Python comes third in TIOBE popularity index for the first time

2 min read

Python made it to the TIOBE index in the third position for the first time in its history.

The TIOBE programming community index is a common measure of programming language popularity. It is created and maintained by the TIOBE company based in the Netherlands. The popularity in the index is calculated based on the number of search engine results for search queries with the name of the language. They consider searches from Google, Google Blogs, MSN, Yahoo!, Baidu, Wikipedia, and YouTube. The TIOBE index is updated once a month.

Source: TIOBE

Python is third behind Java and C. Python’s rating is 7.653 percent while Java had a rating of 17.436 percent. C was in the second place rated at 15.447 percent. Python moved above C++ to be placed third. C++ was third last month and now is in the fourth place this month, with a rating of 7.394 percent.

Python has increasing ubiquity, being used in many research areas like AI and machine learning which are all the buzz today. The increasing popularity is not surprising as Python has versatile applications. AI and machine learning, software development, web development, scripting, scientific applications, and even games, you name it. Python is easy to install, learn, use, and deploy. The syntax is also very simple and beginner friendly.

TIOBE states that this third place took a really took a long time. “At the beginning of the 1990s it entered the chart. Then it took another 10 years before it reached the TIOBE index top 10 for the first time. After that it slowly but surely approached the top 5 and eventually the top 3.“

Python has also been the language of the year in the index for the years 2007 and 2010. The current top 5 languages are Java, C, Python, C++, and Visual Basic .NET. To read more and to view the complete list of the index, visit the TIOBE website.