Among ordinary people, programmers are now a respected profession. After all, without them there would be no iPhones and Facebook, they create cool companies and they are among the few in Ukraine pegged to the dollar. Who is popular directly among IT specialists? VentureBeat is a list of legendary programmers who enjoy the greatest authority in the global IT community.
Linus Torvalds created Linux, free operating system, in a dorm room at the University of Helsinki. Today, data centers and supercomputers run on Linux, and it is developed by a horde of freeware fans around the world.
Torvalds is known, in particular, for the fact that he does not mince words and does not try to please the public. At one of his recent talks, when he was asked from the audience if he was scaring off members of the Linux community with his manner of communication, he replied: “I don’t give a damn about you.” There are the same jokes about Torvalds among developers as there are among ordinary people about Chuck Norris. For example, Torvalds can divide by zero and play 3D games by performing them source code in your thoughts in real time.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee- the only one on this list who managed to earn a knighthood - he was knighted by the British Queen Elizabeth II. He is the creator of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), the technology on which the entire Internet is built.
He now heads the Alliance for Affordable Internet, a public organization backed by Google, Facebook and Microsoft that aims to make broadband Internet accessible to people around the world.
Donald Knuth. His academic work in computer science earned him the title "Father of Algorithm Analysis". Everything on the web, from the algorithm for selecting Facebook feeds to the algorithm for selecting similar products on Amazon, owes something to it. He is already 77, but he still works. He is currently writing a book called The Art of Computer Programming. He is also a professor emeritus at Stanford.
Brendan Ike, creator of language JavaScript programming, which in fact is a standard for web programming. Participated in the creation of Mozilla, a company that develops Firefox browser. He resigned as CEO when his financial support for a project to ban gay marriage in California became known.
Solomon Hikes, creator of Docker, a technology beloved by developers because it packages code into containers and delivers it to servers. Works like a virtual machine, but much faster. Docker began as a side-project at dotCloud, but when the product turned out to be popular, the company experienced a pivot and soon became a unicorn.
Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook. that the smaller and more flexible the team, the more successful it will be. Billionth social network serves "only" 10,000 people worldwide.
David Heinemeier Hansson, known as DHH. Creator of Ruby on Rails, a super popular framework that earned him the title and Google Hacker of the Year award in 2005.
Richard Stallman, known primarily for his fight for free software, founder of GNU, author of the idea of “copyleft” - as opposed to copyright. Very principled, does not use any proprietary developments.
Bram Cohen, the creator of the BitTorrent protocol, which gave users the ability to download files super fast. BitTorrent is incredibly popular, with a conservative estimate of its total user base of 250 million people worldwide. Last year, Thom Yorke tried distributing the album exclusively via BitTorrent. And yet, the capabilities of BitTorrent were primarily appreciated by Internet pirates.
James Gosling, creator of the Java programming language. But you already know that. What you may not know is that James is a famous Ukrainian startup Jelastic as an independent director.
Bjarne Stroustrup, Danish programmer. In 1978, he created the C++ programming language, improving C. He is still active: he teaches at the University of Texas A&M, Columbia University, and is also employed at Morgan Stanley.
John Carmack, co-founder of id Software. He is known all over the world as the creator of Doom. By the way, the idea for the game itself was born during a game of D&D, which the team held regularly at id Software headquarters for several years. Moreover, John was always the game master. He was the first to try out 3D graphics tricks that are still used today.
He's currently working for the $2 billion company Oculus VR.
To assess the prospects of their efforts, every programmer should regularly look at ratings of programming languages. It often happens that some fashionable language appears that everyone starts writing about, but then this language quietly disappears. Those programmers who rushed to learn this language suddenly see that their efforts were in vain.
For example, in the mid-80s the Prolog language became very popular, but then its popularity declined sharply. And now almost no one writes on it. And Python took the place of the popular newcomer.
How to find out the rating of programming languages? There is no overall rating because there is no simple way collect similar statistics. But there are different ways assessing the popularity of programming languages. Let's look at the most popular ratings.
The TIOBE Index is based on performance assessment search queries containing the name of the language. The logic of this index is very simple: “If a language is searched in search engines, then he is popular." Of course, this statement is controversial, because professional programmers will extremely rarely search for the name of a programming language in a search engine. They are more likely to look for a solution to a specific problem. But the huge advantage of this rating is that it fairly objectively shows interest in a particular language.
