Before we get to the meat and bones of today’s article, let’s learn what a programming language is.
What is a Programming Language?
A programming language is a language utilized by programmers to develop or write software programs, scripts, or other instructions for computers to execute. Many languages share similarities; however, they each have their own unique syntax.
In the software world, numerous programming languages exist, and each year more are being developed.
Below are the most popular/utilized programming languages in 2024 and their creators:
1)Python—Guido van Rossum
Python is a high-level, general-purpose, open source programming language that can be used for various tasks ranging from data analysis and visualization to web development.
Created by Guido van Rossum a Dutch programmer born on January 31 January 1956.
Python is simpler to learn than many other programming languages all thanks to its syntax.
If you want to kickstart your tech career in any of the various fields, beginning to code with python can be a good starting point.
2)C++— Bjarne Stroustrup
C++ was created and developed by Bjarne Stroustrup, a Danish computer scientist who was born on December 30, 1950.
C++ as the name implies, was developed as a next-generation programming language when C was popular. It comes with an object-oriented programming feature which was considered phenomenal compared to the more structural C programming.
3)C#(Pronounced C-SHARP)— Anders Hejlsberg
C# is a versatile, modern programming language suitable for a wide range of tasks ranging from app development to game development etc. It is also an object-oriented programming language, relatively new but widely trusted and popular.
This programming language was designed by Danish software engineer, Anders Hejlsberg from Microsoft in 2000.
He also created Turbo Pascal and Delphi.
C# is one of the top programming languages due to its fast performance and improved stability. It has a relatively easy to learn syntax compared to its predecessors, C and C++.
4)Java— Dr. James Arthur Gosling
Java is one of the most popular and successful programming languages. Developed by Dr. James Arthur Gosling and owned by Oracle
James was born on May 19, 1955. He is a Canadian computer scientist who is best known as the founder of the Java programming language.
Widely known to be a “write once, run anywhere” coding language, Java code can run smoothly in any operating system regardless of where it was written in the first place.
5)Javascript— Brendan Eich
It is a high-level programming language designed by Brendan Eich and developed by Netscape Communications Corporation. JavaScript first appeared on December 4, 1995. It is used extensively for client-side scripting, validation, animation, form submission and other common tasks. It runs inside the browser and is used by almost every major website
Brendan Eich was born on July 4, 1961. He also co-founded the Mozilla project, Mozilla Foundation, and Mozilla Corporation. If you asked me which language is the winner over the last five to ten years, I would have to say JavaScript. It has clearly dominated the client-side scripting space with libraries like jQuery and is now moving to server-side development with libraries like NodeJS.
In addition to HTML and CSS, Javascript is the best programming language to learn for front-end web development.
6)Swift— Chris Lattner
Swift is a modern programming language developed by Apple for building applications across iOS, macOS,watchOS, and tvOS platforms. Introduced in 2014, as at it’s time of launch,Swift was an alternative to Objective-C – the primary language for Apple products.
It was created by Chris Lattner, a software engineer at Apple.
Swift prioritizes safety,performance and ease of use with features like optionals, closures, and automatic memory management.
If you’re interested in developing Apple products, consider choosing Swift as your first language to learn.
7)PHP— Rasmus Lerdorf
PHP was created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1995. A Danish-Canadian programmer born on the 22nd of November 1968. He also authored the first two versions of the language.
PHP was a competitor to Microsoft’s Active Server Pages (ASP) server-side script engine and Java Server Pages (JSP), but gradually received acceptance and is now installed on more than 20 million Web sites and one million Web servers.
No matter how much you hate PHP, you just can’t ignore the fact that half of the internet is running on this awesome internet language. It is also open source and used by Internet giants such as Facebook, Wikipedia, WordPress.
8)GO Lang
Go, or Golang was created for developing APIs, GUI-based desktop applications and web applications. Released in 2009, one of Go’s best features is concurrent programming. It enables programmers to work with multicore CPUs and a massive codebase.
Golang was designed at Google by Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson
Some of the best job roles for Go developers include software engineers, data scientists, back-end web developers, and AI researchers. Also, Go developers are highly paid and in higher demand than ever before.
9)Ruby— Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto
Ruby was first designed and developed in the mid-1990s by Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto in Japan. Ruby is fun to work with and if you tried Ruby with Rails you know what I mean. Ruby is influenced by Perl, Ada, Lisp, and Smalltalk and designed for productive and enjoyable programming.
Ruby is mostly used for web application development and used by major sites like Twitter, Hulu, and Groupon.
Additionally, the Ruby on Rails (RoR) framework brings many benefits, including improved web application security,low maintenance, and is suitable for full-stack development.
10)SQL
Structured Query Language (SQL) is the best programming language to learn if you’re interested in data science and statistical computing. It’s a domain-specific language that lets programmers query, manipulate, and analyze data stored in a relational database.
SQL was initially developed at IBM by Donald D. Chamberlin and Raymond F. Boyce after learning about the relational model from Edgar F. Codd in the early 1970s.
Web developers use SQL to organize the website’s database and marketers to help evaluate their marketing campaigns. Fortunately, learning SQL is extremely easy as its syntax uses common English words.
In terms of job opportunities, companies from all industries may need SQL developers as they play a vital role in database management.
In Conclusion, selecting the best language to learn depends on what suits your needs.
- Front-end web Development- JavaScript
- Back-end Development-PHP, Python, Go, Ruby
- Web application Development-C#, Java ,Go
- Database Management-SQL
James Gabriel