, Go, the software community was thrilled. It was the talk of the town. After only 2 months of existence, Go won the TIOBE language of the year award. Unexpectedly, the hype was over soon. In 2015, Go hit position #122 in the TIOBE index and all seemed lost. One year later, Go adopted a very strict "half a year" release cycle (backed up by Google). Every new release, Go improved. In parallel, Docker and Kubernetes (both written in Go) started to become very popular as of 2016. This helped to regain confidence in Go. Nowadays, Go is used in many software fields such as back end programming, web services and APIs. Thanks to its growing adoption in industry, Go seems to be a language that has the capabilities to stay in the TIOBE index top 10 for a long time. 

Jansen also notes that Goole's most recent new language, Carbon, has entered the top 100 of the TIOBE index for the first time this month. The last time he mentioned it was at #168 in April 2023 so it is making good progress - obviously one to watch.  

More Information

TIOBE Index 

GoLang Org Webpage

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