Tiobe, which is specializes in assessing and tracking the quality of software, has announced JavaScript as the top programming language for 2014, based on its Programming Community Index.
JavaScript was named the top language because it was the biggest mover in the Index for the year. As it Tiobe points out, the JavaScript programming language has a long history and considered by some as the 'ugly duckling' from a language design point of view. Nevertheless, JavaScript has become the standard browser language through the years boosted by the successes of JavaScript libraries and frameworks JQuery, Bootstrap, Node.js and GWT.
As for predictions for 2015? Tiobe predicts that Objective-C will probably lose its dominant position in mobile app development, whereas Java and Swift will gain traction in that field. Other trends in programming are modeling and big data with MATLAB and R appearing to be the market leaders.
The TIOBE Programming Community index is an indicator of the popularity of programming languages and is updated once a month. The ratings are based on input from number of engineers world-wide, providers of technical courses and third party vendors. Search engines including Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, Amazon, YouTube and Baidu are used to calculate the ratings. Tiobe points out that the Index is not about the best programming language or the language in which most lines of code have been written.
The goal of the index is to offer developers insight into whether their programming skills are still up to date or to help make a strategic decision about what programming language should be adopted when starting to build a new software system.
The full Index findings are available on the Tiobe
website.