14 DAY TRIAL // The TIOBE index is an established ranking system used to measure the popularity of programming languages. According to the TIOBE Company, the firm behind the index, 2015 was Java's year, which outmuscled C for the top spot.
Java was not only the overall winner for 2015, but compared to last year, it also recorded the biggest ranking change with a 5.94% growth.
Java, which was the dominant programming language at the start of the 2000s, has lost face to C in the past few three years. The recent resurgence can be easily attributed to the Android ecosystem, which helped drive Java's popularity up once again after Android-based smartphones started dominating the mobile market.
In a similar programming languages ranking system managed by PYPL, Java also ranked first at the end of 2015, but the PYPL index declared Python as the most popular language during the past year, with a growth of popularity of 1.1%, compared to Java's 0.4%.
On the other side of the spectrum, the TIOBE index declared Objective-C 2015's biggest loser with -5.88% while PYPL gave that title to PHP with -0.7%.
Also today, DB-Engine, another ranking service that focuses on database management systems, has declared Oracle the Database of the Year for 2015.
Here is the TIOBE index, as it stands in January 2016.
| Jan 2016 | Jan 2015 | Change | Programming Language | Ratings | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | ⇧ | Java | 21.465% | +5.94% |
| 2 | 1 | ⇩ | C | 16.036% | -0.67% |
| 3 | 4 | ⇧ | C++ | 6.914% | +0.21% |
| 4 | 5 | ⇧ | C# | 4.707% | -0.34% |
| 5 | 8 | ⇧ | Python | 3.854% | +1.24% |
| 6 | 6 | PHP | 2.706% | -1.08% | |
| 7 | 16 | ⇧⇧ | Visual Basic .NET | 2.582% | +1.51% |
| 8 | 7 | ⇩ | JavaScript | 2.565% | -0.71% |
| 9 | 14 | ⇧⇧ | Assembly language | 2.095% | +0.92% |
| 10 | 15 | ⇧⇧ | Ruby | 2.047% | +0.92% |
| Rank | Change | Language | Share | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Java | 24.4 % | +0.4 % | |
| 2 | ⇧ | Python | 11.8 % | +1.1 % |
| 3 | ⇩ | PHP | 10.7 % | -0.7 % |
| 4 | C# | 8.9 % | +0.3 % | |
| 5 | C++ | 7.6 % | -0.6 % | |
| 6 | C | 7.6 % | +0.0 % | |
| 7 | Javascript | 7.3 % | +0.3 % | |
| 8 | Objective-C | 5.1 % | -1.1 % | |
| 9 | ⇧⇧⇧ | Swift | 2.9 % | +0.4 % |
| 10 | R | 2.9 % | +0.3 % |