The TIOBE index shows the most popular programming languages, information about which was sought on the 25 most popular search engines, that is, queries like: “+”
The TIOBE index for January 2020 looks like this:
TIOBE also named C the 2019 Programming Language of the Year.
The graph of index changes clearly shows how the popularity of programming languages has changed. But at the same time, the first and second place are constantly shared by the two languages Java and C. Although Java is actively promoted by Oracle, no one promotes the C language.
And what’s also interesting is that C++ has never been able to surpass C in popularity.
2. Wappalyzer rating for web applications
The Wappalyzer service uses various methods to identify web technologies. The rating of programming languages for website development for January 2020 looks like this.
PHP is clearly the leading language in web programming; more than 80% of websites are written in this language.
4. IEEE Spectrum rating
The annual IEEE Spectrum Top Programming Languages ranking uses 11 metrics from 8 sources, including search queries, Twitter mentions, and even mentions in programming job postings. On the one hand, this rating uses more data, but on the other hand, in many sources the data is of a related nature. The more vacancies for a certain programming language are published, the more more requests will be in search engines. That is, new languages have a better chance of getting to the top of the rankings.
5. Stack Overflow Rating
Stack Overflow is a place where developers can ask and answer programming questions. This site has approximately 40 million visits per month. There is a Russian version of the site: ru.stackoverflow.com
This rating is calculated based on a survey of developers. In 2019, more than 90,000 developers were surveyed and a ranking of programming languages was compiled. Rather, it is a ranking of languages that raise questions. JavaScript became the leader in this ranking.
This popularity is understandable; JavaScript is now rapidly developing and every new opportunity raises a lot of questions, so programmers go to Stack Overflow to ask questions.
It's interesting that C didn't even make it into the top ten.
6. Jobs on Head Hunter
You can approach the ranking of programming languages from the other side and see which languages are listed in vacancies and how much they are going to pay. One of the most popular platforms for finding jobs in the IT field is the HeadHunter website. There is a separate section there - vacancies for programmers.
At the bottom of the page you can see a list of similar requests and make sure that employers have slightly different requests.
Here you can see that a programmer who knows Pascal (Delphi environment) is still in demand.
7. Google Books Ngram Viewer
And in the end we will consider extremely useful service Google where you can see usage keywords in publications. Therefore, you can look at the popularity not only of programming languages, but of any technology.
At the beginning of this article are graphs of the use of Prolog and Python words. Now let's introduce JavaScript, Python and PHP.
You can see how in 1992 interest in JavaScript appeared and it quickly overtook Python and PHP.
Linus Torvalds, Donald Knuth, Richard Stallman, John Carmack - if not a name, then a legend. The online publication VentureBeat lists the most authoritative programmers in the global IT community.
Linus Torvalds
Created Linux, a free operating system, in a dorm room at the University of Helsinki. Today, data centers and supercomputers run on Linux, and it is developed by a horde of open-source fans around the world.
Torvalds is known, in particular, for the fact that he does not mince words and does not try to please the public. At one of his recent talks, when he was asked from the audience if he was scaring off members of the Linux community with his manner of communication, he replied: “I don’t give a damn about you.” There are the same jokes about Torvalds among developers as there are among ordinary people about Chuck Norris. For example, Torvalds can divide by zero and play 3D games by executing their source code in his mind in real time.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee
The only one on this list who managed to earn a knighthood was knighted by the British Queen Elizabeth II. He is the creator of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), the technology on which the entire Internet is built.
He now heads the Alliance for Affordable Internet, a public organization backed by Google, Facebook and Microsoft that aims to make broadband Internet accessible to people around the world.
Donald Knuth
His academic work in computer science earned him the title "Father of Algorithm Analysis". Everything on the web, from the algorithm for selecting Facebook feeds to the algorithm for selecting similar products on Amazon, owes something to it. At 77, he is writing a book called The Art of Computer Programming. Knuth is also a professor emeritus at Stanford.
Brendan Ike
Creator of the JavaScript programming language, which in fact is the standard for web programming. Participated in the creation of Mozilla, the company that develops the Firefox browser. He resigned as CEO when his financial support for a project to ban gay marriage in California became known.
Solomon Hikes
Creator of Docker, a technology that developers love because it packages an application and its entire environment into containers and delivers it to servers. Works like a virtual machine, but much faster. Docker began as a side-project at dotCloud, but when the product turned out to be popular, the company experienced a pivot and soon became a unicorn.
Mark Zuckerberg
Creator of Facebook. Believes that the smaller and more flexible the team, the more successful it will be. The billion-dollar social network is served by “only” 10,000 people around the world.
