The August 2024 Edition of the TIOBE Index has been published and Python, which has now continuously occupied the top position for 15 months since June 2023, looks set to become the most popular programming language ever. 

The TIOBE index bases its concept of "popularity" on a mix of factors including the number of skilled engineers world-wide, courses and third party vendors and uses popular web sites, Google, Amazon, Wikipedia, Bing and more than 20 others, to calculate the ratings. 

The index started with 25 languages back in 2001, and now measures more than 150 languages once a month. Simply looking its distinctive Top 10 chart you can see there's something odd going on - the jagged lines suggest a large noise to signal ratio. Even so there are discernible trends - and Python increase its rating while C, which until it was overtaken by C++ two months ago had been second most popular language, is in decline, is what stands out from the most recent chart.

Giving us the salient statistics for August 2024, Paul Jansen writes:

This month, Python has a ranking of more than 18% for the first time in its history. The last time a language hit more than 18% was Java in November 2016. Java is also the language with the highest ranking ever: 26.49% in June 2001. 

In summary, Python's hegemony is now undeniable. It is likely that it is Python's next step to become the most popular programming language ever. 

It was November 2020 when Python first overtook Java to reach #2 in the index. They swapped places a few times before Python was firmly ahead of Java. Then in October 2021, Python surpassed C for the first time to attain #1. After another to and fro dance Python pulled away to leave the rest of the field behind. It is now 8% ahead of C++, which Paul Jansen points our is "almost a record" for the distance between position #1 and position #2

Why is Python experiencing so much success? Could it be because it can be regarded as "the language of AI"? That is certainly one of the reasons as it has a number of commonly used AI libraries and AI is on the up perhaps dragging Python with it.

Another reason is that is a good first language both for the learner and the teacher. You can start using Python as if it was a non-object-oriented scripting language and later you can be amazed that all along there were objects, classes and even meta-classes. It's a powerful, sophisticated and modern language that pretends to be as simple as Basic when you first meet it.

So Python is used by in data science by professionals, it is introduced to the next generation as school and college students, and is embraced by hobbyists who find plenty of online resources. For programmers in other languages Python has a few barriers - it does things differently in some respects. But once you approach Python on its own terms these turn out to have advantages. Even so I doubt that many would have guessed that a non-strongly typed language would be so popular when so many regard strong typing as essential. Is this the proof we need to indicate that it isn't at all essential.

So Python is likely to continue its rise in popularity and if you haven't already looked at it now is a good time to do so.

• Mike James is the author of the Programmer's Python: Something Completely Different series of books which set out to show how Python diverges from other programming languages and how its special features deserve attention. 

More Information

TIOBE Index

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