Python managed to dominate IEEE List of the best programming languages for the third year in a row in 2020. The IEEE Spectrum ranking for this year has been released, and the top three programming languages for 2020 remain the same as 2018 and 2019: Python, Java and C, respectively.
The annual list was established by combining 11 parameters from online sources which were used to assess the popularity of 55 languages. It includes sources like GitHub, StackOverflow, Google Search, Trends, Twitter, Reddit, etc.
Best Programming Languages in 2020 by IEEE
So these are the 10 most popular IEEE programming languages, and if you want to see the full list, you can refer to this link. (Error 404)
Why is Python the clear winner?
Now let's talk about the reason for Python's undisputed dominance among programming languages. According to the IEEE, one of the probable causes of Python's high ranking is the inflation of its parameters due to the increase in its use as a language of instruction. Many students around the world are asking and researching answers to the same basic questions over and over again.
This trend was noticed in the past during the 1980s when BASIC was very visible. There have been books, magazines, and even TV shows that popularized the language, but fewer professional programmers have used it in real life (which is comparable to Python). When the home computing bubble finally burst, BASIC followed suit. However, some advanced programming languages of this era like Microsoft Visual Basic still survive among professional programmers.
But we can make two counter-arguments to the above: First, the students we are referring to are also general users! So if we only paid attention to what professional coders are doing, we'd be missing out on a significant part of the picture.
And the second is that, unlike BASIC, Python is used quite frequently in the professional space and in areas such as machine learning - due to its massive collection of high-quality specialized libraries.
Also read: 10 most popular programming languages to learn in July 2020Impact of COVID-19 on rankings
There is practically nothing that hasn't been affected by COVID-19 in 2020, including the best programming languages from the IEEE. If we only look at the Twitter metric, we can see that COBOL is in seventh place. This is simply because Cobol made the headlines in April. Unemployment benefit systems in US states (which run on COBOL) began to crumble under the load when workers were made redundant due to lockouts.
Apparently the majority of these systems have not been upgraded since their inception decades ago to COBOL. This led to a crisis in COBOL programmers and a hunt to help them solidify them. But it certainly messed up the metrics significantly.