David Heinemeier Hansson
Known as DHH. Creator of Ruby on Rails, a super popular framework that earned him the title and Google's Hacker of the Year award in 2005.
Richard Stallman
He is known primarily for his fight for free software, the founder of GNU, the author of the idea of “copyleft” - as opposed to copyright. Very principled, does not use any proprietary developments.
Bram Cohen
The creator of the BitTorrent protocol, which gave users the ability to download files super fast. BitTorrent is incredibly popular, with a conservative estimate of its total user base at 250 million people worldwide. Last year, Thom Yorke tried distributing the album exclusively via BitTorrent. And yet, the capabilities of BitTorrent were primarily appreciated by Internet pirates.
James Gosling
Created the Java programming language while working at Sun Microsystems. After Oracle's takeover in 2010, Gosling left, becoming one of Oracle's main critics. Since then, he worked for five months at Google until he joined the startup Liquid Robotics. He is also part of the team of the famous Ukrainian startup Jelastic as an independent director.
Björn Stroustrup
The Danish programmer created the C++ programming language in 1978, improving C. He is still active: he teaches at Texas A&M University, Columbia University, and is also employed at Morgan Stanley.
John Carmack
Co-founder of id Software. He is known all over the world as the creator of Doom. By the way, the idea for the game itself was born during a game of D&D, which the team held regularly at id Software headquarters for several years. Moreover, John was always the game master. He was the first to try out 3D graphics tricks that are still used today.
He is currently working at Oculus VR, which Facebook bought for $2 billion.
The results of a study that showed which countries have the best software developers.
HackerRank is a site where developers can improve their coding skills by solving specific problems. Based on the speed and accuracy with which users find solutions, HackerRank ranked 1.5 million programmers.
Flickr/Andrew ElandInterestingly, although the largest number of site users are in the United States and India, these countries only ranked 28th and 31st in the ranking, respectively.
So which countries are the best in the world for computer programming and why?
1. China
pixabay.com China was ranked #1 in the world for having the best overall programmer performance on HackerRank. In terms of specifics, the Chinese are ahead of everyone in data structures, mathematics and functional programming.
2. Russia
Flickr/bhslangj Russia, just behind China in the overall ranking, is the leading country when it comes to algorithms, the most popular type of problem on the site.
3. Poland
pixabay.com Poland leads the way in Java development, which is especially impressive since Java is the language of choice for most HackerRank users. Like many other countries on this list, Poland also offers coding classes in its schools.
4. Switzerland
Gabriel Garcia Marengo/Flickr Switzerland ranked in the top five in 9 of the 15 programming destinations ranked by HackerRank. The country is also the birthplace of Pascal, one of the first computer programming languages. In addition, Switzerland was ranked first in the 2016 Global Innovation Index report.
5. Hungary
Flicker/roderickeime Hungary ranks an impressive 5th in the ranking and first in the world when we're talking about about tutorials. Hungary was one of the first European countries to introduce computer programming lessons into the education system in primary and secondary schools.
6. Japan
When it comes to artificial intelligence, Japan is ahead of the rest, as confirmed by HackerRank research. And this is not surprising - for example, at the beginning of the summer at the University of Tokyo, a woman’s life was saved with the help of artificial intelligence that diagnosed cancer.
7. Taiwan.
pixabay.com Taiwan's ranking in 7th place was helped by its strong performance in databases, functional programming, algorithms and data structures. The study found that the dominant programming language in this country is Python.
8. France
pixabay.com According to HackerRank research, French programmers are the best at C++. One reason for this: in June 2014, France began introducing programming lessons in primary schools.
9. Czech Republic
pixabay.com The Czech Republic dominates in Shell scripting - command interpreter scripting. She is also ranked #2 in Math on HackerRank. These skills brought the country to 9th position in the list of the best programming nations in the world.
10. Italy
The University of Napoli Federico II The country's developers certainly impress when it comes to databases and tutorials, ranking second in both. It looks like HackerRank isn't the only one who thinks highly of Italy, as Apple has announced the opening of a new school for 600 programmers at the Friedrich II University of Naples.
11. Ukraine
pixabay.com Ukraine needed very little to become one of the top ten programming powers. And this despite the fact that, according to HackerRank, Ukrainians are the best computer security specialists in the world.
There is no easy answer to the question: this market is flexible and changeable. But promising directions do not lose relevance for a long time: we reviewed them in our article. And if you have already chosen web development, then we recommend taking the “” course. You will learn the basics of creating web applications, the stages of working on them, and learn how to program using real projects.
Where do programmers work?
Developers are needed in many areas, even not always related only to IT. It is almost impossible to cover them all in one article; we will focus on the most famous and frequently mentioned areas by experts.
Web development
One of the diverse areas. Here they work with JavaScript, PHP, Python, Java and Ruby, and also use the “language structured queries» SQL. Web development is basking in the attention of newbie programmers. But the competition here is high: to stay afloat, you need to constantly monitor trends.
The undoubted advantages of this area of programming are a fairly easy entry threshold and the speed of learning libraries and tools.
Mobile development
This direction is considered the most promising. Everyone has smartphones, and their capabilities are constantly growing. Creation languages mobile applications: Java and Kotlin for Android, Swift for Apple, as well as Python, JavaScript, C#.
It is worth mentioning that creating mobile applications yourself will not bring high income: startups with a unique and high-quality idea take off well. But through self-study, you will gain the necessary experience to work in a team.
The focus of development is increasingly shifting towards mobile devices. If a company doesn't have an app, it's invisible to most. And this area continues to grow.
Desktop applications
The desktop is talked about less and less frequently than mobile and web technologies. But not because the direction was buried, but because all the questions in it have been studied for a long time, the answers to them are standard and understandable, and changes do not occur as quickly as in other niches.
Getting into the development of PC applications is more difficult than getting into web and mobile; without a higher specialized education, they are unlikely to be hired by serious organizations.
Desktop languages depend on the operating system:
- for Linux and cross-platform applications - C++;
- for macOS - Swift and Objective-C;
- for Windows - C#.
There are fewer developers on the desktop due to high knowledge requirements. But the best specialists get good salaries in large projects, have a chance to gain a foothold there for a long time and create their own team.
Game development
Not so long ago, everyone went crazy about game development - it was at the peak of its growth in popularity. Today the passions have subsided, but it is still a respected and interesting area of Internet technology. The annual market turnover in 2017 was estimated at $100 billion. Game development languages: C++, C#, Lua and JavaScript for browser games.
Knowing that your product is being used by millions of fans around the world gives a game developer an amazing emotional payoff. The industry has high salaries, but you need to go there with a willingness to difficult work and high loads. For some this is also a plus.
Data Science
This is also a fashionable trend in IT today, which goes far beyond its borders. Storage, processing and analysis of big data is found in every area of the economy. Therefore, Data Science is at the intersection of Internet technologies and business.
Specialist in Big Data serious knowledge of mathematical analysis, statistics, machine and deep learning, text analytics is required. The programming languages spoken here are R, SAS and Python.
Data Science is a “closed” club of programmers, where you want to strive for two reasons. The first is a huge, unplowed field of opportunity, given the youth of the field. The second is the same huge salaries.
Embedded Systems Programming
Embedded - microcontrollers, industrial equipment, CNC and similar things. The complete opposite of the Internet and web technologies. Here you need to understand the hardware of the machine for which the software is being created. The required languages are C, C++ and specialized for certain microcontrollers.
It is very difficult to get into this field: there are much fewer vacancies and specialists in it than on the Internet. But if you study technologies related to the use of Internet devices, you can go further.
A dream profession for those who dream of robots and complex devices that start working right before your eyes and depend on your actions. Through this area of programming, one can make significant contributions to science in principle.
Internet of Things (IoT)
The Internet of Things is predicted to have a great future and active development in the near future. Ericsson analysts predict an average annual growth rate of 23% until 2021.
The Internet of Things is the creation of smart devices connected to the network of a smart city or home.
The trend is young and promising, so entering it today is easier than in 10–20 years. For the same reason, it is easier to get recognition, implement crazy ideas and become part of history.
Business automation
Software products for companies will not go away from trends: on the contrary, new ones appear and compete with each other. Popular in Russia - Megaplan, amoCRM, Bitrix24, 1C. International market leaders: SAP, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Siebel Oracle CRM and others.
The responsibilities of programmers include implementing and updating the system, as well as training employees working with it. But there are also specialists who develop those same updates, write and maintain the code.
The SaaS industry has a relatively low barrier to entry and good wages; there is an opportunity to develop both as a programmer and as a financier.
The most popular programming languages
The choice of language depends on the direction of development. Once you have figured out what programming is in demand and suits you personally, you need to look for and study the tools for the job.
TIOBE's top ranking is based on the number of search queries, training courses and specialists. Here the leaders look like this.
